While watching a wartime documentary on the Soviets’ recapture of Stalingrad, a brief clip shows and mentions their use of what are called ice gliders. I’d never heard of these. The film quality is terrible, but they appear to be armored personnel carriers on skis.
Google is not turning up much. Do these beasties have another name? Anybody know anything about them (drive mechanism)?
Closest thing I can think of is the Soviet Ekranoplane. They were first built in the late '30s, apparently, though designs date to the '20s. Weird doesn’t even begin to describe them.
Try “aero sledge” in Google.
Bingo Desmostylus! That did the trick. What I saw was an RF-8-GAZ-98 aero sledge. The film I saw them in was so bad that I couldn’t make out the airplane engine on the back. Thanks. And welcome to the board.
Those Ekranoplanes are interesting items, as well.
FWIW, I looked a little closer and what I saw in the documentary were NKL-16s.
Glad to be of help.
The aero sled is a fairly simple and cheap way of traversing flat snow or ice. Tracked vehicles are more complicated mechanically, but work better once gradients become significant.