Deep Wading: When You Gotta Drive Your Tank UNDERWATER.

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Holy fucking shit, underwater tanks! Is your dick as hard as mine yet? If it isn't, you're not paying attention. As if tanks weren't already unstoppable killing machines and marvels of military engineering, select models have historically (and in the present day) boasted the ability to drive fully submerged while the crew stays dry and breathes constantly replenished fresh air.

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This is a capability which dates back to World War Two. Many German tanks were too heavy for bridges in less developed parts of Europe, and so "waded" across those rivers instead. But rivers deeper than the height of the tank presented a unique engineering problem they solved by adding das schnorkel (German for "the schnorkel".)

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There's no need for ballasting, as tanks are already tremendously heavy and the crew compartment is a relatively small portion of their size. Deep wading works the same way as underwater ATV and jeep videos you may have seen on Youtube, where a snorkel is used to supply air for the engine, except in tanks the entire crew compartment is made water tight. A life support system which replenishes oxygen in the air and removes CO2 using sodalime powder is also employed.

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The deepest wading tank of this type ever devised was a Soviet model with a depth capability of fifty feet. That's about as deep as the Aquarius Reef Base. Imagine sitting inside watching fish out the window when a Soviet tank rolls by on the seabed, just outside.

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Newer designs typically use a telescopic crew tower to solve the main problem with deep wading tanks: The crew becoming stuck and dying either by drowning or life support running out should the tank become disabled while underwater. Being entombed underwater is a pretty horrible way to go, so as you might imagine the prior versions of deep wading tanks which had only a snorkel for air were not very popular with their crews.

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Modern deep wading tanks don't differ technologically very much from their ancestors, with respect to the design considerations for operating underwater. I can foresee improvement on this front however. Sufficiently energy dense batteries could permit tanks to approach shore with no snorkel or any other visible surface element, having been deployed from beneath a nuclear submarine.

They might then switch over to diesel once above water, losing none of their normal range, but now able to simply roll up out of the ocean onto land with no warning. Then again depending how quickly AI develops, those tanks might be unmanned, which eliminates the need for a pressure hull and life support machinery as well.

Of course it's perverse to plan for technological improvement with a view to becoming more efficient at mass murder. But the way in which war has historically driven the rapid progress of technologies which then had productive peace time uses continues to be a major source of fascination for me.

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^{Stay Cozy!}