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When Britain’s Expeditionary Force limped home from Dunkirk on any and every British bottom that could be rallied—from destroyers, facing page, to pleasure boats—Churchill called for the building of ships to take them back on the attack. One such ship, the LSD, conceived by a Royal Navy captain, built in U. S. yards, remains, some 40 years later, a mainstay of the Free World’s amphibious forces.
Landings had been practiced, using motor launches from combat ships of the fleet. The problem of getting artillery ashore was solved by adopting the old Army pack howitzer, designed for transport on mules. It could be disassembled into several parts and manhandled ashore from boats with the marines acting as mules. It was a long way from being cast up on a beach by great ships.
There was much to dim the enthusiasm of the Navy for amphibious operations. The brass-bound 18th-century language of the Articles for the Government of the Navy was quite clear: “He who doth suffer his ships to founder on rocks or shoals shall be punished. . . .”
Grinding boats onto a beach and withdrawing, with the accompanying risk of broaching in the surf, was not a popular activity. Neither was ferrying heavy-footed troops laden with combat equipment from ship to shore. Brightwork became tarnished and dented; shining gunwales were marred; paint was chipped. All this meant labor and materials from limited stores, particularly during the threadbare thirties.
The marines, being seafarers too—although something less than complete in the eyes of sailors—
recognized and accepted the inadequacies and inconveniences of battleships and liberty boats used for the amphibious task. They sought solutions. Being landsmen also, it was obvious to them that any defended beach would be less than overwhelmed by marines, however doughty, armed with rifles and bayonets. But anything more than that called for specialized landing craft. The soundness of their reasoning was not matched by the weight of their purse. Hat in hand, they went to the Navy and together they experimented with various barges and lighters.
In the past, troops had always gone over the sides of the boats and waded ashore; that was the accepted condition. All agreed that a boat had to have a proper bow. This had been true since the first dugout canoe, and the tradition was firmly planted. Tanks, artillery pieces, and vehicles, however, were a different matter. They could not vault over a gunwale nor wade through the surf. Some kind of ramp from boat to shore was needed. Maintaining a seaworthy bow precluded such a ramp forward so, with infinite logic, the necessary ramp was fitted astern. That took care of the aquatic requirement and satisfied the Navy.
On the shore end, the solution was more awkward. The incoming lighter with its load had to be turned about offshore and nudged into the beach stern first. Doing this in surf was invariably interesting and commanded the undivided attention of all hands involved. The thought of accomplishing this maneuver under enemy fire was disturbing but endured. It was the price paid for an unencumbered bow and relief from the worry of some character dropping the ramp into a swell.
More than 200 of these lighters were produced at considerable expense to the Navy. Some were powered; others had to be towed in to the beach. Despite their firm bows, their seaworthiness was disappointing, and their practical use in an assault landing was assessed at close to zero.
Somewhat desperately, the penny-pinching Marine Corps sought some kind of useful off-the-shelf craft on the open market. There were no research funds for what we now call R&D. However much was needed had to have been accomplished already by private industry. The search turned up two inviting possibilities.
Andrew Jackson Higgins, a boatbuilder in Louisiana, had developed a bluff-bowed craft capable of running up on a beach and pulling off under its own power. His original thought was its usefulness in the bayous. The fundless marines made friendly overtures and more than hinted their interest in such a craft that could carry a platoon or so of web-footed men. It became the “Higgins boat” which the Navy, after some initial reluctance, accepted as the landing craft, personnel (large)—the LCP(L), which became in time the standard wooden assault boat for beaching operations in World War II. Everyone was pleased with the initial naval version. It had a full bow which, although it had the appearance of a bull' head, satisfied the Navy. It could carry 36 fully equipped marines. The troops, as before, went over the side unpampered by a ramp and waded ashore- The British were equally impressed and bought the first 500 boats.
Another craft was discovered even more informally. This time, a man in Florida who had been toying with a tracked amphibian for use in the swamps of his native state, mostly as a rescue vehicle for the “cottonmouth-bit and ’gator-et” in the Everglades, came up with a landing craft design. Originally called the Roebling (after its designer) “Alligator,” it was the forerunner of the family of landing vehicle, tracked (LVT) still in use. The marines found out about the unique vehicle through a Life magazine article, which shows how inexpensively research can be done. The original model, designated the LVT(l), had no ramp. The vehicle ran up on dry land and the troops piled out over the sides and dropped to the ground. This proved to be embarrassing under fire. Neither the LCP(L) nor the LVT(l) were beyond the prototype military model in 1940.
To provide oceangoing transports for the troops instead of carrying them around in battleships—which had better things to do—the Navy turned to converted merchant ships. The ships and the craft they carried could (and quickly did) become shabby without reflecting—to the Navy’s considerable relief-— on the smartness of the rest of the fleet. It was the beginning of the amphibious forces, the “dungaree Navy,” which in turn acquired its own peculiar pride marked by an absence of paint and polish and a remarkable ability to accomplish difficult, disagreeable, and dangerous tasks.
The initial conversions before World War II were hurried, minimal, and with least cost. The landing craft were slung in the former lifeboat davits, most of them lowered by gravity and raised by hand winches. Reembarking troops clambered up cargo nets slung over the side, mustered at the winches, and cranked up the boat they had occupied. It was not a light chore: the LCP(L) weighed 6.5 tons. Additional craft were nested on the hatches and launched and retrieved with booms. Troops were billeted in the former cargo holds. The ventilation systems were only slightly better than those in the Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria. With troops on board, fresh water was issued in dribbles. Conditions afloat in the tropics contributed mightily to the desire of the troops to get ashore, with a defended beach considered only a minor inconvenience. This added to the traditional dash of the marines, who fought their way inland furiously to avoid going back on board ship.
Artillery and tanks were hold cargo, lifted in and out with booms. This confined their weight to tinker- toy level: the artillery to 75-mm. guns and the tanks
to light ones boasting a 37-mm. gun. The great ships casting up large numbers of the heaviest tanks were stiU in the future in 1940. They were to come to us from the British, in accordance with Churchill’s edict.
The British were hard-pressed in 1940. Mainland Europe’s coast was fortified and competently Wanned. It was no place for vaulting out of boats ur jockeying lighters offshore in daylight operations. *n the beginning, raids were made at night, prefer- at)ly in foul weather, with what ships and craft were available: powered craft carried on the davits of destroyers; small unpowered wooden craft stowed 0r> deck and towed ashore by the powered boats; and former work launches used for operating against rocky coasts.
Somewhat frantically, boatbuilders developed a fire against shore targets; a light machine gun (Bren gun) supplemented their fire. Some boats were equipped with two 2-inch mortars mounted aft for the same purpose. The coxswain was forward, on the starboard side, protected by an armored box. Scaling ladders could be carried on the broad flat gunwales. This was the first standard British assault boat, the landing craft, assault (LCA). The naval propensity for a closed bow had been crushed by the hard realities of combat—the bow ramp had taken over.
In the United States, we took another look at the LCP, cut a path through the bow. installed a bow ramp, and called it the landing craft, personnel (ramp)—LCP(R).
As raids mounted against the German-held shore.
slightly more handy craft for raids: the landing craft. Personnel (small)—LCP(S)—with portable bow ladders over which the troops could clamber ashore, fr also could be fitted with stretchers as a water arnbulance to evacuate casualties.
For heavier work against the German-held coast, the British came up with an improved craft with very Practical changes: a bow ramp, armored doors, and two Lewis guns (of World War I vintage) behind an armored shield forward that provided suppressing
Louisiana’s oilfields were a backdrop for a test run of the LCP (Nested) that evolved into the LCP (Ramp) and the rampless LCP (Large), which was armed with two .30 caliber machine guns. LVT(l)s, descendents ofRoebling’s “Alligator,’’ crawled ashore in the Pacific at the same time as a swarm of LCVPs prepared to embark U. S. troops for the invasion of Europe. A joint U. S./U. K. mission tested a truck-toting LCM(3), facing page, British troops boarded an LCM from the Hunter Liggett (APA-14), and an LCT carried U. S. reinforcements to Normandy.
boats were not enough. Larger craft, big enough to carry 90 to 100 men, were needed. The British designed a landing craft, infantry (small), designated the LCI(S). Wooden-hulled with topside armor, about 60 tons light displacement, with a 15-knot maximum speed, the LCI(S) could accommodate 100 men. They debarked over landing gangways. The British provided storage for 18 bicycles on the main deck, but there was no way to carry and land vehicles. Two to four 20-mm. guns were mounted. With expanded capacity and increased endurance, this design be-
catne our landing craft infantry (large)—LCI(L)— of World War II
For wheeled vehicles, the British were at first c°nfined to using commercial barges with the same Awkward stern ramp we had used in our tank and tlrtillery lighters. This landing barge, vehicle (LBV) soon superseded by the first British small tankending craft, the landing craft, mechanized (LCM). I could deposit a variety of loads across its bow [^amp: tanks or trucks of less than 16 tons, an artil- erY piece, six jeeps, two antitank guns, and various
other types of rolling or tracked equipment.
The United States followed with its LCM(2)— Mark-2 as opposed to the original British design, which was considered the Mark-1. These two were subsequently developed into the U. S. LCM(3), LCM(6), and LCM(8) series, and the British Mark- 4, -5, and -7 models.
To the British also goes credit for the prototype of the landing craft, tank (LCT). The Mark-1 was developed to carry three 40-ton tanks, or a greater number of lighter tanks (up to six 16-ton light tanks).
Subsequent models increased in size, capacity, and endurance. American models followed an even longer course, progressing through five models and changing from LCT to LCU (landing craft, utility), and thence after the war to landing ship, utility (LSU). It has since that time reverted to its prior designation of LCU.
The British Mark-8 LCT could carry eight of the heaviest tanks with an endurance of 2,500 miles at ten knots. The U. S. LCT(7), with a longer endurance for Pacific operations (3,500 miles at 12 knots), could carry five medium or three heavy tanks and was redesignated a ship—the landing ship, medium (LSM). Winston Churchill’s 1940 vision of great ships casting up large numbers of tanks on a beach was being realized.
The British had not waited for the slow development of tank-landing ships through generations of craft and their successive models. In the beginning, they took a group of oilers—all sister ships—and converted them to carry 18 medium or 22 light tanks. They were the Bachaquero, Misoa, and Tasajera. No doubt to the horror of naval architects and experienced seamen, they were equipped with bow doors and intended to land tanks directly on steep beaches. They were known as the Bachaquero class and designated as landing ships, tank (LSTs).
From these came the first designed oceangoing, tank-carrying ship, the LST(l). Called the Boxer class (Boxer, Bruiser, and Thruster) and British designed, they could each carry 13 medium or 20 light tanks and land them directly on a beach over a bow ramp.
That we could design our first LST in a few weeks was because of these British precedents. Churchill ’s great ships had come and America’s industrial capacity (and our sanctuary in the New World) allowed us to launch more than 800 of them during the war. Modern versions remain in service.
Another great ship was created by the British in response to Churchill’s call, the landing ship, dock (LSD). It was conceived by Captain T. A. Hussey. Royal Navy, and designed in England in September 1941. England was unable to build them under the smashing air raids of the Luftwaffe; we could. Four of them were built in the United States to serve in the Royal Navy; more than 20 others were built for the U. S. Navy during the war. The LSD type, now
extended to the helicopter-carrying LPD (amphibious transport dock), is still a mainstay of the amphibious forces.
Long after the war, assault boats and landing vehicles had given way in a large part to the concept of helicopter-borne amphibious assault: vertical envelopment. The U. S. Marine Corps deserves main credit for the concept—but the Royal Navy played an important role. Its first helicopter carrier was HMS Bulwark, which joined the British Fleet in 1958. This was a year before the keel was laid for our amphibious assault ship Iwo Jima (LPH-2).
We owe much more to the practical ingenuity of ae British as applied to naval warfare, from the Ulrcraft carrier (HMS Argus, 1918), to the Harrier vertical or short takeoff and landing jet. In between ar® sonar, radar, jet aircraft engine, steam catapult, j^irror landing system, angled deck, and ski-jump ' t'Off on aircraft carriers.
The billions we spend on research and the decades We commit to development are somehow compassed by the British with remarkable results. They niay laei^ the funds to produce what they conceive, ‘tnd may not have the industrial capacity to provide S|Jch products to their operating forces in sufficient quantities, but they do not lack ideas and the initi- a,lve to put them into practice.
The ability to innovate was a source of American Pnde at one time. The airplane, submarine, machine gun, and the armored warship came into the armies and navies of the world through American 'ugenuity. We were privileged to boast not wrongly ubout giving the world the more peaceful benefits
radio, telephone, phonograph, and incandescent "ght. Most of these came from individuals previ- °Usly obscure. Many of them were unqualified in lhe modern sense; that may be one of our problems ar>d one of Great Britain’s virtues.
It is most unlikely today that we would pay much Mention to an unemployed portrait painter offering lhe telegraph, two bicycle mechanics with a flying 'Puchine, a medical doctor with an idea about a machine gun, or a teacher of the deaf with a breadboard uiodel of a telephone. We might listen to a Ph.D. 'v*th a prototype electric light; it is doubtful if a man whose formal education ended at the third grade would get an equal hearing. At the time when German V-2 rockets were being launched against Great Britain, propelled by liquid-fueled rockets, we had their American inventor designing jet-assisted takeoff and rocket-assisted takeoff bottles for propellor- driven bombers.
There is a parallel between Churchill’s call for “great ships” and President John F. Kennedy’s call for an American on the moon within a decade: A great and daring mind evokes a great and daring response. In that response, it is ideas that are important, not their sources. One of our present problems may be that ideas are suffocated when the inertia of vast government can be overcome only by the inertia of huge corporations.
Finding a suitable assault boat in the Louisiana bayous sounds ridiculous today until we remember that it worked yesterday and we are still using the boat 40 years later. We may not find a better one without $100 million worth of R&D contracts.
It seems that the British Isles sometimes harbors a special kind of person; for each problem, there is some little gaffer with a ready answer. He surfaces out of the bowels of the Admiralty in a worn alpaca coat with leather patches on the elbows and frayed cuffs, and mildly asks the harassed captains and fretting admirals, “Why don't you . . .?” and they breathe a sigh of relief. Perhaps we could borrow a few, in a reverse lend-lease. Perhaps we could start listening to our own.
Don Wyckoffs experience wilh amphibious operations began as a rifle squad leader in the Fleet Marine Force before World War II, continued through that war. and extended to Korea and Vietnam. He retired in 1968 as a colonel and has been a professional writer since that time.
Naval progress was very rapid immediately following World War 11. Mine warfare craft numbered in the hundreds, and the stockpile of mines was built up to more than 100,000. The Soviet Navy has had only three additional experiences with mine warfare since World War II. In 1950, Soviet advisors directed the North Korean mining of Wonsan Harbor. Sampans and junks were used to lay some 3,000 mines, resulting in a 15-day delay in the landing of U. N. troops. More recently, in 1972, the Soviets assisted Bangladesh in opening the mined channel to Chittagong, and in 1974, Soviet mine counter- rrieasures ships and aircraft cleared the Straits of Gubal at the southern end of the Suez to reopen that vital waterway to international shipping.
Since the end of World War II, the Soviet Union has produced four separate classes of ocean minesweepers (MSOs), five classes of coastal minesweepers (MSCs), five classes of minesweeping boats (MSBs), and one class of minelayer. The total production run for the Soviet Navy was 233 MSOs, 300 MSCs, 103 MSBs, and three minelayers. There are still 145 MSOs, 105 MSCs, 106 MSBs, and three minelayers in operational service. Not only is the quantity of the Soviet building program impressive, their mine countermeasures ships are very capable and versatile. Although all the ocean minesweepers are of steel or aluminum-steel alloy construction, they are also equipped with light antiaircraft guns and minerails. The newest class, the “Natya" MSO, active in 1970, also has a capable sonar and RBU- 1200 ASW rocket launchers. The "Natya" displaces about 750 tons, and construction continues at the rate of three to four per year.
The Soviets have used nonmagnetic materials in their coastal minesweepers since the wooden-hulled “Vanya" class became operational in 1961. In 1967, the “Zhenya" class was commissioned using glass- reinforced plastic construction. Only two or three units were produced before reverting to the fiberglass-sheathed, wooden-hulled “Sonya" class which went into production in 1973. Three to four “Sonya" hulls continue to be delivered annually. All Soviet MSCs are armed with light antiaircraft guns, and as is the case with the “Natya” and “Yurka” class MSOs, they are being backfitted with quadruple launchers tor SA-7 “Grail" heat-seeking missiles.
The minesweeping boats have similarly undergone a transition from wood to their current construction of glass-reinforced plastic. The newest class, the “Olya,” became operational in 1976, while the most numerous, the 80-ton Yevgenya, has remained in production since 1970.
The Soviet arsenal also offers a wide variety of platforms capable of minelaying. Soviet submarines can carry mines, usually on a ratio of two mines for each torpedo. Nearly every Soviet aircraft can be equipped for minelaying, including the “Badgers," “Bears,” and “Backfires.” The older classes of Soviet warships were routinely equipped with mine- rails. This emphasis continues in the newer classes such as the Sovremennyy- and UdaIoy-c\ass destroyers, “Krivak”-class frigates, and “Grisha”- class corvettes; the numbers of ships available to carry and lay mines and their load capacity still provide the Soviets with a substantial surface minelaying capability. The combination of covert actions by submarines, rapid deployment of aircraft.
Proceedings / October 1982
and large capacities of surface ships gives the Soviet Navy the versatility to accomplish adequately any mining task required by the tactical situation. In addition, Soviet merchant and fishing fleets have the capability to contribute to Soviet mining operations.
The Soviet mine inventory is estimated to be between 200,000 and 300,000 mines. While it is expected that they have continued their penchant for holding onto obsolete equipment, their inventory can also be expected to include mines of the most modern technology, including magnetic, acoustic, and pressure-activated mines and combinations thereof. In addition, they should be expected to employ bottom, moored, and self-propelled mines.
Soviet writings of the 1950s and early 1960s reflect considerable interest in mine warfare. However, recent articles in the Soviet military press tend to be more concerned with technical developments and their impact on ASW rather than on mine strategy and tactics. But mine warfare has not been forgotten ln the Soviet Navy.
Since the 1950s, the Soviets have had excellence awards for all-navy competition in both minelay- mg and in minesweeping. Mining has also had a large part in almost every major naval exercise. Admiral Sergei Gorshkov’s 1975 and 1977 Navy Day speeches included special recognition for minesweep- lng achievements.
Soviet writers have indicated that mine warfare has a place in both a strategic and tactical role. In the strategic role, mines would support Admiral Gorshkov’s offensive “battle against the shore” in blocking ports, harbors, chokepoints, and straits, denying their use to Western warships and as an •tnti-SLOC measure. Tactically, mine warfare could he used in a defensive posture for base protection, 111 a pro-SSBN role, in support of amphibious actions, and to protect Soviet SLOCs from Western mterdiction.
The submarine has been considered by Soviet Writers to be the best minelaying platform because °f her covert capability, particularly for the mining °l Ports, harbors, and straits. The aircraft, because °f its speed and range, is considered the second best minelaying vehicle. The surface ship is too slow and too overt for offensive mining; however, her large capacity and excellent navigation make her ideal for defensive minelaying.
A great deal of time and effort in the West is spent °n the problem of Soviet interdiction of the sea- lanes using submarines against convoys. Admiral Gorshkov, while appreciating the importance of the SLOCs, has taken a different slant in his approach. In 1967, he said:
"The disruption of the ocean lines of communications, the special arteries feeding the military and economic potentials of these (imperialist) countries, has continued to be one of the most important of the Fleet’s missions.”1
In subsequent writings. Admiral Gorshkov has indicated that the traditional mission of interdiction has changed; in Sea Power of the State, he says that Western navies have made interdiction a secondary mission since 1957. In discussing interdiction in the nuclear era, he said:
“Operations entailing the disruption and interdiction of the enemy’s sea shipping, which formerly were directly related to the sphere of employing a fleet against the enemy’s fleet, today are taking a new direction. By being included in the overall system of naval operations against the shore, they are strengthening the attributes of the Navy which it has acquired due to its modern hardware—the capability to carry out strategic missions of an offensive nature through direct action against the source of the military strength of the enemy.’’2
He indicated that strategic weapons may be used against ports and harbors and other sources of enemy supply, a strategy that closely follows Lenin’s guidance for attacking the United States at its “weakest link,” the source of its raw materials and supply. The Soviet position seems to be that a campaign against the SLOCs will not be necessary because actions against the ports and sources of supply would be more effective. In dealing with making mines more destructive and ensuring their effectiveness in harbors, one Soviet author, V. D. Sokolovskii, has made a case for using nuclear mines, which he postulates would be delivered by submarine and used against large tonnage ships.
Soviet outlooks on mine warfare also reflect an awareness and respect for the historical record: “The absence in the fleet of the necessary number of anti-mine ships resulted in the period of the Great Patriotic War in losses of our fighting ships on mines, amounting in the Black Sea to 24 percent, the Baltic 49 percent and in the North Sea 22 percent of total losses. Mines were responsible for the destruction of 52 percent of all destroyers lost by us in the war. One cannot help noticing that losses on mines of fighting ships of the capitalist states in the Second World War were only 7.7 percent of total losses and the loss of destroyers 10.7 percent, i.e. five times less than the losses in our fleet.”3
It is hardly surprising that immediately following the war, the Soviets embarked on a minesweeper building program that has not diminished.
In his analysis of the German campaign in World War II, Admiral Gorshkov was critical because the Germans allowed their submarines to operate outside of air and surface cover. Second, he faulted them for delaying the start of an aerial mining campaign. Still, current Western estimations of a Soviet interdiction effort would have Soviet submarines operating independently, outside of air and surface cover. In addition, they put little consideration into
The order from Prime Minister Winston Churchill was in his usual grand style: “Let there be built great ships which can cast up
l11 a beach, in any weather, large numbers of the
neaviest tanks.’’
. * 1 * * * * * * 8 he time was June 1940. The British Empire stood ttiost alone against the might of the Axis powers, orway had been seized by Germany the month ctore. The Nazi war machine had swept over West- m Europe. Cut off, the British Expeditionary Force
, 11 the mainland had backed into the Dunkirk beach
ed with what was left of the French First Army. pre than 300,000 of them had been evacuated to
j'tgland taking only what they could carry. Most ot c'r heavy weapons and supplies were left behind. ermany held the coast of Europe from the North aPe to the Bay of Biscay.
. hhe indomitable Churchill, from the center of this wark defeat, looked beyond it to victory, one in which
8feat ships” would be needed to “cast up” armies °n the enemy-held shore.
• The United States would face the same problem !n months. A few in the Navy and Marine Corps ad been wrestling with it for 20 years. We, too, ^ould need great ships, but they were yet to come.