by Tom Clancy
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.
Landing Craft
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.
Landing Craft, Air Cushioned (LCACs) of Amphibious Craft Unit Four (ACU-4) operate during a 26th MEU (SOC) exercise in Tunisia in 1995.
OFFICIAL U.S. MARINE CORPS PHOTO
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 relat
ively 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!