During the Second World War, work was carried out in the United States to create various amphibians. Many of them never left the stage of prototypes, they came to us mainly thanks to photographs, which can be used to judge the unusual appearance and large size of some specimens. One of these amphibians was the Higgins Beachmaster, developed by engineers at Higgins Industries.
All amphibious vehicles are vehicles, all-terrain vehicles equipped with a propeller and capable of independently moving not only on land (land), but also on water. Water bodies, be they rivers, ponds, lakes or calm seas, are not a particular problem for them. During the war years in the United States, a whole family of amphibious amphibious amphibians was created: transporters, armored personnel carriers and amphibious tanks, which were actively used in military operations in the Pacific against Japanese troops.
Higgins Beachmaster
The Pacific theater of military operations itself dictated the widespread use of such military equipment. The combat operations, which were conducted over a wide area of the Pacific Ocean, on a huge number of islands and atolls scattered over a great distance, presupposed the widespread use of naval forces and all kinds of amphibious means. At the same time, the development of such equipment in the United States began even before the outbreak of World War II, which, in the presence of the Marine Corps, was also quite justified. It was at the end of the 1930s that the famous LVT-1 amphibious transporter was created in the United States, which gave rise to a whole series of amphibians, which in the future received armor, weapons and were widely used by the American military during amphibious operations.
It is also curious that the United States was the homeland of amphibians. Today it is difficult to believe in it, but the first self-propelled vehicle that was suitable for movement both on land and on water was invented long before the advent of the automobile. This happened back in 1804, when the American inventor and design engineer Oliver Evans created a self-propelled amphibian with a wooden hull from a boat set on wheels. The wheels were driven by a belt drive from a steam dredger. This 20-ton wooden monster with a steam engine in those years simply amazed the people of Philadelphia. The car could move freely from reservoir to reservoir. Later, at the beginning of the 20th century, in 1907, in Paris, the French designer Ravaye launched the first ever specially created four-wheeled floating vehicle into the Seine.
Higgins Beachmaster
Despite a rather long history, amphibious vehicles did not attract the attention of the military for a long time. Everything began to change only in the 1930s, when work on such machines was deployed in many countries. In the United States, several companies worked on the creation of such equipment at once, among which was Higgins Industries, whose activities were already extremely versatile at that time.
Over the years, the specialists of Higgins Industries have designed and produced not only various shallow-draft vessels, landing craft and boats, but also torpedo boats and even helicopters. For example, the Higgins EB-1 helicopter, developed by the company back in 1943, looked very promising at that time and favorably differed from the first helicopter models with its almost perfect streamlined shape. The torpedo boats that were built by this company, among other things, were supplied to the USSR as part of the current Lend-Lease program. In 1943-1945, the Soviet Union received 52 Higgins Industries PT625 torpedo boats, these boats were in service with the Northern and Pacific fleets.
Higgins Beachmaster
Extensive experience in the creation of boats, boats and landing craft helped Higgins Industries to work on all kinds of amphibians and swamp vehicles. Among them was the six-wheeled swamp vehicle "Swamp Cat" on iron wheels, which both then and now looks like an extremely unusual project. Work on the family of swamp rovers and amphibians ended in 1944 with the creation of an all-terrain amphibian called the Higgins Beachmaster.
The resulting experimental amphibian was the pinnacle of the experimental line, rooted in the Swamp Skippers and Swamp Cat swamp rovers of various modifications. As conceived by the engineers at Higgins Industries, it was the Beachmaster that was supposed to become a full-fledged fully functional machine that could be launched into mass production. Unlike the Swamp Cat, the number of wheels has been reduced from six to four. At the same time, Higgins Beachmaster received full-fledged water propellers - special screws in the nozzles that allowed the amphibian to swim, unlike the company's previous developments, in which the wheels themselves were used to move on water.
Higgins Beachmaster
A completely original technical solution was also provided. On the amphibian, it was possible to install caterpillars covering the wheels, which increased the cross-country ability, especially on very weak soils. But all this could not compensate for the main drawback, which reduced the practical benefits of the amphibian to almost zero. The metal wheels used on the Higgins Beachmaster were huge, and their arches ate up a lot of useful volume in the amphibious body, which, among other things, also housed the engine. All this seriously limited the useful volume of the body and the ability to transport various goods. The availability of a suitable carrying capacity for the transportation of artillery systems and the practical ability to transport such systems are different things. The dimensions of the Higgins Beachmaster transport compartment were quite small, including the relatively huge size of the amphibian itself, its length exceeding 11 meters.
Therefore, Higgins Beachmaster never made it past the project stage, despite the fact that she swam well, moved confidently on soft terrain and was able to navigate the kind of mud that was an insurmountable obstacle for most tanks. It was a full-fledged swamp vehicle that could swim across a body of water and move confidently over land. Despite the fact that the machine remained only a project, the resulting groundwork for further research allowed Higgins Industries to implement a number of successful projects in the field of creating amphibians, but after the end of World War II.
