Landing Vehicle, Tracked

Donald Roebling first built it to help with rescues in flood-prone southern Florida, and the Marines turned it into the amphibian tractor. Its cleated tracks gripped sand and mud on land and worked as paddles in the water, which let it do what boats could not: crawl over the coral reefs that stopped landing craft hundreds of yards from the beach. Tarawa in 1943 was its first combat assault, and it set the pattern for the landings that followed. More than 18,000 were built across all versions, the LVT-4 alone accounting for nearly 8,500. It was slow on both surfaces, but no other vehicle of its time could swim troops ashore and keep going inland.