QMan Amphibious Panzer Set 1803

Qman's Amphibious Panzer is an 8-in-1 set built from 904 blocks, with instructions for eight military vehicles including tanks and armoured cars. Age 6+.

Making a tank float is close to impossible

An amphibious tank sounds like a straightforward idea and it is one of the hardest problems in vehicle design, because of a single number.

A thing floats if it displaces water weighing more than itself. A boat manages this by being mostly hollow. A tank is the opposite of hollow: it is a dense box of steel, engine and ammunition, and forty tonnes of it in a hull the size of a car has nowhere near enough volume to float.

So every solution is a compromise. Light vehicles can be made to swim by keeping the armour thin and adding a raised screen around the hull — the Sherman DD at Normandy used a canvas skirt raised by compressed air, and a great many of them sank when the sea proved rougher than the trials. Heavier vehicles do not swim at all; they wade, sealed up and driving along the riverbed with a snorkel, which works only if the bed is firm and the far bank climbable.

Modern armies mostly gave up and build bridges instead. The vehicles that genuinely swim — like the amphibious personnel carriers — do it by being large, thin-skinned and buoyant, which is to say by not being tanks.

Eight models from one set

The set carries instructions for eight different builds. It is the format Qman uses across this range: one box, several afternoons.

Specifications

Pieces: 904 · Eight alternative builds with individual instructions · Series: Qman Military · Age: 6+