As TT72 showed, bridges and tails are naturally produced by gravitational interactions between disk galaxies. Disks are cold , so tides produce narrow ribbon-like features.
Disks spin , so the response depends on the inclination.
Orbit Decay Tidal interactions distort galaxies, imparting energy and momentum to their internal constituents at the expense of their relative orbit. The decay of the relative orbit is most easily understood in terms of the transfer of angular momentum from the motions of the galaxies to their internal degrees of freedom. White, S.D.M. 1979, M.N.R.A.S. 189 831.