Landing craft
In the days of sail, the ship's boats were
used as landing craft, but the introduction of steamships led to ship's
boats shrinking in size, which required the creation of specialist designs
for landing purposes. Landing craft are boats and seagoing vehicles
used to convey a landing force from the sea to the shore during an amphibious
assault.
The high summer of the landing craft was
the latter half of World War II, when a large number of different designs
were produced in large quantities by the United Kingdom and United States.
Because of the need to run up onto a suitable beach Landing craft were
flat-bottomed, and many designs had a flat front, often with a lowerable
ramp, rather than a normal bow. This made them difficult to control
and very uncomfortable in rough seas.
The "Landing Craft Control"
were 56-foot U.S. Navy vessels, carrying only the crew and newly-developed
radar. Their main job was to find and follow the safe routes in to the
beach, lanes which had been cleared of obstacles and mines. There were
8 Landing craft in the entire Normandy invasion (two per beach). After
leading in the first wave, they were to head back out and bring in the
second wave.
The smallest landing craft
were amphibians such as the U.S.-designed DUKW, basically an amphibious
truck, and the Landing Vehicle Tracked, an amphibious armoured personnel
carrier. These were operated by Army personnel, not naval crews. They
had a capacity of about three tons. The British introduced their own
amphibian the Terrapin into use after the landings.
Of the landing craft proper
the smallest were the U.S. Landing Craft Personnel, Large (10 tons)
and the British Landing Craft Assault (LCA) (13 tons). These were small
Landing craft intended to be transported around by larger vessels then
lowered into the water off the target beach.
The U.S. Landing Craft Vehicle/Personnel
(LCVP), also known as a Higgins Boat, was a more flexible variant of
the LCPL with a wide ramp — it could carry 36 troops or a small vehicle
such as a Jeep, or a corresponding amount of cargo.
Landing Craft, Mechanized
were larger (36 tons), capable of carrying one small tank or 100 troops.
Of a similar size was the
Landing Craft Tank, which could carry up to 4 Tanks or other vehicles.
These had a ramp at the front which was dropped for the vehicles to
get ashore. Behind the ramp was an open space known as the Tank Deck.
There were several different designs and sizes varied
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