The Moku Daihatsu Class or 15m landing craft was a type of

landing craft Landing craft are small and medium seagoing watercraft, such as boats and barges, used to convey a landing force (infantry and vehicles) from the sea to the shore during an amphibious assault. The term excludes landing ships, which are larger. Pr ...

, used by the

Imperial Japanese Army The was the official ground-based armed force of the Empire of Japan from 1868 to 1945. It was controlled by the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff Office and the Ministry of the Army, both of which were nominally subordinate to the Emperor o ...

during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. It was similar to the Landing Craft, Vehicle, Personnel (LCVP), with a bow ramp that was lowered to disembark cargo upon riding up onto the beach. It was constructed of a plywood hull and powered by a gasoline engine. The landing craft had problems with the plywood decomposing quickly in the tropics.

References

*Jentschura, Hansgeorg; Jung, Dieter; and Mickel, Peter. Translated by Brown, J.D. 1977. Warships of the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1869–1945. Naval Institute Press. . *Merriam, Ray. 2006. Japanese Landing Craft of World War II. Bennington, VT: Merrian Press. Landing craft {{WWII-stub