The sole survivor in the world’s navies of a once-common U.S. fire-support landing craft class, Thailand's Nakha, seen here last August, was completed in February 1945 by Commercial Iron Works, Portland, Oregon, as LSSL-102. One of 53 sisters transferred to the newly formed Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force in the 1950s, the craft was renamed when transferred to Thailand in October 1996. The 387-ton full load Nakha essentially retains her World War II configuration and is armed with one 76.2-mm single-fire Mk 26 dual-purpose gun mount forward, two twin 40-mni Mk 1 Mod. 2 antiaircraft mountings, four single 20-mm guns, and two .50-caliber machine guns. Thailand still operates two similar LCI(M)-351-class infantry landing craft.
The only example of the Serna-class high-speed landing craft in Russian Navy service is seen here in the Baltic in July 1996 with a Russian Naval Infantry Shilka 23-nim armored antiaircraft vehicle on board. The craft, completed in 1995, employs a semi-planing hull with an air cavity to provide underhull lubrication. Two Zvezda M503A-3 radial diesels give 3,300 brake horsepower to drive the fully loaded, 84.2-foot craft at 30 knots for up to 100 nautical miles. Up to 50 tons of vehicle cargo can be deployed to a beach, or 100 combat troops can be accommodated in the 42.6 by 13.1-foot cargo well under a portable canopy.
Although reportedly built as one of four Project 696 mine countermeasures craft between 1966 and 1969, this slab-sided craft has never received a NATO class name. Said to be about 25-meters long by 5.4-meters beam, the craft displaces about 115 tons full load and is seen here moored outboard an Olya-class (Project 1259) harbor minesweeper at Baltiysk on Russian Navy Day, July 1996. The hull form employs only flat shapes to achieve a pointed how, and the craft reportedly was intended to be remotely controlled while laying explosive line charges to destroy mine fields. The inset shows four of the eight Project 1300, Propyvatel’-class (NATO Tanya class) 90-ton, 82-foot, remotely controlled mine countermeasures drones completed 1966-70; like the more seaworthy German Troika drones, these craft have both noisemakers and diesel generator-driven magnetic mine-detonating solenoids on board.