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 A hovercraft, also known as an air-cushion vehicle or ACV, is an amphibious craft capable of travelling over land, water, mud, ice, and other surfaces. Hovercraft use blowers to produce a large volume of air below the hull, or air cushion, ...

, 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

beach A beach is a landform alongside a body of water which consists of loose particles. The particles composing a beach are typically made from rock, such as sand, gravel, shingle, pebbles, etc., or biological sources, such as mollusc shells ...

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

Types

Aist-class LCAC The Aist class (NATO-Code; Russian ''Project 12321 Dzheyran'') was the first large assault hovercraft operated by the Soviet Navy. It was designed by the Almaz design bureau wing of the Almaz Shipbuilding Company in 1964–1965. Production of ...

(Soviet tank-carrying hovercraft) * Griffon-GRSE 8000 TD-Class Hovercraft *

Gus class LCAC The Gus-class LCAC code Project 1205 Skat was a medium-sized assault hovercraft operated by the Soviet Navy from 1969 until the early 1990s. Configuration The Gus class was a military version of the Soviet Skate class 50 passenger hovercraft, a ...

Jinsha II-class LCAC The Type 722 II class LCAC with NATO reporting name Jinsha II class LCAC () is a medium size air-cushioned landing craft (hovercraft) operated by the People's Liberation Army Navy of China. It is frequently but erroneously referred by many as Dagu ...

* Landing Craft Air Cushion (LCAC) *

LCAC(L) The Landing Craft Air Cushion (Light), or LCAC(L), is a small amphibious hovercraft able to transverse both land and water. Like all amphibious landing craft in the Royal Navy, they are operated by the Royal Marines to transport troops or equipmen ...

LSF-II 631 The ''Solgae''-class LCAC ( Hangul: 솔개급 고속상륙정, Hanja: 솔개級高速上陸艇), often called ''Solgae 631'' class ( Hangul: 솔개 631급, Hanja: 솔개631級) because of the name of lead ship, is an air-cushioned landing craf ...

Ship-to-Shore Connector The Ship-to-Shore Connector (SSC), also known as the LCAC 100 class, is a system proposed by the United States Navy as a replacement for the Landing Craft Air Cushion (LCAC). It will offer an increased capacity to cope with the growing weight of e ...

(LCAC-100 class) *

Tsaplya-class LCAC The Tsaplya class LCAC (Project 1206.1, Murena) is a medium size assault hovercraft operated by the Russian Navy. History These crafts are a lengthened version of the Lebed class LCAC hovercraft, which is the Russian Navy equivalent to the U.S ...

Type 724 LCAC Type may refer to: Science and technology Computing * Typing, producing text via a keyboard, typewriter, etc. * Data type, collection of values used for computations. * File type * TYPE (DOS command), a command to display contents of a file. * Typ ...

Type 726 LCAC The Type 726 LCAC (with NATO reporting name Yuyi class) is a class of air-cushioned landing craft used by the People's Liberation Army Navy. Six Yuyi-class LCACs are believed to be in service with the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), with the fi ...

* ''Solgae''-class LCAC *

Zubr-class LCAC The Zubr class, Soviet designation Project 1232.2, (NATO reporting name "Pomornik") is a class of Soviet-designed air-cushioned landing craft (LCAC). The name "Żubr" is Polish for the European bison. This class of military hovercraft is, , the ...

References

External links

{{commons category, Air-cushioned landing craft * http://www.navy.mil/navydata/fact_display.asp?cid=4200&tid=1500&ct=4 * http://www.hazegray.org/features/nato/us/lcac/ * http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/ship/lcac-specs.htm * https://fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ship/lcac.htm Military hovercraft Landing craft

Types

See also

References

External links