Recently, the European company GDELS announced plans to expand the production capacity of its subsidiary GDELS–Bridge Systems. It specializes in the production of pontoon bridges, crossings, and amphibious bridging vehicles, and is the main supplier of these systems to Europe.
In particular, it plans to invest more than €20 million next year. The company plans to use these funds to expand its production lines, which will create an additional 400 jobs by 2029. GDELS–Bridge Systems currently employs 550 workers.
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This indicates plans to nearly double production capacity. Key projects within these investments include the conversion of the K16 production workshop at the Opel plant in Kaiserslautern. According to the company, there are plans to build a new production facility covering an area of 10,000 square meters.
In addition to other unnamed systems, it will produce pontoon bridges. This probably refers to IRB. In addition, there are plans to double production capacity at the GDELS–Bridge Systems headquarters in Kaiserslautern for the production of M3 amphibious bridging vehicle and crossings. The latter is probably HYDRA.
The company offers eight different systems, but we will focus on those already mentioned. The M3 is an amphibious vehicle that can link with other M3s in water to form a large pontoon bridge capable of carrying tanks.
Next is a pontoon bridge, or IRB system, which can deploy 100 meters in only 30 minutes. In terms of its design and principle of operation, it is quite similar to Soviet PMP Floating Bridge.
The next system is HYDRA, a highly modular pontoon bridge that can be more accurately described as a ferry. HYDRA can be assembled like a construction set. It consists of modules with engines, pontoons of various shapes, and special ramps. All of these components can be assembled in any sequence, depending on the mission requirements.
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