Marines test new beach assault vehicle
(
WATCH CNN VIDEO) -- Call it part tank, part boat and part beer cooler. But it's unquestionably all cool.
It's a new U.S. Marine Corps vehicle for getting stuff like troops, tanks and trucks from ships to shore and back.
The
Corps showed off a prototype of its Ultra Heavy-lift Amphibious
Connector (UHAC) last week during Rim of the Pacific exercises in
Hawaii, running it from the Navy's amphibious dock landing ship USS
Rushmore to the beaches of Marine Corps Training Area Bellows on Oahu.
"Showcasing
the UHAC during RIMPAC is a big deal," Dave George of the Marine Corps
Warfighting Lab, which developed the UHAC with funding from the Office
of Naval Research, said in a press release. "This is a great way to let
people know that this new technology is being developed."
Here's
how the UHAC works: The tracks, which are made of what the Marines call
"captured-air foam blocks," extend like flippers to propel the craft
through the water. When it hits the beach, the foam flattens to become
like the tracks on a tank or a bulldozer, only much softer, according to
a report from Stars and Stripes.
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