Air-cushioned_landing_craft

Air-cushioned landing craft

Air-cushioned landing craft

Military hovercraft designed for landing troops and equipment in amphibious operations

For the US Navy hovercraft known as LCAC, see Landing Craft Air Cushion.

An air-cushioned landing craft, also called an LCAC (landing craft, air cushioned), is a modern variation on the amphibious landing boat. The majority of these craft are small- to mid-sized multi-purpose hovercraft, also known as "over the beach" ("OTB") craft. This allows troops and material to access more than 70 percent of the world's coastline, while only approximately 15 percent of that coastline is available to conventional boat-type landing craft. Typical barriers to conventional landing craft are soft sandy beaches, marshes, swampland, and loose surfaces. Air cushion technology has vastly increased the landing capability of the craft, providing greater speed and flexibility over traditional landing craft.

A USN LCAC at Camp Pendleton

Like the mechanized landing craft, they are usually equipped with mounted machine guns; they also support grenade launchers and heavy weapons.

Types

Zubr class LCAC

See also

References

    Wikimedia Commons has media related to Air-cushioned landing craft.
    Share this article:

    This article uses material from the Wikipedia article Air-cushioned_landing_craft, and is written by contributors. Text is available under a CC BY-SA 4.0 International License; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.