The money would have been better spent buying LCACs. http://www.navsea.navy.mil/teamships/PEOS_LCACSLEP/default.aspx

This is MEGA-cool! I WANT one! I **love** the design of those "treads" - *beautifully* thought-out and implemented! I am **convinced** that a small version of this thing would be REALLY popular with civvies. Look at how popular the Humvee is with civilians! This thing would be the next "big thing" with the 4WD crowd. Awesome!

A fine idea, and one of these, you just have to say: "-Why didn't anybody thought of that, before?"

This is an awesome design and the performance is impressive. However, I hope this NEVER gets into the hands of civies. On land, those treads would beotch slap and pulverize everthing in their path. On water though, you could really splash up a good time.

"Only" weighs 450 tons - like that is not going to present any problems with deploying it or having it use roads and bridges to deliver the containers to where they are needed. A supposed disaster relief operation is not going to involve simply dumping containers on an accessible beach and then unloading them by hand and transporting the items inside on bicycles.
Shows how limited the military mindset is in dealing with situations and why most of the casualties in Afghanistan and Iraq are not with front line troops but with men and women driving the supply trucks through areas controlled by warlords and freedom fighters.

The overall reference here is to Logistics Over The Shore operations, LOTS. While this seems to One good approach it should not be the only One good tool. A Twenty Foot Equivalent, TEU, container holds a lot of stuff and this vehicle apparently is intended to be 450 tons big, they did not say how many containers per trip but I would guess at 50. This seems to be a the large end of the scale. I would think at least one more vehicle probably near the size of this working model would also be appropriate, if not more so. In constricted inland waterways moving 2 to 10 containers per trip may be the ONLY choice and not 100 containers. Think of how constricted the New Orleans area was and for how long! Moving 100 to 1000 containers may be an objective but getting them there or wherever in increments of 2 to 10 per trip is what can be achieved. The whole area in Indonesia hit by the tsunami required thousands of tons of material but along the whole coast there were very few ports and workable roads. Therefor, a LOTS operation a few containers at a time across the length of the coast damaged would have faster, better and ultimately cheaper for everyone in contrast to one big depot with hundreds to thousands of containers coming in.

this is sweet. and for some reason, it seems way better than a hovercraft, probably because it doesn't have to sound like a hurricane when the engine is running.
1) amphibious landings provide a great stealth option, but hovercraft sort of eliminate the stealth of amphibious landing.
2) if you scale this thing up, it would be a great landing pad for vtol aircraft when loitering silently. the thing looks like a giant flotation device. the bigger, the floatier.
----how many hovercraft are designed as vtol landing stripps? basically this thing could be a moving amphibious vtol aircraft platform .which would be sweet. hover craft are not going to do that , not by a long shot. ----their steering is horrible. this thing turns on a dime. in the water or on the beach.

Hovercraft, including the LCAC, don't do well on land because their skirts can be damaged by rocks. The air chambers on the treads of the CAAT will function like tires. A Humvee is just an ordinary SUV with different sheet metal, it's not a civilian version of the military HMMWV. If a small version of the CAAT is made for the recreational market, it will probably be too expensive for most if not the great majority of 4X4 owners.

I agree with Pikeman, why not just use a hovercraft? If they want to develop a vehicle with the military in mind, why not develop an armored hovercraft?....

That thing is just begging to throw a track. Every bit of dirt and debris that gets between the floats puts extra strain on the hinges, and the extra thickness that the floats add to the tracks makes maneuvering on them like trying to play soccer (futbol?) wearing platform shoes. Also tracked vehicles require almost as much maintenance as helicopters.
LCACs and where terrain permits HETs or HEMTTs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_Equipment_Transport_System http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_Expanded_Mobility_Tactical_Truck