Feature 2 | AMPHIBIOUS VESSELS Amphibious ships continue to evolve


An impasse over price has dampened France’s hopes of a controversial major warship order, an event which is significant because it does not involve an aircraſt carrier, frigate or submarine but amphibious vessels.


T


he controversy reflects the growing importance of these vessels, an importance underlined by the


revelation in May that the helicopter carrier HMS Ocean would deploy Apache attack helicopters for operations over Libya in support of United Nations’ Resolution 1973. Te planned order is from the Russian


Government and is for up to four of the Mistral class Bâtiment de Projection et de Commandement (BPC), modified to meet Russian requirements, of which two would be built in St Petersburg. Talks continued during the early summer despite the concerns of France’s NATO partners about giving Moscow access to Western technology. Moscow’s requirement follows the


disappointing experience of the Russian armed forces when they attempted amphibious operations against Georgia in August 2008. It is worth noting that the ceasefire in this conflict was brokered by the French who held the presidency of the European Union at the time. Although the Russians were able to land troops unopposed, the Russian Navy recognised there had been major changes in amphibious warfare and that these needed to be reflected in new doctrine and ships, especially the augmentation and replacement of the fleet of landing ships, some of which are 45 years old. The traditional amphibious assault,


repeated in numerous movies, saw the task group deployed to the objective area in dedicated attack transports (the US Navy designation was AKA for cargo vessels and APA for infantry carriers) carrying landing craſt. Also used were dock landing ships (LSD), first used by the Japanese Army in China during the late 1930s, which have a well deck for loading the landing craſt with troops and vehicles sheltered from the worse of the elements. Landing craft, for infantry (LCI) and


vehicles and tanks (LCT), were deployed from the larger ships, circled into assault


Warship Technology July/August 2011


The Iwo Jima class helicopter carriers are an evolutionary development of earlier classes, with improved troop and cargo spaces and flight-deck ‘spots’ for up to seven helicopters.


formation then carried the assault force to the beaches with gunfire support provided by surface combatants. Once the assault waves had stormed the defences and established a beachhead shallow-draft landing ships (LST, LSM, LSI and LSU) would arrive, ground on the strand, open bow doors and drop ramps to aid the rapid debarking of men and equipment, who would help expand the beachhead.


Stand-off operations Wartime amphibious assaults required huge fleets of ships operating offshore but the early post-war nuclear weapon tests, notably at Bikini, demonstrated their vulnerability and amphibious assault began a growing process of stand-off operations. The introduction from the late 1950s of anti-ship missiles into coastal defence underlined this vulnerability, which meant that amphibious operations would also have to be conducted by smaller task groups,


the US Marines


opting for a landing craft deployment distance of 25nm (46km). Te helicopter


provided an early means of overcoming these problems at a time when the new generation of jets required larger carriers, so several navies converted light carriers into helicopter carriers, which were first used at Suez in 1956, with troops now able to deploy behind coastal defences to seize key objectives. Rotary-wing aircraft have grown in


importance as the traditional amphibious operation faded into history, but the concept was publicly questioned by US Defense Secretary Dr Robert M Gates at the US Navy’s Sea Air Convention in 2010, and the US Marine Corps is increasingly relying upon its tilt-wing MV-22 Osprey. Helicopter carriers, such as the British Centaur class, suffered several shortcomings, notably the inability to deploy larger landing craſt which could bring in vehicles, heavy weapons and stores. Te purpose-built US Navy Iwo Jima


(LPH 2) class helicopter carriers from 1960 were an evolutionary development with improved troop and cargo spaces and flight-deck ‘spots’ for up to seven helicopters. From experience gained


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