The BR-90 Family of Bridges

The Royal Engineer The BR-90 Family of Bridges are built from a range of seven modular panels of advanced aluminium alloy, interchangeable through the various bridge types, to form two interconnecting trackways with a 4m overall bridge width and a 1m girder depth.

Close Support Bridge – Consists of three tank-launched bridges capable of being carried on a Tank Bridgelayer and a Tank Bridge Transporter truck.

There are three basic Tank Launched Bridges (also known as Close Support or Assault Bridges): the No 10, No 11 and No 12.

General Support Bridge – This system utilises the Automated Bridge Launching Equipment (ABLE) that is capable of launching bridges up to 44 m in length. The ABLE vehicle is positioned with its rear pointing to the gap to be crossed and a lightweight launch rail extended across the gap.

The bridge is then assembled and winched across the gap supported by the rail, with sections added until the gap is crossed. Once the bridge has crossed the gap the ABLE launch rail is recovered. A standard ABLE system set consists of an ABLE vehicle and 2 x TBT carrying a 32 m bridge set. A 32 m bridge can be built by 10 men in about 25 minutes.

Spanning Systems – There are two basic spanning systems. The long span system allows for lengthening a 32m span to 44m using ABLE and the two span system allows 2 x 32 m bridge sets to be constructed by ABLE and secured in the middle by piers or floating pontoons, crossing a gap of up to 60m.