CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. — A half-dozen sailors hover around their air-cushioned landing craft, readying to launch it from the nearby beach on their next mission. At a far end of Assault Craft Unit 5’s oceanfront compound, hard-hatted metalworkers and other civilian contractors work around LCAC 30, propped up in the large white shelter and stripped nearly bare of its propulsion, navigation, communications and payload systems. Nearby, LCAC 56, already down to its aluminum hull, is just beginning what will take 12 to 14 months to upgrade as part of a Navy-wide service-life extension program. LCAC 30 is expected to be operational by September, under a larger program to keep the Navy’s fleet of 80 landing craft in service until a new generation of hovercraft enters the fleet, possibly later this decade. Officials are counting on the SLEP to buy at least 10 more years, and maybe longer, beyond the landing crafts’ initial 20-year service life. The first LCACs entered the fleet in 1987, and the 91st and final craft was delivered in 2001. The Navy, which began the SLEP in 2002, plans to extend 73 LCACs, or most of the existing fleet. ——— To read more about the LCACs, pick up the next issue of Navy Times on newsstands today. To read it online, login here or subscribe now .
Posts Tagged ‘ assault-craft ’
Bataan heads for Haiti
ABOARD THE AMPHIBIOUS ASSAULT SHIP BATAAN — For most of the Bataan’s sailors, January was supposed to be a quiet month, preparing for a four-month shipyard availability.“We just returned from a seven-month deployment to 5th and 6th Fleets on Dec. 8, and here we are underway again,” Chief Mass Communications Specialist (SW/AW) Tony Sisti said.Sisti said many sailors took leave over the winter holidays before reporting back to work as a full crew Jan. 12.It was then the crew found out the yards were off, for now. Instead, the new mission is to aid in the humanitarian relief efforts following the massive earthquake that struck Haiti on Tuesday.“We’d basically cleaned out many of the ship’s food storerooms, preparing for the yard period, and had to reverse that and get ready to go in a couple of days — a big job for the supply department,” Sisti said. “Now we’ll head down to North Carolina to pick up about 1,300 Marines from the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit — along with portions of their air combat element.”Bataan and the dock landing ships Carter Hall and Fort McHenry pulled away from Norfolk, Va., on Thursday evening. The ships were scheduled to pull into Moorehead City, N.C., on Friday to load the Marines and their gear pier-side. Helicopters will be used to help speed the process.Also available to help with transporting the Marines aboard are three landing craft air cushions from Assault Craft Unit 4.“The goal is to get the ship loaded and headed to Haiti by [Saturday morning],” Sisti said. “Once out at sea, we’ll do a [replenishment] to bring on even more supplies we’ll need once we get down there.”Normally, amphibious assault ships deploy exclusively with Marine aircraft onboard. But as with other humanitarian operations, such as hurricanes Katrina and Rita and the Indonesian tsunami relief, there will be a mix of Navy and Marine aircraft.Still uncertain is what the ship and its aircraft will do there once they arrive at the devastated island nation.“All that should come clear during the transit to Haiti,” Sisti said. “Right now, the goal is to get the rest of the team onboard and start heading in that direction.”Related reading• 3 amphibs leave Virginia for Haiti
See the article here: Bataan heads for Haiti
Storming the Beaches: US Navy’s ACU-1 Craft Get Engine Overhaul
Invasion of Inchon during the Korean War (click to view larger) Pushed to the edge of the Korean penisula by a massive and sustained invasion by the North Korean army, South Korean, US, and UN troops dug in at a perimeter around the city of Pusan. It was the the summer of 1950 and things looked desparate for the allied forces. Then, US General Douglas MacArthur launched a bold counteroffensive – an amphibious landing at the port of Inchon near the 38th parallel. The landing was successful, MacArthur retook South Korea’s capital city of Seoul. The South Korean and allied forces broke through at Pusan and the North Korean army beat a hasty retreat. The tide of the Korean war had turned.
Read more:
Storming the Beaches: US Navy’s ACU-1 Craft Get Engine Overhaul