LargeSlowTarget
Posts: 4443
Joined: 9/23/2000
From: Hessen, Germany - now living in France
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You talk LST, you talk my language... ;) If you are not familiar with landing ships and craft, here is some info:
In WWII the Allies used two types of vessels designed to beach themselves and quickly discharge troops, vehicles and cargo directly onto a landing beach. The larger variety were the landing ships, the smaller ones were the landing craft.
Landing ships were oceangoing vessels, seaworthy enough to cross open waters. They could be loaded with assault troops at a rear base, move to the objective under their own power, and discharge their cargo directly onto the beach. The main types were the LST (Landing Ship Tank, 300 feet long, full displacement 4000 tons, max speed 12 knots, capacity 20 tanks) and the LSM (Landing Ship Medium, 200 feet long, 1000 tons, 12 knots max, 4-6 tanks).
Landing craft were much smaller and lacked oceangoing qualities. They were used to transfer troops and equipment from AP/AK transports to the beach and for short hops along the coast.
The larger types were the LCT (Landing Craft Tank, 115 feet, 290 tons, 10 knots, 3-4 tanks) and the LCI (Landing Craft Infantry, 150 feet, 390 tons, 200-250 men). These craft were capable of short-range assaults in coastal waters from a friendly port to an objective up to 100 miles away.
The smaller landing craft are the well-known (seen in many films) LCVP (Landing Craft Vehicles and Personnel, 36 feet, 10 tons empty, 36 men or a Jeep) and LCM (Landing Craft Medium, 50 feet, 23 tons empty, 60 men or a tank).
The smallest landing 'craft' were the LVT (Landing Vehicle Tracked, an amphibious APC) and the DUKW (an amphibious truck), which were truly amphibious vehicles capable of swimming and driving.
These smaller craft were carried on the deck of transports (lowered into the water like life-boats) or inside the LSD (Landing Ship Dock, 450 feet, 4500 tons, 15 knots, 3 preloaded LCT or 14 preloaded LCVP or 41 LVT in the dock inside the stern).
Landing ships and craft were armed with 40mm and 20mm AA guns, quite a few were converted into fire support vessels with 5-inch guns, mortars, more AA and rocket launchers. The wear, tear and hull stress during the run up onto the beach reduced the life span of a landing ship to a dozen landings at most.
The main benefit of these vessels was that they could beach themselves to land troops, tanks, jeeps, trucks, trailers (in most cases already loaded with supplies), bulldozers, artillery etc. directly onto the beach, often sending them straight into battle. Their cargo could be discharged in a few hours or even minutes, which was also important for a quick turn-around-and-get-away. In comparison, AP/AK types required a transfer of their cargo into barges and landing craft for the run to the beach, a rather slow and labor-intense process. Transports often took days to unload - even if combat-loaded, which was a bad thing in face of possible enemy reactions by air, surface and submarine counter-attacks.
The main drawback of the beaching vessels was their small cargo capacity - hull stress upon beaching puts limits on the size of beaching vessels - and their slow speed.
The designs of landing ships and landing craft corresponded with the basic types of amphibious operations - shore-to-shore and ship-to-shore.
Shore-to-shore operations embarked and disembarked the landing force in/from the same vessels, usually landing ships and craft of the LST, LSM, LCT and LCI types. Since landing craft had little oceangoing ability, shore-to-shore operations usually covered relatively short distances in coastal waters. Many operations in the Solomons and PNG areas were shore-to-shore movements.
Amphib assaults against more distant targets across open waters required ship-to-shore operations. Many operations in the Central Pacific area were of this type. The landing force was embarked in transports (AP/AK) and landing ships. Upon arrival at the objective troops and equipment were tranferred from the transports into the landing craft for the run to the beach, usually LCT, LCI, LCM, LCVP and LVT types. As mentioned, LST and LSM types were a special case, since they didn't require a transfer but carried troops and equipment from the staging area directly to the landing beach - a kind of long-distance-shore-to-shore rather than ship-to-shore operation.
In UV, the numerous types of landing ships and craft are represented by the LST and LCI which are modeled like the other ships (individually sent from Pearl), and by the LCM and LCVP, which like PT boats are created en masse using supplies from transport TFs and which are essentially the USN version of the IJN barges.
Since they unload and retire out of harm's way quickly, LST and LCI are useful if you don't want to risk APs under the nose of the enemy. This is important when you assault beach dots without a base, because AP/AK types take forever to unload without port facilities. LST and LCI can drop off their loads quickly and retire during the same turn, reducing exposure to enemy reactions. This works best with unoccupied hexes, since the number of assault troops carried by the few LST/LCI tends to be rather small and against opposition your few troops maybe pushed back into the sea.
Concerning the LCM and LCVP, it is obvious that the 'organic' craft carried by the AP and AK types for assault/transport purposes are not represented, while 'independent' vessels of these types can be generated as barges. They are useful to carry supplies to lightly held hexes or to hexes where enemy opposition is heavy and you don't want to risk larger ships. But their impact on the progress of the game will be rather small in most cases.
Btw, will there be fire support versions of the landing ships and craft in WITP?? A transport TF with assault troops including a couple of LCI(R) and gunboats for close support...
Well, enough ranting for tonight. :D
LST
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