The EFA or Engin de Franchissement de l'Avant (forward crossing apparatus) is a field-deployable river crossing vehicle, used by

combat engineers A combat engineer (also called pioneer or sapper) is a type of soldier who performs military engineering tasks in support of land forces combat operations. Combat engineers perform a variety of military engineering, Tunnel warfare, tunnel and l ...

in the

French Army The French Army, officially known as the Land Army (, , ), is the principal Army, land warfare force of France, and the largest component of the French Armed Forces; it is responsible to the Government of France, alongside the French Navy, Fren ...

. Unlike a bridge layer, which transports a bridge that is deployed off of the host vehicle, the EFA itself is a combined

pontoon bridge A pontoon bridge (or ponton bridge), also known as a floating bridge, is a bridge that uses float (nautical), floats or shallow-draft (hull), draft boats to support a continuous deck for pedestrian and vehicle travel. The buoyancy of the support ...

and

amphibious vehicle An amphibious vehicle (or simply amphibian) is a vehicle that works both on land and on or under water. Amphibious vehicles include amphibious Amphibious cycle, bicycles, Amphibious ATV, ATVs, Amphibious automobile, cars, Duckboats, buses, truc ...

, enabling much more rapid redeployment of the mobile bridge structure and an additional use as a

ferry A ferry is a boat or ship that transports passengers, and occasionally vehicles and cargo, across a body of water. A small passenger ferry with multiple stops, like those in Venice, Italy, is sometimes referred to as a water taxi or water bus ...

(at the cost of being useless in returning to service damaged bridges). When needed, multiple EFA's can be combined in a series to create a traditional pontoon bridge. It has been built since 1989 by Chaudronnerie et Forges d'Alsace (CEFA), located in Soultz-sous-Forêts in the

Bas-Rhin Bas-Rhin () is a department in Alsace which is a part of the Grand Est region of France. The name means 'Lower Rhine', referring to its lower altitude among the two French Rhine departments: it is downstream of the Haut-Rhin (Upper Rhine) de ...

Characteristics

A single EFA, in ferry configuration, has a length of 34.55m on a loading surface of 96 m² is ready in less than five minutes for the transportation of up to 70 tons of goods. In one hour it is able to make about 10-12 crossings over a of 100m length and eight to 10 crossings over a length of 200 m. Two EFA coupled together at the ramp allow the carriage of up to 150 ton cargo, and a floating bridge with four EFA for example offers, in less than 10 minutes, a crossing capacity of 100 m long with an estimated flow of 200 vehicles an hour. The EFA is capable of

astern propulsion Astern propulsion (as applied to a ship) is a maneuver in which a ship's propelling mechanism is used to develop thrust in a retrograde direction. Astern propulsion does not necessarily imply the ship is moving astern (''in reverse''); astern ...

, thus allowing fording without having to reorient the direction of the vehicle to the opposite shore which allows for more fluid ferry operations and rapid bridge assembly. The crew consists of four people: * An equipment commander * A driver * A pilot * A crewman

Predecessor

The EFA is the heir to the first self-propelled bridging ferry invented in 1955 by the French military engineer and general Jean Gillois (born in Châteaubriant 1909). Called the "Amphibious Bac" or "Gillois", it entered service with the French army in 1963. A version modified by EWK was successively adopted by the German, British and to a limited extent American militaries, and was used by Israel in the 1973

Yom Kippur War The Yom Kippur War, also known as the Ramadan War, the October War, the 1973 Arab–Israeli War, or the Fourth Arab–Israeli War, was fought from 6 to 25 October 1973 between Israel and a coalition of Arab world, Arab states led by Egypt and S ...

. At the time of its introduction it was able to carry vehicles up to a maximum weight of 25 tons and while configured as a bridge it could support loads of about 50 tons. It takes between 45 and 65 minutes to form a bridge 100 meters long. It allows an armed force to avoid the heavy and bulky convoys that barges brought in by road, which are sensitive to enemy attacks. EFA 501607 fh000018

Users

* : Contract for 10 units of more than 60 million euros signed in 2006 for EFA X1 motorized with Friedrichshafen MTU of 760 hp. Delivery from September 2008 * : 39 units built for the French army since 1989, in active service since 1993. As of December 31, 2013, 30 units were in service with an average age of 25 years. They are assigned to the following units: ** 3rd engineer regiment, ** 6th engineer regiment, ** 19th engineer regiment, ** School of Engineering, ** Champagne Training Park. The three EFA sections are theoretically equipped with four groups of two vehicles, i.e. eight EFA per regiment. In practice, by 2014 it would seem that there were only four AETs per regiment, the rest being distributed between the Engineering School, the Training Park and the industrial owner of the conditioning contract. *

References

External links

Description page
on the site of the French Ministry of Defence {{French Army Vehicle Military vehicles of France Portable bridges Military bridging equipment Military vehicles introduced in the 1980s

Characteristics

Predecessor

Users

See also

References

External links