pontoon bridge

pontoon bridge, floating bridge, used primarily but not invariably for military purposes. See also military bridge.

An early pontoon bridge was constructed in 480 bce by Persian engineers to transport Xerxes’ invading army across the Hellespont (Dardanelles). According to Herodotus, the bridge was made of 676 ships stationed in two parallel rows with their keels in the direction of the current. Alexander the Great is said to have crossed the Oxus by rafts made of his soldiers’ tents of hide stuffed with straw.

More modern armies, such as Napoleon’s, carried prefabricated pontoons of wood, copper, or other material either closed or open. The U.S. Army in the 19th century experimented with pneumatic rubber pontoons and discarded them as less serviceable than wood or metal but returned to their use in an improved form serviced by air compressors during World War II.

Because they obstruct navigation, floating bridges are limited in nonmilitary applications, yet several long-span floating bridges have been built in modern times. Notable examples are concrete-pontoon bridges over Lake Washington in Seattle, 2,000 metres (6,560 feet) long; over the Derwent in Tasmania, 965 metres (3,165 feet) long; and over the Golden Horn in Istanbul, 460 metres (1,500 feet) long.