Marine: A Guided Tour of a Marine Expeditionary Unit

The U.S. Navy is divided into three distinct communities. There is a submarine navy, with its nuclear attack and ballistic missile submarines. There is naval aviation, with its carriers and aircraft. And last, but not least, is the surface navy, with squadrons of cruisers, destroyers, and frigates, to escort carrier battle groups and vital supply ships. Shoehorned into a corner of the surface navy are a few dozen ships and few hundred small boats and landing craft called the 'Gator Navy. 'Gator refers to the alligator-like ferocity of the Marines when their combat power is combined with the mobility of the Navy. Like their reptilian namesakes, 'Gators can give you a nasty bite, in the water or out.

Command of amphibious shipping was once viewed as a second-class assignment, with less prestige than command of a real warship like a cruiser or destroyer. No more. Today, officers who command amphibious ships and ARGs hold some of the most coveted assignments in the Navy. Wasp-class (LHD-1) helicopter assault ships are the largest vessels that a non-aviator can command in the U.S. Navy (only aviators can command big-deck aircraft carriers). At over forty-thousand-tons displacement, with a crew of more than 1,100, carrying almost 1,900 Marines with all of their gear, as well as over forty aircraft and helicopters, an LHD is a major warship! The other new amphibs, like the Whidbey Island/Harpers Ferry class (LSD-41/99), are also very large vessels. For comparison, the biggest amphibious ships built by the former Soviet Union were three eleven-thousand-ton Ivan Rogov-class LSDs.

Navy plans envision a force of thirty-six vessels of three different types (LHD/LHA, LSD, and LPD), organized into twelve amphibious ready groups (ARGs). These ships could deliver twelve reinforced battalions, each about 1,600 Marines. This would represent about 2.5 Marine Expeditionary Brigades (MEBs) if every ship could be deployed at one time. Unfortunately, ships that stay in the fleet for thirty to forty years need periodic overhaul and maintenance. Large warships spend about one year in four out of service, "in dockyard hands." So, only about three quarters of our amphibious shipping will be available at any time. These ships are split between the Pacific and Atlantic fleets. Not much strength for any particular crisis when you consider the thousands of miles/kilometers of hostile shoreline the U.S. might have to face. For example, during Desert Storm, the Navy assembled four ARGs with a single afloat brigade from both fleets. The arithmetic demands that each and every amphibious ship constructed for the Navy must be highly mobile and sustainable. The "amphibs" are the high-value units in any naval task force-sometimes even more valuable than the big-deck carriers which often accompany the ARGs these days.

Amphibious ships are evaluated by five different capacities or "footprints" as they are known. These include:

• Troop Capacity—The number of Marines the ship can comfortably berth, feed, and support.

• Vehicle Space—Called cargo, this is measured in square feet of vehicle storage, along with a little extra room for maneuvering vehicles in and out (called "turnout" space). Total area can be converted to standard vehicle dimensions, based upon the footprint of an HMMWV.

• Cargo Space—This is a measure of storage space for packaged cargo, supplies, and equipment. Called cargo, it is measured in cubic feet (ft).

• Landing Craft Capacity—This footprint indicates how many LCAC landing craft can be carried in the vessel's well deck.

• Aircraft Capacity—The number of aircraft that can be operated, stowed, and maintained on deck and in the hangar. The capacity is based on the CH-46E Sea Knight helicopter. An AH-1W Cobra attack helicopter only occupies about.5 units of deck space, whereas the new MV-22B Osprey will have a 1.4 equivalent.

These five measures tell you how valuable a particular ship is to an ARG. For example, the new LPD-17 will replace four different ship classes (the LST-1189, LPD-4, LSD-36, and LKA-113) in the ARG. You can see how critical this one ship must be to future ARG commanders.

Amphibious ships are nothing without people. Life for the sailors in the amphibs is a mix of high technology (like satellite communications and navigation) and old-style seamanship (like small-boat handling and the ancient skills of knotting lines). It is also long, hard work. Marines love to practice their exciting tasks in the wee hours before and around dawn. So, whenever the ARG is conducting operations, the ships' crews go on a fatiguing round-the-clock schedule. The work is hard; but when you talk to the sailors, they tell you that it's exactly what they joined the Navy to do. 'Gator sailors love their jobs. Senior chiefs tell you it's like the "old" Navy they grew up in. They frequently see the 'Gator Navy as a refuge from the "political correctness" that seems to infect today's U.S. Navy. For officers, life in the amphibs is a chance to truly test themselves in their chosen profession.

Navigation and warfighting in the littoral zones is demanding and dangerous. Inshore operations present all kinds of natural and man-made hazards to the sailor. Consider the cruise of the assault carrier Tripoli (LPH-10), which was mined while operating in the Persian Gulf during Desert Storm. The ship survived, albeit with heavy damage. As we have seen, the British Royal Navy learned even harder lessons during the invasion of the Falkland Islands in May 1982. Also, nature is not kind to sailors working near shore. Everything from rogue waves to hurricanes can foil an amphibious assault. D-Day, originally planned for June 5th, 1944, had to be delayed twenty-four hours because of storms in the English Channel. Like flying, amphibious landings are unforgiving, and only a complex combination of planning, skill, experience, and equipment can make them successful.

One quick note before we begin. There are many different ways to interpret warship specifications and statistics, and "official" sources often disagree. On matters of fact, I defer to A.D. Baker III's superb biannual work, Combat Fleets of the World (U.S. Naval Institute Press). For over two decades, Dave Baker has made this book his life's work, and all of us who write about defense matters are in his debt. I ask your patience in my use of tables. Amphibious ships are number-intensive! Now, let's go aboard!

USS Wasp (LHD-1)

It is the largest and mightiest amphibious ship ever built. At over forty thousand tons, it is the largest man-made object to ever move across the land (so says the Guinness Book of World Records). The landing helicopter dockship USS Wasp (LHD- 1) is the lead ship of a seven-ship class that represents the best America's shipbuilding industry can produce. The largest combatant in the U.S. Navy aside from the supercarriers, it is a virtual one-ship task force that can probably take down a small nation by itself. The story of Wasp and her sisters is the story of the Navy's amphibious force after the blight of the Vietnam War and the move to an all-volunteer force. It is also the story of a contractor that saw the future and decided to remake itself.

At the end of World War II, the Marine Corps began to examine ways of avoiding amphibious frontal assaults against fortified enemy shores. The losses suffered in taking Japanese island fortresses like Iwo Jima and Peleliu left a lasting impression on Marine and Navy leaders. Out of all this thinking came the concept of vertical envelopment using the new technology of the helicopter. The father of the current Commandant, Victor "Brute" Krulak, was quick to support the concept. And by the mid-1950s, several World War II aircraft carriers had been converted into experimental helicopter assault carriers. Designated LPH (for "Landing Platform, Helicopter"), they proved successful, though their size and large crews made them expensive to operate. The first conversion, USS Block Island (LPH-1, ex-CVE-106), was never completed. But several others, including USS Boxer (LPH-4, ex-CV-21), USS Princeton (LPH-5, ex-CV-37), USS Thetis Bay (LPH-6, ex-CVE-90), and USS Valley Forge (LPH-8, ex-CV-45), were converted from surplus aircraft carriers during the 1950s and 60s. Even before these conversions were completed, plans were underway for an LPH designed from the keel up. The idea was to pack a Marine battalion and a reinforced helicopter squadron into the smallest hull possible, so that the ship would be cheap to build and efficient to operate. Crew and passenger (i.e. Marine) comfort would be minimal.

The result was the Iwo Jima-class (LPH-2) assault carriers, of which seven were eventually built. Designed around the hull form and engineering plant of a World War II escort carrier, they were built for maximum storage density of aircraft, equipment, supplies, and Marines. Ingalls Shipbuilding (now Litton Ingalls Shipbuilding) of Pascagoula, Mississippi, and a pair of government shipyards built the LPHs, and they proved highly successful. Displacing only 18,300 tons (compared to almost 29,000 tons for the Essex-class LPH conversions) and powered by a pair of steam boilers driving a single screw, the LPHs were everything that their designers hoped. Over the thirty-five years since Iwo Jima was commissioned, they have been in the front lines of almost every major American military action. They have also served as rescue vessels during the Apollo space missions, trials ships for the deployment of Harrier V/STOL fighter bombers, and as command ships for minesweeping during Desert Storm. This was how USS Tripoli (LPH-10, now MCM-10) wound up being mined in the northern Persian Gulf in 1991. America has gotten its money's worth from the LPHs, several of which will serve for a few more years. By the early 21 st century these hard-working carriers will go to a well-earned retirement.

The success of the LPH in the 1960s might have led to a follow-on class but for the Vietnam War and the coming of an all-volunteer Navy. And then requirements for more capability and habitability caused a rewrite of the specifications for new warships that would be built in the 1970s. Whatever would replace the LPHs in production would be larger, more comfortable, and more capable. The downsizing of the Navy by the Nixon Administration in the late 1960s also meant that future ships would have "doubled-up" functions. The ideal was a ship that could be both a helicopter carrier and an amphibious dockship, but the Navy only had to pay for one set of engines and a single crew to man it. Thus the stage was set for the Landing Assault Ship, known as the LHA.

There were a number of innovations planned for the LHAs. The entire class was to be built by a single yard under a "fixed price" contract. By awarding the entire program to one shipyard at a "fixed" price, the Government would get a better deal, because of assumed economies of scale. This was a good idea at the time, but problems emerged that neither the Government nor contractors foresaw. Meanwhile, the planned class of nine LHAs represented a huge pool of work for a shipbuilding industry that was already feeling the pinch of declining military orders and competition from overseas. This meant that every major construction yard on both coasts was prepared to fight like hell to win a contract that would be worth over a billion dollars in the 1970s. Down at Pascagoula, Mississippi, Ingalls Shipbuilding (which merged with Litton in 1961 to form Litton Ingalls Shipbuilding) had come to a startling conclusion: The traditional manner of building ships on slipways was both inefficient and overpriced. If a ship could be built in modules, like the sub-assemblies of an automobile, and then put together on an assembly line, cost and building time could be slashed. Now, you have to remember that they were doing all this thinking in the 1960s when gasoline was $.20 a gallon, love was still "free," and a "throwaway" society devalued "quality."

Ingalls has always been a forward-thinking, innovative place, having built the first all-electrically-welded ship, the C3 cargo ship SS Exchequer in the 1930s. They worked hard to stay competitive in a business dominated by overseas yards operating with government subsidies (as in Europe), or with incredibly cheap labor (as in Asia). In 1967, they made the decision to construct a new kind of shipyard, across the river from their existing yard in Pascagoula, Mississippi. The new facility would use modular construction techniques and would take advantage of the newest technology for computer-aided design and automated inventory tracking. The idea was that Ingalls could build the same warship as any other yard, but with a competitive price advantage that nobody would be able to touch without making the same investment. At the time, their competitors made fun of the millions of dollars poured into the new facility on the Gulf Coast. But Litton Ingalls stayed the course, and submitted bids for both the LHA and Spruance-class (DD-963) programs. Incredibly, amid a howl of protests, they won both contracts.

The Tarawa-class (LHA-1) assault ships were 820 ft/249.9 m long, weighing 39,967 tons (fully loaded), and looked a lot like a straight-decked Essex-class (CV-9) carrier from World War II. Powered by a pair of large Combustion Engineering boilers feeding twin Westinghouse steam turbines driving two screws with some 70,000 shp, the new ship was capable of a maximum speed of 24 kt/43.9 kph and a sustained speed of 22 kt/40.2 kph. Their broad beam of 106 ft/32.3 m and draft of 26 ft/7.9 m would just fit through the locks of the Panama Canal, so that they could switch between the Atlantic and Pacific Fleets in a hurry. They were long and slab-sided, their dominant feature a huge island structure along the starboard side amidships. This island contains command, flag, and navigational bridges, along with planning and command spaces for embarked Marine units. The hull of an LHA consists of five zones, each with a different function. They include:

• Flight Deck—This runs the full length of the LHA; it has nine helicopter landing spots and two aircraft elevators to the hangar deck. There is access to the interior of the ship through the island structure. While there is no "ski-jump" to assist in launching V/STOL aircraft like the Harrier (as found on British, Italian, Spanish, and Russian carriers), there is enough length for a normal takeoff run.

• Hangar Deck—Directly below the flight deck in the after half of the ship, this enclosed hangar holds a reinforced squadron of medium lift helicopters. Between the flight deck and the hangar deck, there is room to stow and operate roughly forty-two CH-46-sized aircraft.

• Well Deck/Vehicle and Cargo Stowage—Directly below the hangar deck and extending forward is the well deck for launching and retrieving landing craft, as well as the stowage areas for Marine vehicles, equipment, and supplies. The well deck was originally configured for four LCUs, or seven LCM-8s (described shortly). To operate landing craft, ballast tanks at the aft end of the ship are flooded, giving a slight "tip" to the LHA and creating an artificial "beach" for landing craft. Then the tanks are pumped out, and a large stern gate is raised to protect the landing craft and the well deck from the elements.

• Engineering—Located amidships below the vehicle and cargo stowage is the engineering plant. This area contains boilers, turbines, generators, and heavy equipment — everything from the engines to the air-conditioning and electrical systems. From here, the exhaust from the boilers and other equipment runs through uptakes on the starboard side, where it is vented through the top of the island structure.

• Crew/Troop Accommodations—Most of the forward half of the ship contains berthing, mess, and other spaces for the crew of 925 sailors and 1,713 Marines. Accommodations on the Tarawa were considered lavish by contemporary standards, with air-conditioning in all berthing compartments, enlarged bunk and personal stowage space, and a climate-controlled conditioning room for the embarked Marines (now converted to a gym for the entire ship's company).

Compared with earlier amphibious ships, the Tarawas were armed to the teeth. In addition to a pair of launchers for the new RIM-7 Sea Sparrow Surface-to-Air Missile (SAM), there were a pair of new lightweight Mk 45 5-in./127mm 54-cal. guns, to provide naval gunfire support, and mounts for six Mk 67 20mm cannons, for protection against enemy patrol boats and other threats. All of this firepower was backed up by a combination of air, surface search, and fire-control radars, as well as by a low-light television camera. Tarawa and her sisters were at the time the largest, most powerful amphibious ships ever built. They combined the best features of an LPH, LKA, LSD, and LPD, all in a single, highly survivable hull. Sailors and Marines lined up to get duty assignments to the new "king of the 'gators."

While the new ships were everything the Navy and Marines wanted, they came at a high price, and with a lot of teething problems. The fixed-price contracts had assumed that inflation of construction costs (labor, energy, materials, etc.) would remain stable through the early 1970s. Unfortunately, the 1970s were anything but stable. Several bouts of double-digit inflation, a five-fold increase in the cost of energy, and a huge increase in labor rates caused the construction cost of the LHAs (and everything else!) to skyrocket beyond the expectations of either Litton Ingalls or the Navy. The original plan was that $1.2 billion would buy nine Tarawas. The government wound up paying $1.6 billion for five: Tarawa (LHA-1), Saipan (LHA-2), Belleau Wood (LHA-3), Nassau (LHA-4), and Peleliu (LHA-5). Nobody had seen price inflation like that of the 1970s in over a generation, and it simply was not taken into account when the contracts were written. Since there was no "fault" on the part of either Litton Ingalls or the Navy, the two sides agreed to an additional $400 million for completion of five units. After this forecasting breakdown, Navy contracting was changed forever. Today, contracts have a built-in growth factor to adjust for inflation (determined by the government). This "cost-plus" contract lets the contractor and the government split cost overruns, reassuring contractors who take huge risks on billion-dollar projects that they have a chance to turn a profit someday.

Meanwhile, there were problems at the new Litton Ingalls yard with modular construction. Until engineers realized that they had made the tolerances too tight, the pre-assembled modules wouldn't fit together. They had failed to allow for the normal metal expansion and contraction that might occur between cool Mississippi mornings and the blazing heat of summer afternoons. Simply adding a little extra "meat" to joints between modules and trimming it as they were assembled solved this problem. Another problem developed out of the LHA design itself, which tried to trim top weight by thinning down structural assemblies topside. Unhappily, the strength of the ocean sometimes exceeded the expectations of engineers. The fix for this — structural stiffening — was made when the ships came back in for refits. But generally, the new concept worked, keeping Litton Ingalls the most profitable and busy shipyard in America. As the U.S. shipbuilding industry has crumbled (in 1996 we're down to just five yards capable of building major combatants), they have remained competitive, branching out into building railroad cars and oil platforms.

While the Navy and Litton Ingalls were sorting out financial and engineering problems, the five LHAs were making their presence so much felt around the world, that the Navy and Marines soon realized they should have bought more of them, whatever their cost. While the policies of the Carter years prohibited this, the coming of the Reagan Administration changed everything. John Lehman's planned six-hundred-ship Navy included funding for new amphibious vessels and landing craft. First on the wish list was a batch of new big-deck amphibious assault carriers, based on the LHA design. The new class, designated Landing Helicopter Dockships (LHDs), would consist of five units. By 1996, seven LHDs had been contracted, with possible extra units to replace retiring LPHs. The LHDs would bear the proud names of World War II aircraft carriers. The lead ship was christened USS Wasp (LHD-1) after two carriers (CV-7 and CV-18) that served in World War II and the Cold War. Wasp was a traditional name dating back to the American Revolutionary War.

The LHD is based upon the LHA design, with significant new features. These included:

• Standoff Capability—The ability to support amphibious operations from over the horizon (OTH), utilizing the new LCAC, MV-22B Osprey, CH-53E Super Stallion, and AV-8B Harrier II V/STOL fighter bomber.

• Survivability—The capability to fight in environments contaminated by nuclear fallout, chemical agents, or biological weapons. Survivability includes active defense against patrol boats or suicidal small craft, and the ability to avoid, withstand, or repair damage from mines, bombs or cruise missiles.

• Sea Control Ship Convertibility—During the 1970s, several CNOs, including Admirals Elmo Zumwalt and James Hollaway, tried and failed to build small aircraft carriers, with up to twenty V/STOL fighter/bombers and eight to ten antisubmarine (ASW) helicopters to escort convoys and amphibious forces. These "Sea Control Ships" would resemble the British Invincible class. The very successful Spanish light carrier Principe de Asturias is based on a U.S. design from this period that never got off the drawing board. By simply embarking with a suitable air group, the LHD could perform Sea Control missions in addition to its amphibious role.

While Wasp would be based on the good basic design of the Tarawa class LHAs, it would be a greatly improved and more capable vessel. One way to compare the two classes is to consider the five critical payload footprints discussed earlier in this chapter:

As can be clearly seen, with the exception of vehicle space (Cargo), the LHD is superior to each of the ships it replaces. The Navy decided to trade additional Cargo space for Cargo. Provision of a chemical/biological/nuclear Collective Protection System (CPS) took up a lot of internal volume in the LHD design, but was considered essential to the ship's mission. Like any warship, the LHD is a set of design compromises. The design of Wasp has the advantage of a more spacious well deck for the new LCACs, plus more room to operate aircraft.

To better understand how these huge ships are put together, I visited the Litton Ingalls Shipbuilding plant in Pascagoula, Mississippi, on the Gulf Coast. Pascagoula is a shipbuilding town, with a bit of roughneck, wildcat spirit still left. Litton Ingalls is the largest employer in the area, which butts up against Mobile, Alabama, and Pensacola, Florida, to the east. The West Bank facility, where they build the LHDs, is a joint venture of Litton Ingalls Shipbuilding and the State of Mississippi, which issued state bonds to finance construction of the world's most advanced shipyard. It is the only new shipbuilding yard built in the last thirty years in the U.S. Other yards still build ships on slipways carved into the banks of rivers. Litton Ingalls builds them in a vast open space, where ships move along a production line of mammoth proportions. Over the past few years, Ingalls has built four different classes of warship here, including Ticonderoga class (CG-47) cruisers, Arleigh Burke class (DDG-51) destroyers, Sa'ar V class corvettes for Israel, and Wasp-class (LHD-1) amphibious carriers.

The best place to get a feel for how Ingalls works is the control tower in the middle of the facility. From over twelve stories up on the observation platform, you can see the work flow around the 611-acre yard, and it is fascinating to watch. From the railroad and truck receiving areas on the north side, raw materials and equipment feed into fabrication shops. From the moment it hits the receiving dock, every metal plate, wire spool, or equipment crate is tagged with a bar code for computerized tracking in nearly real time. This lets Litton Ingalls order materials and equipment for "just in time" delivery, which reduces inventory costs.

Assembly takes place in five work "Bays," which are open areas of concrete pads overlaid with a grid of railroad tracks, surrounded by mobile cranes to lift and position ship modules as they are assembled. At the time of my visit, the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer construction occupied Bays 1 through 3 on the Eastern side of the yard. Litton Ingalls calls them the Barry class, after the first unit that they built (DDG-52). Bays 4 and 5 are assigned to work on the LHDs. The massive vessels are assembled much the way that a sandwich shop stacks a "hoagie." Each module is "stuffed" with electrical, water, hydraulic, steam, and cable "runs," reducing the need to work deep inside a dark, partially completed ship. It also means that a ship can be brought to life and powered up much earlier, reducing the time required to make her ready for sea trials. As submodules are assembled, they move down to the south end of the bay for stacking into one of the five major modules that make up a finished LHD. Each module is stacked and welded into place, and then its lines and connections are fused, just as a surgeon might graft arteries and tendons to rejoin a severed limb. Modules I (the bow) through 4 (the stern and well deck) are stacked together and joined into a single hull at the south edge of the assembly area. By this time, each module weighs several thousand tons. These huge chunks fit together with tolerances of a few millimeters or less. After the four hull modules are joined, Module 5, the island deckhouse is added. At over 500 tons, this last item is the largest structure ever lifted by a crane. At this point, the pile of rust-colored metal is beginning to look like a ship, but it is land-locked like a beached whale.

Now the ship can be connected to steam and power lines, and lighting and air-conditioning systems are turned on. This makes life more bearable for the workers on muggy Gulf Coast summer days. USS Bataan (LHD-5), already joined with all major modules in place, was being outfitted prior to the next step. This involves translating the completed hull sideways (at about 16 in./40.6 cm per minute) onto a floating drydock, moving the dock out into the channel of Mississippi Sound, and floating off the new ship. Once launched, the ship is towed to an outfitting berth on the south and east sides of the yard, where they prepare her for sea trials, commissioning, and delivery to the Navy.

Let's take a walk though the uncompleted Bataan to see how things are done. Wearing a hard hat, I joined Steve Davis, the General Ship Superintendent for Wasp (LHD-1), to tour the interior spaces. Each ship is assigned a Superintendent as the chief of construction until she is turned over to the Navy. Steve Davis has decades of shipbuilding experience on nuclear attack submarines, DDGs, and LHDs. After warnings about what not to touch, we entered the massive hull. While warm and smelling of burned metal, the interior of the LHD was surprisingly easy to move about in. It was smoky and dirty, but you could clearly see a warship emerging from the effort of hundreds of workers on board. Ingalls workers are clearly proud of their work, and Steve was anxious to show me how Bataan had been improved over his first LHD, Wasp. As we headed back outside, we stopped for a moment on the uncompleted hangar deck to talk with several of the outfitters, including Steve's son. Litton Ingalls is proud to be a family company, and it is not unusual to find two or three generations working at the Pascagoula shipyard.

Once a ship passes her builder's trials, she is ready for delivery to the Navy. Many sailors of the first crew, known in Navy tradition as "plank owners," actually join the ship during construction, to assist in the final fitting out and testing. This includes the final step in the manufacturing process, which they call "the Litton Miracle." Under the meticulous supervision of a lady named Annie Gese, the new warship is scrubbed spotless from stem to stern — even in corners and dark spots where inspectors would probably never look. Only then is the ship ready for commissioning in the fleet. As we headed back through the summer heat and humidity, Steve showed me partially assembled modules for USS Bonhomme Richard (LHD-6, named for John Paul Jones's Revolutionary War frigate) being stacked and made ready for mating as soon as Bataan was floated in 1996.

Litton Ingalls is a busy place, with over a dozen destroyers and LHDs in various stages of assembly and outfitting. Later, Steve and some of the senior Litton Ingalls executives expressed their hope that the next LHD, an as-yet-unnamed seventh ship, would be funded in the coming fiscal year. Less than a month later, they got their wish when the Congress approved LHD-7 as part of the FY-96 budget. This will guarantee the best possible price for the Navy, keep the work force stable, and keep suppliers healthy for future programs. In fact, when shipbuilding executives from the Far East and Europe want new ideas on how to build ships better, they come and look at how Litton Ingalls is doing things in the heart of Mississippi!

Even before a ship is delivered, the Navy has selected her first Captain. A good first skipper can make a ship "happy" or "lucky" and set the tone for every skipper and crew for years to come. As the first commanding officer of Wasp, the Navy chose Captain Len Picotte, who has become a Rear Admiral. Command of an LHD or one of the LHAs is particularly coveted in the Navy, since it is the largest surface vessel that can be commanded by a nonaviator. Because of the variety of missions that an LHD or LHA might draw, the Navy has decreed that if the captain is a surface line officer, the executive officer must be an aviator. This is reversed if the captain is an aviator, so the positions tend to switch off as officers move up and out. From the day she was laid down (May 30th, 1985), USS Wasp has been a lucky, happy ship. Unlike the LHAs, very few problems arose during design and construction. By the end of the Summer of 1987, she had been floated off (August 4th) and christened (September 19th). She passed her trials and was commissioned on July 29th, 1989. She entered into service with ARGs of the Atlantic fleet, and has been there ever since. In the fall of 1996, she goes into her first major overhaul and upgrade.

Let's go aboard the Wasp and get to know her a bit better. We'll enter through the landing craft well deck. As you move into position aft of the Wasp, a couple of things strike you almost immediately. How can anything so big move across the ocean? Then, as a helicopter comes in to land a few yards/meters above your head, you wonder how can anyone land on something so small. As the landing craft comes in to dock, you notice the slight downward tilt to the stern of the ship. This is because the stern gate has been lowered and the aft ballast tanks have been flooded down to provide the smoothly sloping artificial "beach" for the landing craft. If you're standing on the navigation bridge of an LCU, be sure to watch your head if you are over 6 ft/2 m tall. Lined with Douglas fir, the well deck is vast (322 ft/98.1 m long, 50 ft/15.25 m wide, and 28 ft/8.5 m high), but it seems crowded when a pair af LCUs or three LCACs are docked inside. Once the landing craft is beached and the bow ramp is lowered, you walk up a steep non-skid ramp, and you are on the vehicle deck. Following Navy etiquette, we "request permission to come aboard" from the senior officer present.

Walking forward, you enter a stowage area for vehicles of the embarked MEU (SOC). On this deck and the one below are HMMWVs, 5-ton trucks, M 198 155mm field howitzers, and trailers. Though the decks are stressed for armored vehicles as heavy as M1A1 Abrams tanks, AAV-7 amphibious tractors, and wheeled LAVs, you usually find these beasts over on the LSDs or LPDs of an ARG. On the "big deck" assault ship, planners prefer to keep only vehicles that can be lifted by the CH-53E Sea Stallion helicopter. Like a parking garage, the vehicle decks are linked by drive-up ramps. You can drive from the lower vehicle deck all the way up to the hangar and flight decks. Despite the vast stowage space, vehicles, cargo and equipment are packed together with only inches/centimeters of clearance. Even a ship as big as Wasp never has enough room for everything a MEU (SOC) commander wants. So the rule is to leave just enough room for a Marine to climb through a vehicle's window, door, or hatch, so that it can be driven out of its parking spot when a space develops. Shuffling vehicles and cargo around the stowage space of an amphibious ship is like that children's puzzle with movable tiles and one empty space. You have to move the tiles around incessantly to reach what's needed. The MEU (SOC) logistics (S-4) staff spends hours on their computers arranging load plans to maximize stowage. But with only 20,900 ft/1,941.7m of vehicle stowage space and 125,000 ft/ 3,539.3 m of cargo space, you need the mind of an accountant with the imagination of an artist to figure it all out. A conveyer system on an overhead monorail with five hoists helps shift cargo pallets around the various bays. In addition, Wasp is equipped with fourteen electric two-ton forklifts, twenty-five three-ton diesel forklifts, two five-ton rough terrain forklifts, two pallet conveyers, five aircraft tow tractors, and four spotting dollies. There are also six six-ton cargo elevators to move things from the well deck and vehicle/cargo areas to the hangar and flight decks.

Walking up the vehicle ramp to the hangar deck, you emerge into a vast space which takes up almost a third of the Wasp's length. Two full deck levels high, the hangar deck is the aircraft maintenance and stowage area. A typical air group includes a dozen or so CH-46 Sea Knights, four big CH-53E Sea Stallions, four AH-1W Cobras, and four UH-1N Iroquois. A half-dozen AV-8B Harrier II fighter/bombers are usually stowed up on the flight deck or "roof" as the crew members call it. This is because Harriers are designed to be weatherproof. While it is theoretically possible for Wasp to operate up to forty-five CH-46E-sized aircraft, you usually find some of them up on deck, leaving some room to work down in the hangar. The deck and hangar are linked by two deck edge elevators, each capable of lifting up to 75,000 lb/34,090 kg. This is a change from the LHA, which had one elevator on the fantail. In addition to maintenance and stowage, the hangar deck is used by the embarked Marines for fitness and proficiency training (rappelling and other skills). It serves as a staging area for mission teams as they prepare for action. In the rafters are small office and control spaces for the air and maintenance departments, with windows for monitoring the activities below. Walking forward along the starboard side, you come to the flight deck ramp tunnel. This allows vehicles to drive up to the flight deck through the island structure without having to use the aircraft elevators. This usually is the way that the Marines march up to the flight deck to board helicopters. When the LHD was designed back in the early 1980s, the standard utility vehicle for the Marines was the old M151 Jeep. During the construction of the early LHDs in the 1980s, the Marines replaced their jeeps with HMMWVs, which turned out to be wider than the designers expected. Unfortunately, the dimensions of this access tunnel were already frozen, so HMMWVs must ride the elevators. It is a minor inconvenience; starting with LHD-2 they widened the tunnel. But the story underlines how long it takes to design and build new warships. Even though Wasp was based on the existing LHA design, it still took most of eight years to bring her into the fleet.

As you exit the island onto the flight deck, there is the feeling of leaving a huge cave and breaking into daylight and fresh air. Covered with a non-skid coating and dotted with aircraft tie-down points, the flight deck is the LHD's primary reason for existence. At 844 ft/257.25 m long and 107 ft/32.6 m wide, it defines the ship's largest dimensions. It is also the most dangerous place on the ship. You have probably seen film footage of flight operations on a big-decked supercarrier. It is a hot, noisy, hazardous place to work, filled with things that can kill you. Jets and helicopters loaded with fuel, weapons, and men race around the deck like crazed banshees. Well, the deck of the Wasp is all of that and much more. For one thing, it is smaller (about one third the size), and most of the weapons aboard the aircraft are armed Marines, loaded with gear that can get loose and be sucked into a turbine engine. Though they make for some difficulties, those Marines are the reason why Wasp and her sisters were built.

The deck of the Wasp has nine takeoff and landing spots for helicopters. Each spot is numbered, running from starboard to port, front to rear. Thus, the starboard spot farthest forward is Spot 1, while the port spot farthest aft is Spot 9. Usually, Spots 1, 3, and 8 (along the starboard side) are parking areas for AH-1W Cobra and UH-1N Iroquois helicopters forward, and AV-8B Harrier IIs aft. This arrangement maximizes the use of the limited space in the hangar, and still leaves a large area for launch and recovery of aircraft up on the roof. As on the big supercarriers, the deck crews wear colored jerseys to designate their tasks. Red for fuel and ordnance, yellow for spotters, etc. These people operate in a world where noise is an enemy, and virtually all signals are by hand. They move and service $50-million aircraft with little more than gestures and nods for communication. When you consider that these sailors are about twenty years old (are you happy when a kid that age parks your car?), you can appreciate their burden of responsibility. Accidents do happen, and safety nets ring the perimeter of the flight deck. If a deck-hand should fall or be blown overboard (by wind or jet exhaust), he (hopefully) falls into a net before dropping sixty ft/twenty m or more to the sea. Around the perimeter are points for refueling, rearming, and servicing aircraft.

The deck level is the best place to observe Wasp's weapons. Though the LHAs were a model for the LHDs, the armament of the Wasp shows how far 1990s technology has gone beyond the 1960s and 1970s. The LHA's armament provided a rudimentary defense against aircraft and limited capability against surface and shore targets. The designers of the LHDs dispensed with inshore bombardment, focusing instead on air and missile threats. The LHD design deletes the 5-in./127mm guns and the manned 20mm mounts. Instead, modern eight-cell RIM-7 Sea Sparrow launchers are fitted. The Sea Sparrow is a surface-launched version of the AIM-7 Sparrow air-to-air missile (AAM). Unlike the aerial version, Sea Sparrow has racked up an impressive record of reliability in three decades as a short range SAM ("point defense" the Navy calls it). The current version, the RIM-7M, has a range of around 10 nm/18.5 km, providing an inner layer of defense against incoming anti-ship missiles and aircraft. Like the airborne version of Sparrow, the RIM-7 utilizes semi-active radar guidance, which means that a radar on the ship "paints" the target, and the missile homes on the reflected microwave energy. The 450-lb/204-kg missile has a lethal 90-lb/40.8-kg warhead. Sea Sparrow is found on everything from aircraft carriers to frigates and supply ships, and has been widely exported to NATO and "friendly" countries. Wasp carries two eight-cell launchers (each with eight reloads) and a pair of Mk 91 illumination radars. One launcher sits at the front of the island structure, and the other is mounted on a sponson on the fantail.

In addition to the Sea Sparrow launchers, three Mk 16 Phalanx Close-In Weapons Systems (CIWS) are installed to deal with any missiles that "leak" through the area SAM defense of escorting destroyers and cruisers, or the point-defense systems. One unit is located at the front of the island structure, and the other two are mounted on either side of the Sea Sparrow launcher on the fantail sponson. Each CIWS is built around a 20mm General Electric Gatling gun like the M61 on the F-15 Eagle and F-16 Fighting Falcon. CIWS fires 3,000 rounds per minute in 200-round bursts, with tungsten penetrators designed to break up an incoming missile, or detonate its warhead. Each CIWS has a 1,550-round magazine, and carries its own search and track radars. It is a self-contained unit; once turned on, it automatically attacks any fast-moving target it identifies as hostile. It can hit targets up to 6,000 yards/5,488 meters away, but is most effective within about 1,625 yards/1,486 meters. When conducting flight operations, Wasp tends to keep her three CIWS turned off, in case they accidentally identify a "friendly" aircraft as "hostile." Electronic Identification Friend or Foe (IFF) systems still are not terribly reliable, and both sailors and aircrews take such things quite seriously. Several years ago, a RIM-7, fired accidentally by an American aircraft carrier, hit a Turkish destroyer on maneuvers, killing her captain and several crewmen.

While CIWS can defeat small anti-ship missiles like the French MM-38/ AM-39/MM-40 Exocet or the American A/RGM-84 Harpoon, it has trouble with large, fast sea-skimmers like the Russian SS-N-22 Sunburn with its 1,100-lb/500 kg warhead and Mach 2 speed (the subsonic Harpoon and Exocet have 250-to-500- 1b/125-to-225-kg warheads). Even if CIWS detonates the incoming missile's warhead, it is moving so fast that missile fragments will "pepper" the ship. This is one reason why the structure of Wasp and all new U.S. Navy ships have been hardened with lightweight Kevlar armor panels. A new system called the RIM-116A Rolling Airframe Missile (RAM) will augment CIWS. This little missile combines the AIM-9 Sidewinder airframe with the FIM-92 Stinger seeker head. It can intercept targets out to 5 nm/9 km, far enough to avoid "fragging" the ship with high-velocity wreckage. RAM is fired by a twenty-four-round Ex-31 lightweight launcher. Wasp will get two Ex-31 RAM launchers when she comes in for her first major overhaul; new units will get them starting with Bataan (I HD-5). Eight M2 .50-cal. machine-gun mounts provide defense against small boats and frogmen. New units (and ships completing their first overhaul) will replace four machine guns with three 25mm Bushmaster cannon. An SLQ-25 Nixie torpedo-decoy system is mounted in the LHD's stern. Towed behind the ship, these acoustic/magnetic decoys (hopefully) decoy any incoming torpedo. Active "anti-torpedo torpedo" systems for installation on major warships may be ready in a few years.

The most noticeable difference between the LHAs and the LHDs is the smaller "island" structure on the newer vessels. The LHA island held all the control spaces for fighting and running the ship plus all of the planning and command spaces for the embarked Marines. This kept everything centrally located, but was very vulnerable to a single missile or bomb hit. Anti-ship-missile seeker heads usually "lock" onto the largest or hottest structures of a ship (the island with its boiler uptakes is perfect). Thus, on the LHD design, the massive island structure was cut down by two full decks and the Marine command spaces relocated below, deep within the ship. In addition to the weapons mounted on the island, most of the ship's sensors and communications antennas are mounted as high as possible. These include:

• SPS-48E-A 3-D search radar which provides air control and AAW battle management functions for the Wasp. This high-resolution radar has a reported range out to around 60 nm/110 km.

• SPS-49 (V)5—The best naval 2-D air-search radar of our time. Very reliable with a detection range of up to several hundred miles/kilometers, it is found on most major combatants in the U.S. Navy, as well as many foreign vessels.

• SPS-64 (V)9—This is primary a navigation radar for keeping formation and operating close to shore. It is a development of the classic LN-66 navigation radar in use for several decades.

• SPS-67—The SPS-67 is a general-purpose surface-search radar, designed to provide precise targeting data against surface targets.

• Mk 23 Target Acquisition System (TAS)—This is a small, fast-rotating radar for detecting sea-skimming or high-angle missile attacks. It feeds data into the SYS-2 (V)3 weapons-control system, which can automatically activate the RIM-7 Sea Sparrow or RIM-116 RAM systems.

• SLQ-32 (V)3—The SLQ-32 is a family of electronic-warfare systems which can be tailored to the protection requirements of a particular ship. The (V)3 version has a wide-band radar-warning receiver, a wide band radar jammer, and a bank of four Mk 137 Super Rapid Blooming Chaff (SRBOC) launchers. These six-barreled mortars throw up a cloud of chaff (metal-coated mylar strips) and infrared decoys to (hopefully) blind or confuse an incoming missile at the last minute.

These systems give Wasp's commanding officer and battle staff great situational awareness of the battle space surrounding their ship and the ARG. Given the variety of threats that face an LHD, you can see why the Navy needs to defend this billion-dollar-plus asset.

By now you are probably getting warm out on the flight deck, so let's go inside. When you enter the island, a blast of cold air hits you immediately. The LHDs were designed to protect their crews against the possibility of chemical, biological, and nuclear warfare. A Collective Protection System (CPS) creates an environmental "citadel" inside the island and forward part of the ship. This sealed citadel provides clean, filtered air, allowing the crew to work in a shirt-sleeve environment. It also gives Wasp and her sisters the finest air conditioning in the fleet. Wasp was built with only five of her six planned chiller units, and she is almost too cold! The cool interior enables the crew and Marines to cope with the heat of tropical places; it also extends the life and reliability of the electronic equipment packed inside Wasp's slab-sided hull. The CPS system does not extend to the hangar, cargo, vehicle, or well-deck areas. Thus, you have to get used to the CPS "zone" hatches and airlocks, each of which must be opened, closed, and dogged as you pass through.

The island structure is filled with steep ladders, and your leg muscles get a workout as you move around Wasp. To reach the bridge, you go up five levels and pass through a cipher lock and several more hatches. The bridge has exceptional visibility through green-tinted windows. Navigational instruments, map tables, and communications equipment are laid out neatly and logically. Spacious and comfortable, Wasp's bridge is a model of functional design. Even the Captain's chair and day cabin are designed for comfort and ease of access. A wing bridge, protruding from the starboard side of the island, lets the bridge crew conn the ship during Underway Refueling and Provisioning (UNREP) and docking. In some seven years of operations, only one design problem affected the bridge: Some of the thick windows cracked during a 1994 winter operation in Norway, due to the intense difference between internal and external temperatures.

Exiting the bridge and heading aft, we find the "debark control" used by a Marine commander to monitor operation of amphibious vehicles. There also is a weather office which would be the envy of any large airport. Amphibious operations are extremely sensitive to weather conditions, and the Navy has invested heavily to make sure that the Wasp can keep an eye on what Mother Nature is up to. In fact, the crew regards the weather forecasters as a branch of the intelligence department. Heading up through several more ladders and cipher-locked doors, we enter Primary Flight, or "Pri-Fly," the ship's control tower for air operations, and home of the Air Boss. The Air Boss is a virtual god of the air and deck space around the ARG. Usually, the Air Boss is a commander (O-5) who has completed a squadron command tour. The Air Boss is assisted by various Landing Signals Officers (LSOs) who "wave aboard" the aircrews based aboard the Wasp. Big-deck aircraft carriers have a special platform at deck level for LSOs: but LHDs and other helicopter ships place their LSOs inside Pri-Fly. When aircraft are landing vertically, the best place to watch is above and to the side of the action. Each component of the Air Combat Element (based around a reinforced HMM) has one or two LSOs among its pilots, and one is always on duty whenever that kind of aircraft is flying.

Heading down from the island (as tough on the ankles as going up), we arrive in the Wasp's main living and work areas. Down on the 02 Level (just below the flight deck) are the officers' berthing and mess areas, as well as most of the command and control spaces for the embarked Marines. The center of this activity is the officers' wardroom, which functions as restaurant, theater, town hall, and conference room at various times of the day. Four times a day, the Wasp's mess specialists lay out meals (breakfast, lunch, dinner, and "mid-rats" at 11:00 P.M./2300 hours) for the Navy and Marine officers. Between meals, the wardroom is used for meetings, training, and final briefings prior to launch. Forward of the wardroom is the junior officer berthing area, composed of four- and six-man staterooms. Each officer has a comfortable bunk, stowage for personal gear, and a fold-down desk. A little personal space makes a six-or-seven-month cruise (normal for ARG ships these days) a lot more bearable. There is a certain etiquette in using the dormitory-style showers and head facilities. As a matter of basic hygiene, everyone wears shower slippers while bathing, to prevent the spread of foot infections which could devastate the marching ability of the embarked Marines! At the forward end of the 02 Level is the most popular area on the ship, Wasp's fitness center. This is a beehive of activity around the clock for the sailors and Marines trying to to stay fit and work off some of the nervous tension and stress of shipboard life. You generally have to wait to get onto one of the machines or weight benches jammed into the space. Officers told me that this one room did more for crew morale than anything except food and the CNN satellite feed!

Heading aft past the wardroom takes you through "Officers Country," the berthing areas for senior Navy and Marine officers. Usually these are one- or two-man staterooms, with an attached head and shower. Don't envy these officers' comforts; very few get to spend much time in their racks. A department head or unit commander aboard an amphib often works a sixteen-to-twenty-hour day. You are lucky to get four to six hours of sleep (not always at night!). The Captain has his sea cabin on the 02 Level, and a day cabin on the bridge, but rarely gets to rest in either of them! Also located here is "Flag Country," berthing spaces for embarked admirals and their staff. The Wasp is big enough to accommodate such a staff without disrupting the ship's routine.

Continuing aft, you enter a series of darkened command and control spaces. As noted above, these were relocated from the island structure to protect their vital personnel and equipment. These spaces include:

• Combat Information Center (CIC)—The nerve center of the ship, with displays for all of the ship's sensors, as well as information acquired from data links and national sources (the DOD euphemism for "spy satellites"). Filled with consoles, terminals, and big-screen displays, this battle management center has separate zones for anti-sub, anti-air, and anti-surface warfare, communications, damage control, and other functions. Officers learn to assess fast-developing situations and act quickly. In World War II a good captain fought his ship from the bridge, but today's Burke or Vian would be found at a glowing console in a dimly lit CIC.

• Landing Force Operations Center (LFOC)—The LFOC is a mission control center for amphibious operations. Each embarked Marine unit has a console, with the MEU (SOC)'s console in the center at the rear with a clear view of the large-screen displays at the front of the compartment. Everything is tied into a computer, the Integrated Tactical Amphibious Warfare Data System (ITAWDS), linking the commander to embarked Marine units. At the rear of the LFOC is a conference area for the MEU (SOC) staff. Like the ship's captain, the embarked Marine commander usually fights his battle from here.

• Flag Plot—This is where the ARG commander and staff reside during operations. It is generally similar to CIC and the LFOC, and there are numerous repeaters for the various sensors and displays.

• Ships Signals Exploitation Space (SSES)—This small sealed space adjacent to the CIC is for secret stuff: "exploitation of enemy signals and electronic emissions." Equipped with data links to national and theater-level intelligence systems, the SSES can provide decision makers with up-to-date information on enemy intentions and activities. Only specially cleared intelligence and communications technicians are allowed inside.

• Joint Intelligence Center—The Joint Intelligence Center is a clearing-house for information required by the ship, the ARG, and embarked Marine components. Analysts in the JIC can draw from vast databases of Defense Mapping Agency maps, satellite photography, and anything else the intelligence community provides. Even better, they can probably tell you what it means. The staff is a "rainbow" organization from every unit involved.

• Tactical Logistics Group Center (TACLOG)—Crammed with computers, phones, and people, TACLOG controls the logistics battle. Everything from the layout of vehicles in the stowage areas to the embarkation of troops by the ship's combat cargo staff is controlled from here.

• Tactical Air Control Center (TACC)—The air traffic control center for the ship and the ARG, the TACC monitors the airspace around the ARG, and generates the daily air tasking order (ATO).

When an operation or exercise is underway, these spaces resemble a beehive without the buzz, on the job, around the clock, until it is finished.

One deck down (the 03 Level) is the LHD's medical department. One of the more chilling features of the original LHA was the provision for a large hospital facility (about 375 beds). It was almost doubled in size when the LHDs were being designed. In fact, when the Wasp is at home in Norfolk, Virginia, she is listed in the Virginia State disaster plan as the fourth-largest hospital in the state, with some 600 beds! Marines know how fast amphibious warfare can generate casualties when things go wrong. Except for the hospital ships, Mercy (T-AH-19) and Comfort (T-AH- 20), these are the most capable medical facilities afloat. In addition to a large triage area, there are six operating theaters, eighteen post-operative/intensive-care beds, 6 isolation ward beds, and 36 primary-care beds. Using berthing space from disembarked Marines allows up to 536 additional bed cases. There are also oversized radiology and dental departments.

Below the Medical Department, on the 04 Level, are maintenance shops for mechanical equipment, electronics, and hydraulic systems. Further forward are accommodations for enlisted and non-commissioned (NCO) sailors and Marines — over two thousand berths, divided into many compartments. The chiefs and Marine NCOs live in "Goat Lockers" with about a dozen bunks (in two high racks) and recreational areas with tables and televisions. Enlisted personnel have racks stacked three-high, and you might find as many as sixty or seventy personnel in one such berthing space. While dense, the accommodations are much more comfortable than those we have seen previously on older vessels. Each sailor or Marine has an individual berth, and there is no "hot bunking" as aboard submarines. In addition to personal stowage, Marines also have armories for their weapons and combat equipment, so that they can rapidly assemble their gear in an emergency. These berths are located just forward of the Medical Department, and can become hospital beds if necessary.

Dining facilities for NCO and enlisted personnel look just like shore-based mess halls. The food is good and the service fast. It has to be when you consider that they serve almost twelve thousand meals every day. Sharing the same food and ship has a way of bonding everyone, no matter what their rank, as "shipmates." Admirals and generals walk the same passageways and share the same dangers with PFCs and chiefs. It makes for a unique shipboard society. I like it. It says good things about the Navy, the Marine Corps, and America. It says that when the work starts, we all work, and we all share.

The Wasp is a virtual city-at-sea, with all the needs of a city. One of the biggest is communications, both within the ship and to "the world." Communications systems include FM/HF/UHF/VHF radios, UHF/VHF/EHF satellite systems, video teleconferencing, and other command and control systems. For communications around the ship, there is a phone system, as well as the ever-present public-address system known as the 1 MC. There are moves to bring the Wasp (and the Navy on the whole) into the computer network era as well. The Wasp is wired for a wide-area network (WAN) divided into departmental local-area networks (LANs). These in turn are being tied into the Navy's department-wide telecommunications system. Desktop and laptop computers are everywhere. You see young sailors in their bunks using them to tap out letters home, or officers creating briefing viewgraphs for the next landing exercise.

A ship-based cable television system broadcasts news and movies to every compartment. You see many small personal televisions (hooked to the ship's cable network), VCRs, and stereo systems used by crew and Marines for entertainment during the rare off-hours. A stabilized satellite television dish was recently fitted on the Wasp's island structure. Officially, this allows intelligence specialists to monitor CNN and other twenty-four-hour news services, but it also brings the crew news and sports from home without the delay of videocassettes. Soon, it will be standard equipment on all Navy vessels. Other amenities for the crew include a well-stocked ship's store, a post office, and an efficient laundry service. All of these features make life more livable for over 2,500 people during Wasp's six- or seven-month cruises.

A ship is nothing but a cold hulk unless it can generate power. We'll finish our tour of the Wasp in the heart of the ship — engineering and propulsion. You have to go into the very bowels of the ship, below the vehicle and cargo decks, to enter the "land of the snipes," the nickname for boiler and engineering technicians. Rather than the gas turbines or marine diesels that drive most modern warships, LHDs continue the tradition of oil-fired steam plants. The Wasp is powered by a pair of 2,600-PSI/41.7-kg-per-cm Combustion Engineering boilers, which generate steam for the two Westinghouse turbines, for a total of 70,000 horsepower to the twin shafts. This translates to a cruising speed of around 22 kt/40.25 kph, and a maximum speed of approximately 24 kt/43.9 kph. While it may not quite match the 30+ kt/55 kph of a supercarrier or destroyer, it is adequate for the job. With a full load of fuel, steaming at approximately 20 kt/36.6 kph, the Wasp has an unrefueled range of approximately 9,500 nm/17,600 km, which means that it can transit to most potential trouble spots with a bare minimum of support shipping.

The Wasp's vast electrical requirements are met by a series of motor generators supplying different types of power (220 V and 110 V AC, 12 V and 15 V DC, etc.). The freshwater distillation plant produces enough water for every member of the crew to take a "Hollywood" shower every day. Distilled water is quite soft and pure, without the chlorine taste prevalent in city tap water. The "snipes" of the Engineering Division also manage Wasp's fuel and fluid systems, including hydraulics, jet fuel, and diesel for the vehicles of the embarked Marines. They play a key role in damage control effort, since without power, Wasp would quickly succumb to damage from missiles, bombs, torpedoes, or even accidental fire. Warships are collections of combustible, flammable, and explosive stuff; all of these demand intense vigilance. Damage control is something of an obsession with Navy captains and crews. Our experience in the Persian Gulf and that of the British in the Falklands in 1982 emphasized the survival value of damage control. As noted in Submarine, the Navy has worked hard to deploy improved fire fighting systems like Aqueous Film Forming Foam (AFFF) fire extinguishers and improved emergency breathing apparatus. Everywhere on Wasp you see Day-Glo orange containers with emergency breathing masks for survival in the smoke of a fire.

Not just a packing crate for Marines and their equipment, Wasp is a platform capable of many different missions, from amphibious raids and assaults, to sea control (escorting convoys and protecting sea lanes). It is perhaps for this reason that the Wasp (LHD-1) and her sister ships, Essex (LHD-2), Kearsarge (LHD-3), and Boxer (LHD-4), have become the most sought-after ships in the Navy. When the next three LHDs, Bataan (LHD-5), Bonhomme Richard (LHD-6), and the still unnamed seventh unit of the class, join the fleet in a few years, it will give all twelve ARGs a big-deck aviation ship. The final three ships have significant improvements over the earlier LHDs. The Ex-31 RAM launchers and 25mm Bushmaster cannon mounts will be built in from the start, along with smaller superstructures, more aviation fuel capacity, and improved communications, damage control, and medical capabilities. There will also be accommodations for female personnel, under the "Women at Sea" program (see the LPD-17 below for more on this). These features will be retrofitted to earlier units during their first major overhauls. The Wasp and her sister ships represent the core of America's forced-entry capability, and will be so for decades to come.

USS Whidby Island (LSD-41)

At almost $1.25 billion dollars each, Wasp-class LHDs are hardly the most economical solution for every amphibious task. Sometimes, you need a ship that does just one or two things well. So the Landing Ship Dock (LSD) was created. The LSD is a transport and service platform for landing craft. At first, they were simple ships with well decks and minimal stowage or troop capacity. They could "flood down" to launch landing craft. Later, LSDs evolved into general-purpose vessels, with long-term accommodations for embarked troops and equipment, and limited helicopter capability. The design of the Anchorage (LSD-36) class, constructed in the 1960s and 1970s, emphasized carrying large numbers of landing craft. These five ships served effectively in ARGs for almost three decades. But they are at the end of their service lives. The Whidbey Island (LSD-41) class will replace them.

The Whidbey Island class supplements the capabilities of the big-deck aviation ships of an ARG. In the event of a need to "split" an ARG, the LSD always accompanies the LHD, LHA, or LPD. This lets the ARG commander retain a forced-entry capability, due to the numerous landing craft the two ships carry. While the LSDs lack the command and control capabilities of the LHDs and LHAs, and the cargo capacity of the LPDs, they serve a vital role as amphibious delivery systems. Let's get to know Whidbey Island a bit better.

In the early 1980s, planners at Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) began to think about the mix of ships they wanted for the ARGs of the 1990s and beyond. Even before the decision to build Wasp-class LHDs, they knew that standoff from the enemy shore would dominate future amphibious ship design. While the old Anchorage-class LSDs could carry and operate the new air cushioned landing craft, it was clear that more LCACs would be needed in an ARG to replace the slower, more vulnerable LCUs. NAVSEA set about designing a new ship, known as the LSD-41, and selecting a contractor. The first three ships went to Lockheed Shipbuilding in Seattle, Washington. Whidbey Island was laid down on August 4th, 1981, launched on June 10th, 1983, and commissioned two years later on February 9th, 1985, with further units at one-year intervals. When Lockheed decided to leave the ship construction industry in the 1980s, the rest of the class was awarded to Avondale Industries of New Orleans, Louisiana. Avondale, an old Navy contractor, built the Knox-class (FF-1052) ASW frigates in the 1960s and 1970s. Set on the banks of the Mississippi, the yard uses more conventional technology than Litton Ingalls. Avondale's old-style slipways and serial assembly methods may suffer in head-to-head price comparisons with foreign competitors, but they do build quality ships.

The Whidbey Island-class ships are relatively conventional, being evolutionary follow-ons to the LSD-36 class, with small but significant improvements. Only 609 ft/185.8 m long and 84 ft/25.6 m in beam, they are much smaller ships than the Wasp. Displacement is just 17,745 tons fully loaded. The have a shallow draft of 19.5 ft/6 m versus 26 2/3 ft/8.1 m for the LHDs. Whidbey Island is powered by medium-speed marine diesels, rather than steam turbines. The four SEMT-Pielstick engines deliver a combined total of 41,600 hp to twin shafts, for a top speed of 22 kt/40.25 kph. At an economical 20 kt/36.5 kph, they can cruise for 8,000 nm/ 14,816 km without refueling — an excellent match for the LHDs and LHAs. A relatively small crew of 334 officers and enlisted sailors reduces operating costs.

The most notable features of the Whidbey Island class are the large deckhouse forward for stowage and accommodations, and long well deck, topped by a flight deck with a pair of landing spots for helicopters up to the size of a CH-53E Sea Stallion. Since the class lacks hangar or support facilities, no helicopters are based aboard while on cruise, and LSD-41s can only refuel helicopters based on other ships. The well deck has room for up to four LCACs, three LCUs, or ten LCM-8s should there be a need to utilize those older craft. The well deck resembles the one on Wasp, using ballast tanks to lower the stern and flood the deck so landing craft can arrive or depart. Measuring 440 ft/141.1 m in length, 50 ft/15.2 m in width, and 27 ft./8.2 m. in height, it is the largest well deck on any amphibious ship. Landing craft park end-to-end, as on Wasp, and can be loaded by driving vehicle through one landing craft to get to another.

Despite their minimalist design, the LSD-41s are quite capable at handling landing craft and off-loading cargo. They carry two electric two-ton forklifts, two pallet jacks, two five-ton rough terrain forklifts, an eight-ton cargo elevator, and three large cranes with (fifteen, twenty, and sixty ton capacity). A special turntable in the ramp between the well and helicopter decks speeds vehicle movement and handling. With 13,500 ft of vehicle space and 5,100 ft of cargo space, they are smaller than the LHDs and LHAs, but still capable of carrying a useful payload. Berthing space for up to 454 Marines is similar to what we saw on Wasp.

The LSD-41 s lack many of the features found on the Wasp class. These include:

• Command and Control Facilities—The LSD-41 s have only a CIC and a Tactical Landing Support Group space. There are no provisions for a flag staff, and no flag plot.

• Medical Facilities—The Whidbey Island class has only a single operating theater and eight beds (one intensive care, two isolation, five primary care), with no real overflow capability. It depends on the large-deck amphibs for medical support. The landing dock ship USS Harpers Ferry (LSD-49), It is a near-copy of the USS Whidbey Island (LSD-41), but its well deck has been shortened to provide more cargo and vehicule stowage and one cargo crane has been deleted.

• Sensors—SPS-49 air search, SPS-64 (V)9 navigation, and SPS-67 surface-search radars are carried. There are no fire-control systems of any kind.

• Defensive Armament — The LSD-41s are armed with only a pair of Mk 16 20mm CIWS, two Mk 67 25mm Bushmaster cannon mounts, and two mounts for M2 .50-cal. machine guns. The basic SLQ-32 (V)1 electronic warfare suite has only a radar-warning receiver and four Mk 137 SRBOC/decoy launchers. They also have an SLQ-25 Nixie system. No radar jammer is fitted. These ships require combatant escort to survive in a hostile environment.

Though the Whidbey Island ships seem austere compared to Wasp-class LHDs, they do have features that make them valuable amphibs, including:

• Structures/Protection—The LSD-41s have the same structural protection as the Wasp class, including hardening of the deckhouse against fragment damage from a near miss.

• Environmental Protection—The Whidbey Island class has the same kind of nuclear/chemical/biological CPS system as the LHDs, and thus the same levels of air-conditioned comfort.

How would all this work in combat? Consider the following example. In most cases, the ARG staff will load up the LSD-41 with heavy vehicles like M 1A1 Abrams tanks and wheeled LAVs. This provides an armored punch for the early waves of a Marine assault or raid. Once Whidbey Island's own load of equipment and cargo is off-loaded, the landing craft help other ships to unload vehicles and cargo, thus speeding the flow of combat power to the beach. This secondary role of landing craft base is what makes the LSDs so valuable to an ARG commander.

A total of eight LSD-41s were built. These include three Lockheed-built units; Whidbey Island (LSD-41), Germantown (LSD-42), and Fort McHenry (LSD-43), plus five Avondale-produced ships: Gunston Hall (LSD-44), Comstock (LSD-45), Tortuga (LSD-46), Rushmore (LSD-47), and Ashland (LSD-48). Four additional units are being built to a modified configuration that has an interesting origin. You see, the new amphibious ships, when combined with over-the-horizon delivery systems like the CH-53E Sea Stallion and LCAC, can actually put troops, vehicles, and cargo onto a beach faster than Navy beachmasters can handle it. There is a physical limit to how fast you can move stuff over a beach, and the beach control parties that serve as the ARGs "traffic cops" have hit that limit. The LCACs turned out to be faster at doing their jobs than expected. This gave NAVSEA an opportunity to modify the last four ships of the LSD-41 class. Since the new LHDs could carry up to three LCACs, and the older LPD-4 class assault ships could carry two, this meant that an ARG only required two more to reach the desired level of seven such craft. So, the last four units of the Whidbey Island class, redesignated the Harpers Ferry (LSD-49) class, were redesigned with a shortened well deck (only 184 ft/56 m long). The remaining space would be used to enlarge the vehicle and cargo footprints of the new ships, as the table below shows:

As you can see, the cargo/vehicle space in LSD-49 has been expanded by 15 % over LSD-41, and the cargo space by a whopping 994 %. This makes the LSD-49s very valuable amphibious ships. Any CO of a forward-deployed unit will tell you that they never have enough stowage space for "stuff," and the trade-off on these ships makes them an outstanding value for the money. All four—Harpers Ferry (LSD-49), Carter Hall (LSD-50), Oak Hill (LSD-51), and Pearl Harbor (LSD-52-named for the facility, not the battle!) — are built by Avondale in New Orleans. The first two are already in service, and the other two are scheduled for completion by early 1997. One LSD-41/49 will be assigned to each of the Navy's 12 ARGs. Right now, 12 ARGs only provide about 2.5 MEBs of lift, as opposed to the 3 that the Marine Corps considers necessary to meet mission requirements. Additional LSDs are unlikely though, since the Navy is committed to construct new LPD-17-class assault ships to replace aging Austin-class LPDs.

USS Shreveport (LPD-12)

The Landing Assault Ship USS Shreveport (LPD-12) is a living legacy of the 1960s-era shipbuilding program that has been the backbone of the amphibious force for three decades. While old by warship standards (she was commissioned in 1970), cramped, and antiquated compared to contemporary designs, she still has many years of service ahead. Part of the eleven-ship Austin class (LPD-4 to -15), Shreveport may serve for another ten to fifteen years. The LPD is the "swing" ship — a virtual "utility infielder" among the three ships that usually comprise an ARG. While the LHDs/LHAs and LSDs work together as the "big" decks of the ARG, the LPD is a general-purpose workhorse, taking on missions that used to be assigned to the LSTs and LKAs. When an ARG splits to undertake more than one mission at a time, the LPD is frequently on her own. LPDs tend to pick up the stray "cats and dogs" of the embarked MEU (SOC), such as amphibious tractors, Force Recon teams, and the SEAL team. They act as a floating Forward Fuel and Arming Point (FFARP) for helicopters, and a base for the AH-1W Cobra attack helicopters and the embarked Pioneer UAV unit. That's a lot to ask of an old ship like Shreveport (LPD-12), but she does her best in a world where she is little loved, but heavily used.

The original LPDs of the Raleigh class (LPD-1) were designed in the late 1950s to transport a large load of amphibious troops and supplies, at the expense of off-load capability. LPDs have relatively small well decks compared to the LHAs, LHDs, and LSDs, as well as smaller aviation facilities, with only a single helicopter landing pad. They are nevertheless one of the three types of amphibious ships that will survive (along with the big deck LHDs/LHAs and the LSD) into the 21st century. There even are plans to build a new class of twelve (the LPD-17s), though the LPD-4s will stay around for almost a decade before these new ships enter service. Following the three Raleigh-class ships, a further class of LPDs was constructed in the late 1960s. These became the Austin class (LPD-4), in service around the world today.

The Shreveport and her sister ships look a lot like the older LSD-36-class dockships, except that they have a larger superstructure, as well as a shorter main deck/helicopter platform and well deck. She is some 570 ft/173.7 m long, with a beam of 84 ft/25.6 m, and a nominal draft (with the ballast tanks dry) of 23 ft/7 m. Full displacement is 16,905 tons. The twelve ships of the class were constructed in three separate shipyards. USS Austin (LPD-4), USS Ogden (LPD-5), and USS Duluth (LPD-6) were built at the government-owned New York Naval Shipyard, some of the last U.S. warships built there. Ingalls built USS Cleveland (LPD-7) and USS Dubuque (LPD-8) at Ingalls in Pascagoula, Mississippi. USS Denver (LPD-9), USS Juneau (LPD-10), USS Coronado (LPD-11), USS Shreveport (LPD-12), USS Nashville (LPD- 13), USS Trenton (LPD-14), and USS Ponce (LPD-15), were all built by Lockheed Shipbuilding in Seattle. Coronado (LPD-11) was converted into a command ship.

Shreveport (LPD-12) was laid down in Seattle, Washington, on December 27th, 1965, launched on October 25th, 1966, and commissioned on December 12th, 1970. She is powered by two 2.600-PSI Babcock and Wilcox boilers feeding a pair of De Laval steam turbines for a total of 24,000 hp to the twin shafts. Maximum speed is 21 kt/38.4 kph, though the efficiency of the powerplant allows it to cruise at 20 kt/ 36.6 kph. The steam plant is old and cranky by comparison to newer Navy steam, diesel, and gas turbine ships. Nevertheless, her dedicated "snipes" keep her going. Shreveport is one of nine ships in the class with extra bridge and berthing space, so it can act as a squadron flagship in "split ARG" operations.

When you walk around Shreveport, you find it generally similar to other Navy warships: gray paint, the overhead crowded with piping, conduits, and wiring runs, and hatches that need to be opened and closed by hand. But Shreveport is different from the ships we have visited so far. While some systems have been updated, there is a 1960s "feel" to the structure you see. Austin-class (LPD-4) ships were designed for a crew of drafted conscripts instead of volunteer professionals. The ship's systems had minimal automation (which required costly analog electronics) and maximum utilization of manpower, which was comparatively cheap (and more reliable!) in those days. Warship designers knew that a larger crew increases the ability of a ship to take damage and survive. Damage control is labor-intensive; and until recently, packing lots of men into a small hull was a good thing. You see this in Shreveport and her sister ships.

Let's go to particulars. Down in the crew and passenger (one of the Navy terms for "Marine") accommodation areas, you find the bunks are smaller and a bit shorter, and personal stowage space is more limited, than on Wasp or Whidbey Island. You find almost no recreational or fitness facilities. And Shreveport lacks the environmental-control systems found on every new warship today. In fact, her air-conditioning is even more cranky than her power plant, which can be tough on the crew and embarked Marines. During the MEU (SOC) workup in the summer of 1995, most of Shreveport's air-conditioning system went out during a major heat wave. Even though the ARG was at sea, temperatures in the Marine berthing areas quickly rose to over 90deg F/32deg C with high humidity. Little could be done other than to push cold fluids to the men, and to shift some smaller units over to spare berthing on Wasp and Whidbey Island. Everyone took it in stride, but such problems sometimes occur in older vessels.

Passenger comfort is not why warships are built; and despite her advancing years, Shreveport is well equipped to operate not only as an ARG flagship, if necessary, but as an independent amphibious unit. Shreveport's systems include:

• Command and Control Capabilities—In addition to accommodations as a flagship, Shreveport has full command and control facilities, although smaller and more limited than those aboard an LHD or LHD. These include a CIC, LFOC, SSES, and data links and communications gear.

• Troop Capacity—Along with her crew of 402 (plus a flag staff of 90 if carried), Shreveport can carry up to 840 Marines.

• Vehicle/Cargo Capacity—While she was designed before automated cargo handling, the Shreveport has 14,000 ft/1,301 m of vehicle space, as well as 51,100 ft/1,447 m for cargo. This is far more than Whidbey Island (LSD-41), allowing a great deal of autonomy if the ship must operate alone.

• Transport/Off-load Capability—Shreveport's robust aviation and transport facilities also enable her to to operate independently if required. These include a helicopter pad with two landing spots, as well as a hangar and air traffic control. The well deck can berth and support a LCAC or LCU, or up to four LCM-8s.

• Cargo Handling Capacity—Shreveport's cargo handling gear includes ten two-ton forklifts, a pair of three-ton rough terrain forklifts, three pallet conveyers, an eight-ton weapons and cargo elevator, and six cargo monorails like those aboard Wasp. There is also a thirty-ton deck crane for general-purpose lifting.

Shreveport can hold up her end of the amphibious task, either as part of an ARG, or all by herself, should that be required. Shreveport's armament is typical of her generation. Back in the 1960s the Navy did not expect that amphibious ships would have to defend themselves; that was the job of aircraft carriers, surface escorts, and submarines. Times have changed since then, though, and Shreveport has been fitted for basic self-defense. In addition to an SPS- 10F surface-search and SPS- 4 °C air-search radar, she carries the SLQ-32 (V1) ESM package, which can detect an incoming missile and attempt to confuse it with chaff or decoys from four Mk 137 SRBOC launchers. Two of the original four twin 3-in/76-mm gun mounts have been removed, and replaced with a pair of 20mm Phalanx CIWS mounts. There is none of the splinter armor that you find aboard Wasp or Whidbey Island. This means that she could suffer severe fragmentation damage from a sea-skimming cruise missile even if the CIWS detonates the warhead before impact.

As the Shreveport and her sisters enter the twilight of their careers, you might expect the Navy to ease up a bit and try to stretch out their remaining service life. But the LPD-4s will stay at the forefront of amphibious operations until the new LPD-17-class assault ships arrive in the early part of the 21st century. The plan is to stretch the life of the class from the normal thirty years to roughly forty to fifty years! This will demand improvements to environmental systems, some communications, a fiber-optical data network, and perhaps even the Cooperative Engagement System designed into the LPD-17. These will be difficult to fund in the current budget environment. But the LPD-4s are a national asset, and you can expect General Krulak to fight like a "big dog" to ensure these venerable ships stay ready to land Marines.

Ever since Stone Age men built the first raft to raid the neighbors downstream, small boats have been essential to amphibious operations. Captains of amphibs do not like to bring their large and sometimes vulnerable vessels within range of enemy artillery as they close a hostile shore. After the retirement of the last LST-1179-class ships, the option of running an ocean-going amphib up onto a beach (and getting her off again) will be gone forever. Given the dangers from mines, missiles, and guns, this is probably no great loss to our capabilities.

The amphibious equivalent of a delivery truck is the landing craft. As noted earlier, the development of landing craft during World War II was one of the key technologies that made amphibious warfare possible. Today, the Navy's landing craft range from the high-tech LCAC (Landing Craft, Air Cushioned) to conventional Landing Craft, Utility (LCU) and Landing Craft, Medium (LCM). While older craft are on their way out, they still provide amphibious planners with a range of delivery options. This is critical as the Navy and Marine Corps wait for long-delayed systems like the AAAV and MV-22B Osprey to enter service in the early 21st Century. The older landing craft provide vital support to Maritime Prepositioning Force (MPF) units for contingency and follow-on forces. Let's take a look at these delivery vans. Other than the Marines themselves, nothing is closer to the tip of the amphibious spear.

Landing Craft, Air Cushioned (LCAC)

When you first see one on its concrete pad at Little Creek, Virginia, it looks like a pile of Leggo blocks on a flattened inner tube. It is hard to believe that such an odd machine changed the face of amphibious warfare. When they first appeared in the late 1930s, landing craft were never called "revolutionary" or "world shaking." But the Navy's introduction of the Landing Craft, Air Cushioned (LCAC) in the 1980s produced the biggest change in amphibious doctrine since the helicopter thirty years earlier. Pretty impressive for something that looks like a prop from a low-budget science fiction movie. Let's look LCAC over, and see for ourselves.

Amphibious planners always want to carry more payload, farther and faster. They dream of assault craft that don't need pleasant stretches of gently graded beach for landing zones. Conventional landing craft are limited to landing under optimal tidal and beach conditions — which means they have access to only 17 % of the world's coastline. Traditional flat-bottomed assault boats severely restrict a planner's options. What was needed was new technology that did not require pushing a boxy hull through the water. The requirement was for a magic carpet, to whisk a seventy-ton battle tank across the water to the beach, and even inland.

The solution they found was a surface-effect vehicle: the hovercraft. A hovercraft floats on a cushion of air contained by a rubber skirt. Like a puck in an air hockey game, it barely touches the surface, but "floats" on the boundary interface. Riding a virtually frictionless layer of air, it needs relatively little thrust to move and maneuver. Hovercraft have great agility and speed, and they can carry a good payload with efficiency and economy. They are also relatively immune to rough weather and high seas. And they transition easily from water to ground, allowing the same craft to transport payloads some distance inland. Civilian hovercraft serve as high-speed ferryboats across the English Channel, and between Hong Kong and Macao in the Far East.

The Soviet Union, with its poor road network and vast marshlands, led the world in developing and deploying military hovercraft. During the Cold War, it built several types of amphibious assault hovercraft for the Northern, Baltic, and Black Sea fleets. Their planned targets were rocky coasts where conventional landing craft have little or no utility. But with hovercraft able to cross something like 70 % of the worlds coastlines (versus 17 % for conventional landing craft), they became a natural choice for Soviet Naval Infantry. Large troop- and vehicle-carrying hovercraft, known by NATO reporting names like Aist ("Stork"), Lebed ("Swan"), and Pomornik ("Skua"), could reach speeds up to 70 kt/128 kph, carrying heavy tanks, artillery, and troops. Technical intelligence reports made Western military forces sit up and take notice.

Early Western hovercraft were smaller, like the British-designed SR.N5 (called the PACV-series, when built by Bell for U.S. service), carrying an infantry squad or platoon. Field trials included combat deployments to Vietnam and Malaysia, with mixed results. The plus side was their speed and agility across rivers, swamps, and bays. The downside was vulnerability, especially their rubber skirts and propulsion systems. Despite this, Great Britain and Iran (under the last Shah) purchased many patrol hovercraft. Several factors kept hovercraft from entering Navy service as quickly — mainly money. The war in Vietnam was a huge financial drain in the 1960s and 1970s. The Navy and Marine Corps only began developing an amphibious hovercraft in the 1970s.

In late 1976 the Navy formalized a requirement and opened the competition for a Landing Craft, Air Cushioned (LCAC). Two contractors, Aerojet-General and Bell Aerospace (now Bell-Textron Land-Marine Systems in New Orleans, Louisiana), designed and built prototypes in the hope of winning a production contract for a planned fleet of over one hundred LCACs. The requirement included specifications for payload (up to 150,000 1b/68,182 kg), speed (greater than 50 kt/ 91 kph), and range (up to 200 nm/365 km at cruising speed). The Aerojet-General prototype was called JEFF-A; the Bell entry was JEFF-B. They looked similar when placed side by side. The competition was fierce, with both designs showing advantages and faults. In the end, Bell's JEFF-B design won, entering production as the Navy's new LCAC. JEFF-B's shorter length (87 ft/26.5 m versus 100 ft/30.5 m for the JEFF-A) and lower displacement (160 tons versus 162.5 tons) were decisive factors. In 1982, the Navy issued the first production contract for three LCACs. First delivery came in 1984, followed by ship compatibility trials. Lockheed Shipbuilding (later acquired by Avondale Shipbuilding) was certified as a second-source contractor, but Bell-Textron has built the majority of the craft.

By the late 1980s, several dozen LCACs were in service with the Navy, aboard a dozen amphibious ships in the Pacific and Atlantic fleets. Seventeen LCACs served on six LSDs during Desert Shield and Desert Storm, providing much of the lift during those operations. Though they did not conduct any assault landings, the amphibious forces offshore tied down over seven Iraqi divisions in coastal defenses around Kuwait City. The LCACs maintained a 100 % availability rate throughout nine months of operations in the Persian Gulf, giving ARG commanders great confidence in their reliability. Since that time, the fleet has shifted the bulk of landing craft duty to the LCACs. In humanitarian and peacekeeping operations in Bangladesh, Haiti, and Somalia, and regular operations in ARGs, the LCACs again proved their worth. The total force of 91 LCACs was nearly complete by early 1996. More were planned, but the Navy's drawdown cut the original target of 107 units. The force of 91 LCACs is a national treasure which is being used hard.

To understand the LCACs, you need to visit one of two bases constructed to service them. I visited the LCAC facility at the Naval Amphibious Base at Little Creek, near Norfolk, Virginia. This is the home of Assault Craft Unit (ACU) 4, the core unit for Atlantic Fleet-based LCACs. A similar facility services ACU 5 (the Pacific Fleet unit) at Camp Pendleton, California. ACU 4 operates roughly forty LCACs, providing detachments of hovercraft to Atlantic Fleet amphibious ships. The size of these detachments varies according to ship type. The following table summarizes the LCAC capacity of various ships:

Given the mix of ships within an ARG, a MEU (SOC) commander might have between six and nine LCACs in his well decks. That is a lot of capability to project Marines and firepower in just a few small packages. The ARG commander must manage this handful of LCACs carefully.

As you walk up to an LCAC on the ramp at Little Creek, the first thing you notice is that it looks much more like an aircraft or spacecraft than a warship. Much of the design for the LCAC was based on aircraft structures and technology to reduce weight and maximize payload. The LCAC is basically a platform with lift fans underneath, and twin deckhouses and engines along the sides. There are ramps at both ends, and a large rubber skirt running around the sides. Most of the structure is aluminum alloy, with some ceramic splinter armor. LCAC has to be able to survive hits when it works inshore. The threats range from artillery to anti-tank guided missiles. The four Avco-Lycoming TF-40B gas-turbine power plants provide a total of 12,444 shp/11,800 kw, and are mounted in pairs. Two engines drive the four 5.25-ft/1.6-m-diameter lift fans. The other pair drive the two 11.75-ft/3.6-m-diameter propulsion fans. Steering is done with variable-pitch propellers, aerodynamic rudders, and a pair of rotatable bow thruster nozzles. With a nominal load of fuel and a sixty-ton payload, LCAC can sustain up to 50 kt/91 kph in seastate 2 (a light chop) for a range of up to 328 nm/607 km. By cutting the payload, longer ranges can be obtained.

As you walk up the bow ramp, you enter a large (67-by-27-ft/20.4-by-8.2 m) cargo stowage area. Cargo tie-down points stud the decking, and there is a decided "crown" (or hump) to the deck to drain off any seawater. A nominal load of 119,980 1b/54,421 kg can be spread over 1,809.5 ft/168.1 m of space. If necessary, this can be raised to an overload of 149,978 lb/68,027 kg as long as the seastate is moderate (the pounding of the waves in a high seastate can cause structural damage). Along with the deck cargo, there is room in the deckhouses for twenty-three passengers. Passenger accommodations are decidedly austere and very noisy when the LCAC is underway.

On the starboard side is the control cab, where the crew of five is located. This includes the LCAC commander, pilot, engineer, and navigator. U.S. Navy landing craft are commanded by a chief petty officer instead of a commissioned officer. This tends to make life aboard the landing craft a bit more relaxed and earthy than what you find aboard large amphibs; but don't think the enlisted crews of landing craft are lax about their responsibilities. On the contrary, they are highly professional, and over the last five decades, have won their share of Medals of Honor and Navy Crosses. Accommodations on the LCACs are spartan, with few of the "homey" amenities that we would find in the LCUs. Crews live on-board the ships where they are based, since LCACs lack galley and berthing facilities.

The control cab is laid out like an aircraft cockpit, which makes sense when you consider that an LCAC is more an aircraft than a surface craft. In fact, LCAC missions are listed on the daily ARG/MEU (SOC) air tasking order, to avoid interference with flight operations by helicopters and V/STOL aircraft. The control stations for the navigator, engineer, and pilot are laid out left to right. In addition to the throttle controls for the four TF-40B gas-turbine engines, there is a helm control station with instruments to assist in steering and navigation. These include a modified LN-66 navigation radar (to detect surface targets and land masses); an inertial system, known as the Attitude Heading and Reference Unit (AHRU); and a speedometer known as the High-Speed Velocity Log (HSVL). Like the Doppler sensing systems used on helicopters, described in Armored Cav, these sensors determine position, heading, and speed. A GPS receiver feeds into both the AHRU and HSVL systems, which makes pinpoint, split-second accurate landing possible for the first time. Now, all of this data is worthless if you cannot share it over a secure and robust communications system. The LCACs are fitted with a variety of VHF, UHF/VHF, HF, and FM transceivers, ranging from Motorola "Handy-Talkies" to fully encrypted digital radio systems.

The LCAC's role makes good communications a mission-critical feature. The LCAC is much faster than any previous landing craft. Speeds of up to 50+ kt/91 + kph are common, depending on load and seastate. This capability means that the big amphibious ships that operate LCACs no longer need to stand a few thousand yards/meters off of an enemy coastline, vulnerable to enemy fire. In fact, LCAC-EQUIPPED ships can stay up to 50 nm/91 km offshore and still be able to put a wave of loaded LCACs onto a beach every three hours. This three-hour cycle time is the normal turnaround used by Navy and Marine planners in landing operations. It assumes an hour each way for transit time, plus a half hour on each end for loading and unloading. This is what "standoff" really means, and LCAC is the first of three new systems (LCAC, the MV-22B, and the AAAV) that makes standoff amphibious assault possible.

You may wonder why so many navigational systems are necessary. If you have ever tried to navigate a boat 50 nm/91 km offshore, you would understand! As you approach a coastline, the reference points you use to determine your course and position are slow to appear, and even easier to miss. Now add in fog, rain, spray, darkness, currents, and uncharted rocks. Getting lost at sea is easy! History is replete with stories of amphibious landings which hit the wrong beach, even when the right one was in sight from the amphibious ships a few thousand yards away. Now, just imagine what kinds of errors are possible from 50 nm/91 km out!

The GPS receiver, with positional accuracy of a few yards/meters and timing accuracy within milliseconds, is the most valuable navigational system for keeping LCAC on course and on time. But a new system is coming on-line to assist that. Known as the Amphibious Assault Direction System (AN/KSQ-1), it ties every ship, aircraft, and landing craft in an ARG/MEU (SOC) into a common network, feeding positional data from each unit's onboard GPS system. This lets the LFOC and CIC monitor real-time positional, heading, and velocity information on every friendly unit in the area. This system should eliminate many of the coordination problems inherent to amphibious operations.

Riding aboard an LCAC is different from any other boating experience you will ever have. First, the entire LCAC is buttoned up and the bow and stern ramps raised. When the turbine engines start, the noise is tremendous, and safety rules prohibit any exposed personnel on deck during transit. Even inside the deckhouses, earplugs and/or hearing protection is a necessity to make the turbine whine endurable. To back out of the well deck of a ship like Wasp or Whidbey Island, the pilot reverses the forward maneuvering thrustors to ease out. One advantage of the LCAC over conventional landing craft like the LCU or LCM is that the mother ship's well deck does not have to be "flooded down." Because of their ability to "climb" over obstacles up to 4 ft/ 1.2 m high, the LCAC can easily cross the lowered stern gate of an LHD, LHA, LSD, or LPD, simplifying operations for the ship's crew. This also reduces the seawater spray thrown up by the LCACs. This salt spray gets into nooks and crannies in the well deck overheads, causing corrosion that requires a lot of labor to repair. In fact, NAVSEA has plans for future dockships with "dry" well decks specifically designed for LCAC-type landing craft. Meanwhile, the Navy is experimenting with new-corrosion control techniques, including flame-sprayed coatings to prevent rust.

Once clear of the well deck, the pilot usually takes the craft to a holding/ assembly area where it waits for any other LCACs being launched. If necessary in a "hot" area, the LCAC(s) pick up an escort of AH-1W Cobra attack helicopters. Now the pilot turns the LCAC to its desired heading, and takes off. The acceleration is smooth and rapid, and you have the feeling of riding on a magic carpet, or perhaps a really fast vacuum cleaner! While there is a fair amount of vibration, it is not the pounding that you feel in a conventional landing craft on a rough sea. The lift air flowing under the skirt tends to smooth out the wave action, making transits under all but the worst conditions quite tolerable. Speeds of 40 to 50 kt/73.2 to 91.4 kph can easily be maintained except for handing a maximum (sixty-ton-plus) load in heavy seas. For the pilot, the LCAC is easy to handle, though it tends to sideslip in a hard turn. This is because there is no keel or rudder to "bite" into the water to hold it steady. The LCAC is actually "flying" above the water, and the sensation is not unlike riding in a low-flying helicopter. The LCAC is quite maneuverable at all speed ranges. And it is stable and easy to handle, even at slow speeds in confined areas like a well deck or narrow rivers or swamps.

During transit, the navigator constantly passes course corrections and speed recommendations to the pilot, so that they will hit the target area accurately and on time. This notion that a landing craft can transit 50 nm/91 km or more and arrive on time at a pre-planned point is still a source of wonder to old amphibious warfare veterans. In fact, as noted earlier, the ability of beachmasters of the Navy's beach control teams to receive troops, vehicles, and cargo has not kept up with the ability of ships to off-load them, even from over the horizon. Even the introduction of computerized bar-code tracking linked to satellite communication systems has not solved the traffic jams that develop on a busy beach. This is one reason why LCACs don't always stop at the surf-line to dump their cargo. The LCAC's capability to transit from water to land, and continue inland for a distance, is still being explored. For example, with a pre-surveyed GPS navigational point, an LCAC might unload an artillery battery several thousand yards/meters inland, far away from the maddening traffic jam of the beach. Such concepts are being integrated into the doctrine of Marine amphibious units right now.

As you approach the shoreline, the beach comes up fast, and there is the feeling of an impending crash into a oncoming wall. Then the pilot begins to retard the throttles a bit and decides where to transit onto the beach. In fact, when you actually "hit" dry land, the feeling is like going up the ramp of a parking garage. The pilot then follows the instructions of the beach control party on where to stop and unload. The lift fans are killed, the skirt deflates, and the LCAC is ready to disembark its cargo. Once the bow and/or stern ramps are lowered, vehicles and troops can off-load in just a minute or two. For palletized cargo or containers, it takes a bit longer, as a forklift or palletized lifter vehicle is needed to unload the cargo deck. Unloading completed, the crew buttons up, fires up the engines, and heads back to the mother ship for another load. In the case of a LHD or LSD where two or more LCAC may be vying for space in a well deck, the craft are parked nose to tail. Then, with the bow and stern ramps lowered, vehicles drive through one LCACs to reach the other one.

While the LCAC has done quite well in its first decade of service, don't think that hauling cargo, vehicles, and Marines is all that the Navy wants to do with it. Concepts to expand the options for LCAC include increased personnel capacity, using a cargo deck passenger module. LCAC is now limited to just 23 passengers in the deckhouse spaces, but the module can carry up to 180 personnel (plus the 23 in the deckhouse) per trip. Configured for medical evacuation, the same module might carry up to 50 litter cases per trip, as well as 23 walking wounded in the deckhouse. This is important to the Marines, given the "golden hour" of combat trauma cases. Survival rates for wounded personnel are directly related to how quickly they reach medical facilities aboard the LHD/LHD or LPD. The Navy has ordered a number of these modules, and they should be coming into the force soon.

Another use for LCACs is in mine warfare. The Navy has funded demonstrations of LCACs equipped to both lay and sweep underwater mines, as well as a rocket propelled system that throws an explosive mine-clearing charge over a beach landing zone from offshore. There have also been studies of using the LCAC as a gunboat to support landing operations. Though the LCACs are unarmed (mounts for three machine guns are normally not used), there are concepts for mounting 20mm and 25mm cannons. The Marines have demonstrated the ability to fire vehicle mounted weapons such as the LAV's 25mm Bushmaster cannon and the 120mm gun on a M-1A1 tank from landing craft.

With only ninety-one LCACs either delivered or under contract, it is likely that the Navy and Marines will jealously guard them for their primary mission as ship-to-shore delivery systems. In this role it is not, of course, ideal (like all designs, it is a set of engineering compromises). For one thing, it is more vulnerable than conventional landing craft to enemy fire, but has the speed and maneuverability to avoid many threats. And the LCAC cannot handle extreme seastates as well as a conventional landing craft like the LCU or LCM, but it can land cargo under a wider variety of coastal conditions. Still, don't get the idea that LCACs are not tough. One unit, LCAC-42 (landing craft have only pennant numbers, not names), has survived two major incidents, and is still in service. It hit a protruding coral head sideways during one exercise, and struck a large navigation buoy on another, but got off with only minor damage and is still hauling for the Pacific Fleet. In over ten years of LCAC service, the U.S. Navy has yet to lose even one in operations. Plan on seeing LCACs around for a long time to come. A SLEP (Service Life Extension Program) will extend the planned twenty-year service life of the LCAC fleet to a full thirty years. Next-generation landing craft will be air-cushioned. Scaled-down designs for LCM-SIZED LCACs are being considered as general-purpose deliver platforms for the ARGs of the mid-21st century. Not bad for a giant air hockey puck.

Landing Craft, Utility (LCU)

It might surprise you that in an era of satellite navigation and computerized logistics, a large percentage of landing craft used by the Navy and Marines are virtually identical to World War II types. Many such craft will continue to serve well into the 21st century. Currently, the largest of these is the Landing Craft, Utility (LCU). In fact, the LCU is the largest Navy vessel that is not commanded by an officer. The LCU is a ship, with full crew accommodations (galley, berthing, heads, etc.) for its crew often (fourteen in wartime). It has enough range (up to 1,200 nm/2,195 km at economical speeds) to transit the Mediterranean or Baltic Seas in even the worst weather. LCUs are the heavy haulers among landing craft, in the twilight of their years, but still doing a vital job. Let's have a look.

Like other conventional landing craft, the LCU design dates back to the 1940s. The idea behind the LCU was simple. Take the largest possible cargo/vehicle load possible, deliver it to and from a hostile shore, and then return to a mother ship-usually one of the first-generation LSDs. The LCU can carry up to 180 tons of vehicles, troops, and cargo at speeds approaching 12 kt/22 kph in virtually any seastate or weather, and deliver them to a "hot" shoreline. It is a big, brutish sort of craft, with none of the LCAC's futuristic look. In fact, the beast looks like it could seriously hurt a bigger vessel by ramming (this is no joke; it probably could!). These classic landing craft, loved by their crews and prized by the ARG and MEU (SOC) commanders, are still finding new ways to serve.

Like the LCAC, the LCU is a "double-ended" design, with ramps at both ends allowing vehicles to load by driving through one LCU to get to the next one. They are constructed of heavy steel, welded back in the days where the quality control test was a long swing with a sledgehammer! The LCU may be one of the most bullet-resistant craft in the Navy, which explains why they are frequently used as gunboats and escorts for rubber boats and AAV-7s. LCUs were built by many contractors, such as Defoe Shipbuilders of Wisconsin, General Ship & Engine Works of Boston, Gunderson Brothers of Oregon, Moss Point Marine of Mississippi, and Southern Shipbuilders of Louisiana. Their construction was simple, requiring no special skills or equipment. Though the original LCUs date back to 1951, the class currently in service, the LCU- 1610s, were built between 1959 and 1985. During all that time, the design was essentially unchanged, except for one experimental unit constructed of aluminum.

The LCU is essentially a floating steel box or barge, with a deckhouse to starboard, fore and aft loading ramps, and some side plating to keep passengers in and water out. Powered by four GM/Detroit Diesel engines (each delivering 300 hp), they are some of the most powerful ships per ton of displacement in the Navy. They are even used as tugs when actual tugboats are not available to push barges and lighters around. When you climb up the bow ramp of a LCU, you are immediately struck by how functional everything is. The chief petty officers who run the LCUs do so in a no-nonsense fashion, without pretensions to polishing the brass or keeping the paint clean. But I defy you to find a line out of place, corrosion forming, or a hatch left undogged. This is the Navy of the old chiefs, where you find little of the high technology or political correctness that permeate the big ships of the "real" Navy. Aside from a portable GPS receiver in the pilothouse and a small homegrown cable TV/VCR network down in the crew berthing spaces, everything on the LCUs of the 1990s would be familiar to your grandfather, if he was a sailor in the 1940s. The steel deck has tie-down stanchions to keep heavy gear and cargo from shifting in heavy seas; and since the cargo deck is open to the elements, the crew quickly hands you a life preserver. There is a winch-driven anchor system to drag the LCU off of the beach if the tide goes out while it is beached.

The 121-by-25 ft/36.9-by-7.6-m cargo deck takes up most of the LCU's 134.75-ft/ 41.1-m length. The cargo deck can handle up to 1,850 ft/171.9 m of vehicles, troops, and cargo, up to a weight limit of 180 tons! Given that the LCU can deliver this load in almost any seastate, you can see why the Marines like to have LCUs hauling their heavy gear like 70-ton M1A1 Abrams tanks and large palletized-loading-system (PLS) trucks. In a seastate where an LCAC would be unable to haul a single M1A1, an LCU can carry two of the armored monsters, with space and capacity to spare.

The LCUs' long range means that they can be used as utility transports in closed waters (like the Baltic and Adriatic), returning to base to haul fresh food, spare parts, and that vital commodity, mail. LCU crews take working inshore quite seriously, and frequently mount machine guns, grenade launchers, and other weapons. They have even fired 25mm and 120mm cannons of embarked LAVs and M1A1s, which is awesome firepower. The LCU crews see themselves on the cutting edge of the recently reborn art of riverine warfare, and they practice it often in exercises.

As noted earlier, LCUs are warships, with their own berthing, galley, and head facilities. The galley, aft of the pilothouse in the starboard deckhouse, can whip up a full meal. In fact, when they are in the well decks of their mother ships, they require only power, water, and sewage hookups (some also ask for access to the ship's cable TV system) to live independently from the ship's company. They buy their own food from the mother ship's supply system, and even have their own communications call signs for message traffic from higher commands. The living facilities are located belowdecks, along with the engine rooms (there are two, separated to improve survivability), machine shop, and other necessities. You might call the living conditions spartan, but LCU crews like them just fine. In fact, life in an LCU is reminiscent of life aboard a submarine, with many of the same benefits and drawbacks. As with a submarine, the only private space is the captain's cabin, though the commander of an LCU is only a chief petty officer! Don't say "only" a chief, though, because these men know their stuff! There is a saying in the Navy that if you want someone to think, ask an officer. But if you want it done, ask a chief…nicely!

For all of their age, the LCUs are a pleasure to ride. One of the joys of preparing this book was a late summer ride out to the USS Wasp (LHD-1) on the bridge (above the pilothouse) of an LCU. Stable as a rock as we headed into the huge well deck, we could not help feeling that we had rediscovered something wonderful about the world. The LCUs ride well, even in a heavy or following sea, and can handle almost any climate from the heat and dust of North Africa to the ice and cold of Norway. They also fit well aboard amphibious ships, as the following chart shows:

As you can see, amphibious ships trade about two LCACs for each LCU. Given the LCU's compatibility with older ships like the LHAs and LSD-36s (for which they were designed), it's a shell game to mix and match ships and landing craft to obtain the ideal combination of landing craft for a particular mission. For example, when Captain C.C. Buchanan (Commander of Amphibious Squadron Four, PHIBRON-4) was configuring his force for the 1995/96 cruise of PHIBRON- 4 and its embarked Marine unit, the 26th MEU (SOC), he decided on the following mix. Aboard USS Wasp (LHD-1, his flagship), he embarked three LCACs from ACU-4 at Little Creek, Virginia. He then ordered up one LCU each for USS Whidbey Island (LSD-41) and USS Shreveport (LPD-12) from ACU-2 (the Atlantic Fleet LCU unit: ACU-1 services the Pacific Fleet), also at Little Creek. This mix made optimum use of available well deck space, and provided maximum lift capacity for the coming Mediterranean cruise. It was a prudent decision. Sailors and Marines are conservative, and they believe in the reliability of the big steel LCUs. In fact, the LCUs are scheduled to get the fancy new AN/KSQ-1 Amphibious Assault Direction System, which says something about their longevity in the eyes of Naval planners. "Rusty but trusty," the LCUs fill a vital role in the amphibious Navy.

Landing Craft, Medium (LCM)

The last landing craft we will look at is by far the eldest: the venerable Landing Craft Medium, Mark 8. The LCM-8 is the last direct link with the kind of landing craft you see in old war movies storming the beaches of Normandy or Iwo Jima. The basic design of this long-serving utility craft dates back to a British vessel of the early 1940s. Back then, the requirement was to haul a thirty-ton tank or equivalent load from an offshore transport. Other than increasing the payload capacity to accommodate a modern main battle tank, not much has changed.

The basic LCM-8 is a metal box, with a retractable bow ramp and a pair of 165 hp marine diesels. Most of the LCM-8s are made of high-tensile steel, though some units were welded aluminum to reduce weight for stowage aboard LKA-113-class assault cargo ships. Aft is a small pilothouse. And that is about it. There are armament or berthing facilities for the crew of five (they live aboard their mother ship). The cargo area is open to the elements. The LCM-8 can make about 10 kt/18 kph for a range of about 190 nm/347 km with a sixty ton cargo load or perhaps 125 Marines. An LCM-8 can carry every piece of ground equipment in a MAGTF, except the M1A1 Abrams tank. The LCM-8s roll a fair amount, and can ride decidedly rough in heavy seas. Nevertheless, they are quite seaworthy, despite the pounding that they deliver to their passengers and cargo.

Currently, though the capability does still exist, an ARG carrying an MEU (SOC) would almost never carry LCM-8s. Where you find the LCM-8 is in the three maritime preposition squadrons. There they function as cargo carriers for vehicles and equipment. They act as tugs for barges, and transport personnel between ships. Many allied forces, including Britain's Royal Navy, use the LCM, and will continue to for some time. After a half century of service, however, the LCM's retirement from the U.S. Navy is finally at hand. Within the next ten to fifteen years, the last LCMs will leave U.S. service, becoming a fond memory to the sailors that crewed them. They have served in wars from the Pacific to the South Atlantic, with distinction.

What will replace them? By about 2010, the Navy will need a landing craft with a cargo capacity in the thirty-five-to-fifty-ton range. A logical successor might be a downsized LCAC. In addition to carrying cargo, a gunboat version able to escort LCACs or AAAVs would be very useful. The problem, of course, is money. There simply is no budget for anything but paper studies, and no program office has been chartered to solve the problem. Given the fiscal limitations of the next decade or so, you might see LCMs serving well into the first quarter of the 21st century. They are simple. They work. That alone may keep them around for some time to come.