Amphibious Ships and Landing Craft

Amphibious operations, which are so much a feature of modern war, came fully of age only when suitable craft from which to launch seaborne assaults had been built. In 1899, a French staff officer designed an armoured landing craft fitted with a detachable landing ramp, of about 80 tons displacement. As he had designed it for an invasion of England (Anglo-French relations were appalling due to the Fashoda incident), no notice was taken of his sensible proposal. Adm Fisher, the British First Sea Lord, had also foreseen the importance of amphibious operations in modern war, but no appropriate craft were developed. On the Gallipoli peninsula, seaborne landings were made in 1915, despite the fact that no specially designed craft were available, troops transferring from seagoing vessels to lighters to be ferried ashore. In 1917, specialist landing craft had been designed to land British troops engaged in an amphibious operation on the Flanders coast, intended to form part of the third battle of Ypres but never actually mounted.

The Japanese first used a purpose-designed landing craft with a hinged bow ramp in 1938, in landings along the Yangtse river. Their success sent a ripple of interest around the world, and the British designed two similar craft. A total of ten plywood Landing Craft, Assault (LCA), capable of landing infantry, and Landing Craft, Motor (LCM), for vehicles and material, were first used at Narvik in late April 1940 in the Norwegian campaign. This was the first use of landing craft in European war and before their arrival in Norway troops had to be landed from destroyers or merchantmen in ports, without any heavy equipment or tanks. Britain's lack of landing craft was underlined at Dunkirk, where the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) had to abandon most of the 63, 400 vehicles, 20, 500 motorcycles, and 2, 500 heavy guns it took to France, because there was no way of quickly re-embarking them. The Wehrmacht belatedly started to convert some of its River Rhine barges for the invasion of England in July 1940, but the failure to win the battle of Britain brought such designs to a premature halt.

Modern landing craft were really developed in the USA, where the Marine Corps experimented with the several designs of assault craft throughout the 1930s. A private contract marine engineer, Andrew Higgins, produced the best of these. By combining his 36 foot Eureka boat with the Japanese hinged bow-ramp, the basic landing craft of today was born. Able to carry an infantry platoon (36 men), 8, 000 lb (3, 600 kg) of cargo, or a 3 ton truck, his plywood design was known as the Landing Craft Vehicle, Personnel (LCVP) or ‘Higgins Boat’. The ramp and sometimes the sides were armoured, and the British used many, which were superior to their own LCAs. From 1941, some 23, 400 LCVPs were manufactured in the US. There was also a less satisfactory wooden Landing Craft Personnel, Large (LCP-L) which likewise carried a platoon, but had no ramp, the assault force jumping from the prow.

Higgins was also commissioned to design a larger craft capable of carrying a single 30 ton Sherman tank. He responded in 1942 with the 50 foot (15 metre) Landing Craft, Mechanised (LCM) of which 11, 400 were produced, replacing the earlier British LCM. A larger tank landing craft was designed separately in Britain in 1940. The Landing Craft Tank (LCT) could carry six tanks, or thirteen trucks, and nearly 1, 500 were mass-produced in the USA for Britain. These were flat-bottomed craft with a shallow draft, and were lowered from the davits of larger troop-carrying merchantmen, like lifeboats. With a cross-Channel invasion always in mind, the British also needed larger assault vessels that could travel from port direct to the invasion beach. As a result, the seagoing 158 foot (55 metre) Landing Craft Infantry, Large (LCI-L) was produced, capable of carrying up to 200 soldiers (over a company) ; three of these could land a whole battalion. Just over 1, 000 of these craft were constructed, being used mainly by the Canadians and British. Of a different design to the smaller craft, the LCI-L carried two gangways either side of the bow, instead of a front ramp.

To complement the LCI-L, the British and Americans designed a small ship capable of carrying twenty Shermans on a lower deck and lighter vehicles on an upper, an elevator connecting the two. The Landing Ship Tank (LST), of which 1, 050 were eventually built, was 328 feet (100 metres) long, 50 feet (15 metres) wide, and had a displacement of 2, 100 tons. As a seagoing vessel, it had a ballast system that enabled it to take on seawater and sail with a deep draft, for stability; on approaching land, it pumped out the water, becoming a shallow-draft vessel, and beached directly onto the shore. Several cross-Channel ferries had earlier been converted to a similar design, by way of experiment, and there were several Landing Ship, Hospital, Anti-Aircraft, and Headquarters variants.

This range of landing craft were first employed in the TORCH landings in French North Africa, November 1942. A few LCAs had been used before in minor commando raids, for example on the Lofoten Islands, at Spitzbergen and Vaagso in 1941, and LCP-Ls in the unsuccessful Dieppe raid of August 1942, when a few Churchill tanks were landed from LCMs. Thereafter, these craft were used at Salerno, Anzio, in southern France, and in the Normandy invasion, where 4, 126 of all types were used. LSTs, particularly, were in short supply, the European and Pacific theatres vying for the same vessels, as they were a vital ingredient in MacArthur's island hopping Pacific campaign. As the smaller craft could only do 2-3 knots in heavy seas, the effect on the assault troops usually resulted in seasickness. Landing craft were converted to a wide range of support functions, being equipped with rockets, artillery, anti-aircraft guns, and there was even a Landing Craft, Kitchen (LCK).

Equally important came to be amphibious craft, capable of driving ashore with troops or supplies, such as the Landing Vehicle, Tracked (LVT). It was 8 feet (2.4 metres) tall, weighed 12 tons when empty, and could travel at 20 mph (32 km/hr) on land and 7 mph (11.2 km/hr) in water. First used at Guadalcanal as an armoured ship-shore ferry, it was subsequently used in a direct assault role. Some of the 18, 620 variants produced carried a turret that converted it into an amphibious tank. It was known to the British as Buffalo, who used it to clear the Scheldt and to cross into the Rhineland. Also relevant was the six-wheeled amphibious truck, DUKW. Developed in 1942, some 21, 000 were built, and could carry 25 troops or 5, 000 lb (2, 200 kg) of supplies, and there was also an amphibious jeep.

Various river assault craft were used in Vietnam, as were hovercraft, which may be included in this category. Landing craft were used also at the Inchon landing in the Korean war, to unload troops at Suez and in the Falklands, and remain a vital item in the inventory of modern armies, while roll-on-roll-off (RoRo) ferries have replaced the concept of the LST.

Bibliography

• Chandler, David G., and Collins, James Lawton (eds.), The D-Day Encyclopaedia (London, 1994)

— Peter Caddick-Adams

Amphibious operations—large‐scale attacks of hostile shores by combined naval and land forces—were a special feature of World War II. The need for special craft to support amphibious assault had been clearly foreseen and U.S. Fleet maneuvers of the 1920s and 1930s tested designs for boats to carry artillery, tanks, and assault troops. In the thirties two commercial designs emerged: the “Eureka,” designed by Andrew C. Higgins for work in the Louisiana swamps; and the “Alligator,” Donald Roebling's track‐laying rescue vehicle for the Florida Everglades. These became the workhorses of the U.S. forces—the Landing Craft Vehicle Personnel and Landing Craft Mechanized (LCVP, LCM) from the Higgins boat and the Landing Vehicle Tracked (LVT, in later development redesignated Assault Amphibian Vehicle, AAV) from the Alligator. The LCVP had a capacity of 36 troops or 8,100 pounds of cargo; the LCM carried 30 tons; and the LVT 24 troops.

The design for larger landing ships was spurred by the need to transport and land large mechanized forces in the European theater. Two general types derived from British designs (1940–41) were conceived: the Landing Ship Tank (LST), which beached, opened its bow doors, and let down a ramp to rapidly offload tanks and other vehicles; and the Dock Landing Ship (LSD), a combination troop transport and floating dry dock capable of transporting the largest landing craft in its well deck and launching them by opening a stern gate.

Other British designs adopted for American use were the Landing Craft Tank (LCT; in later development Landing Craft Utility, LCU) and the Landing Craft Infantry (LCI). The LCT was equipped with a bow ramp and the largest model carried up to three 50‐ton tanks; the largest LCI carried 200 troops, who debarked on deployable gangways. The most important U.S. Army development was the DUKW, a 6×6 cargo truck surrounded by a boat‐shaped flotation hull; it was propelled in water by a stern propeller and on land by its truck wheels.

U.S. wartime developments included attack transports (APA), attack cargo ships (AKA), and amphibious command ships (AGC), all more suitable for operating in forward battle areas than prewar troop transports; the APA and AKA were capable of carrying large numbers of deck‐loaded landing craft. Many other modifications to ships and craft throughout the war added a variety of guns, armor, communications, and other special capabilities. In all, some fourteen types of personnel landing craft, twenty‐one types of vehicle and tank landing craft, twenty types of landing ships, and three types of amphibian vehicles were in use by the Allies by the end of the war.

After World War II, amphibious forces were retained, and, with embarked Marine combat units, soon became a standard feature of the forward‐deployed naval forces of the Cold War. The most notable use of amphibious forces was the dramatic landing at Inchon, which reversed the course of the Korean War. Other operations were Lebanon in 1958, the Dominican Republic in 1965, and the initial combat troop deployments to Vietnam. Throughout that war, special landing forces were employed in the I Corps area and numerous landing craft were adapted for riverine warfare in IV Corps. Early in the war, a new class of dock transport (LPD) was developed to add a small helicopter flight deck and hangar, allowing it to carry up to six medium helicopters. Ultimately, fifteen of this class were built.

The most important postwar development in amphibious ships was the creation of three new classes of assault ships: the seven‐ship, 18,000‐ton Iwo Jima class (LPH) in 1961; the five‐ship, 39,300‐ton Tarawa class (LHA) in 1976; and—the world's largest amphibious ships—the five‐ship, 40,500‐ton Wasp class (LHD) in 1989. All are fully capable aircraft carriers, with hangar decks and elevators able to operate twenty medium helicopters in the Iwo Jima and Tarawa classes and thirty in the Wasp class. The latter two classes have well decks to accommodate the navy's new air cushion landing craft (LCAC). Rapid surface assault to complement helicopter assault is now a reality with the 40‐knot, 60‐ton payload LCAC.

The U.S. Navy plans a total of ninety‐one LCACs. Four of the Tarawa‐ and all of the Wasp‐class ships can accommodate up to eight Harrier jet attack aircraft, as well as helicopters, adding a new dimension. These amphibious assault ships with their embarked Marines have proved important in every large operation of the 1990s and their role into the next century seems assured.

[See also Amphibious Warfare.]

Bibliography

• James C. Fahey, The Ships and Aircraft of the U.S. Fleet, 6th ed., 1950.
• Kenneth J. Clifford, Progress and Purpose: A Developmental History of the United States Marine Corps, 1973.
• Kenneth J. Clifford, Amphibious Warfare Development in Britain and America 1920–1940, 1983.
• Samuel E. Morison and John S. Rowe, The Ships and Aircraft of the U.S. Fleet, 10th ed., 1975.
• Norman Polmar, Ships and Aircraft of the U.S. Fleet, 16th ed., 1996