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

sand Sand is a granular material composed of finely divided mineral particles. Sand has various compositions but is defined by its grain size. Sand grains are smaller than gravel and coarser than silt. Sand can also refer to a textural class o ...

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 sh ...

es,

marsh A marsh is a wetland that is dominated by herbaceous rather than woody plant species.Keddy, P.A. 2010. Wetland Ecology: Principles and Conservation (2nd edition). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. 497 p Marshes can often be found a ...

es, 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 gun A machine gun is a fully automatic, rifled autoloading firearm designed for sustained direct fire with rifle cartridges. Other automatic firearms such as automatic shotguns and automatic rifles (including assault rifles and battle rifles) ar ...

s; they also support grenade launchers and heavy weapons.

Types

* Aist-class LCAC (Soviet tank-carrying hovercraft) * Griffon-GRSE 8000 TD-Class Hovercraft * Gus class LCAC * Jinsha II-class LCAC *

Landing Craft Air Cushion The Landing Craft Air Cushion (LCAC) is a class of air-cushioned landing craft (hovercraft) used by the United States Navy and the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF). They transport weapons systems, equipment, cargo and personnel from sh ...

(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 equipm ...

* LSF-II 631 *

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 * Type 724 LCAC *

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 ...

* ''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, , th ...

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