L.C.U & L.C.A.C Landing Craft (non-chinese)

This thread is about the various LCU and LCAC landing craft employed by the various nations of the world outside of China. The principle user is, of course the US Navy and so talk will naturally center on the LCU 1600 and its replacement, and the LCAC, and its proposed Sip to Shore Connector (SSC) replacement.

but the thread will also be about other nation's capabilities in this regard, including the Royal Navy's LCU Mk 10, the Spanish and now Australian NAvantia LCM-1E for the Juan Carlos and Canberaa LHDs and other LPDs. And Turkeys eight new ADIK LCTs.

To start it off, lets look at a relatively unknown project with the US Navy, a Zubr sized Air-Cushion vessel called the T0-Craft under consideration:


This is a design that is about six years old, but is gaining ground in the US Navy. it is a massive LCAC, along the lines of the Zubr, but an all new, US Navy design. The personnel working on it were just given this prestigious western scientific award.

Will it become an actual contract the US Navy awards and then builds? Who knows...but it is out there and the US Navy has been seriously looking at it for several years.

To give you a better idea of how big it is...look at this rendering:

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Naval Today said:

The Australian Government will gift two recently-decommissioned Landing Craft Heavy vessels, including a package of spare parts, to the Philippines Government, the Minister for Defence Kevin Andrews announced today.

Andrews said the former Royal Australian Navy vessels HMAS Tarakan and Brunei would be gifted to the Philippine Navy after being refurbished with new safety and navigation equipment:

"I expect the vessels will be refitted and ready for hand over in May 2015."

The Landing Craft will be commissioned in the Philippines Navy and will provide additional intra-theatre sealift capability.

A lack of sealift capability hampered efforts to assist Philippines’ coastal areas devastated by Super Typhoon Haiyan in 2013.

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These vessels are similar in look and function to the 35 Runnymede class LCU-2000 vessels operated by the US Army, but they are significantly smaller.

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Naval Today said:

The latest landing craft of the project 21820 “Lieutenant Rimsky-Korsakov”, built by the OJSC “Yaroslavsky Shipyard” for the Russian Navy’s Baltic fleet has commenced its factory sea trials.

The cutter was brought to the marine training ranges to check its maneuverability and speed capabilities, functioning of all units, systems and knots, navigation and radio engineering systems, as well as weapon system. Disembarkation of different wheeled and tracked vehicles afloat and on the coast will also be conducted.

After the completion of factory and state tests the landing craft “Lieutenant Rimsky-Korsakov” will join the Baltic fleet.

Landing craft “Lieutenant Rimsky-Korsakov” has a full displacement of 280 tons, overall length of 45 m, overall width of 8.5 m, and a draft of 1,9 m. The vessels’ maximum running speed at the wave heights of 0,75m is 35 knots and its maximum floating distance is 500 sea miles. It can hold a cargo of 140 tons maximum.

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These are going to be very decent LCU type landing craft for the Russians.

The will carry up to 140 tons, or three MBT, or five BTR personnel carriers...and do so up to 35 knots supposedly.

Three are launched and another building,. This first one is going through trials preparing to be commissioned.

Some more pictures of the new Russian Duygon landing craft:

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Naval Today said:

Navantia has launched the Royal Australian Navy’s twelfth and final LHD Landing Craft (LLC) on April 27.

The contract for the construction of the series of 12 LLC was signed in September 2011 and the works have been executed in the Bay of Cádiz. The landing craft are destined to operate with the Navy’s new LHD Canberra and LHD Adelaide. All vessels are expected to be delivered in the summer of 2015.

LLCs have the length overall of 23.30 m, width of 6.40 m, and can reach a speed of more than 20 knots.

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Naval Today said:

The Australian Government transferred two of its decommissioned landing craft to the Philippines Navy.

Australian Chief of Navy Vice Admiral Tim Barrett, AO, CSC, RAN, was joined at HMAS Cairns today by his Philippine counterpart, Flag Officer in Command Philippine Navy, Vice Admiral Jesus Millan, at the ceremony to gift the Australian Balikpapan class landing craft to the Government of the Philippines.

Super Typhoon Haiyan caused significant devastation to the Philippines in November 2013, and approximately 500 Australian Defence Force personnel, including the crew of HMAS Tobruk and a deployment of Army Engineers, provided in-country support to the relief effort, at the request of the Philippines Government.

The decommissioned vessels, ex-HMA Ships Tarakan and Brunei, were re-commissioned at the ceremony, into the Republic of Philippines Navy as BRP Ivatan (AT298) and BRP Batak (AT299).

With over 40 years service, the versatility of the Balikpapan class resulted in superb logistics support to Australian Defence Force operations in Bougainville, East Timor and the Solomon Islands, and numerous humanitarian aid missions both domestically and through the region.

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These are good landing craft, capable of ocean going activities.

They are very similar in design, though somewhat smaller, to the US LCU-2000 vessels. Australia built eight Balikpapan class landing vessels. and now has three left in commission.

Here's are the specs of the Balikpapan Class Heavy Landing Craft:

Displacement: 517 tons
Length: 146 feet
Beam: 33 feet
Draft: 6 feet
Range: 3,000 nmi
Crew: 16
Load: 185 tons

By Comparison, the larger US LCU-2000 specs are:

Displacement: 1,087 tons
Length: 174 feet
BEam: 42 feet
Draft: 8 feet
Range, 10,000 nmi
Crew: 13
Load: 350 tons

Seen together, you can see the similarities:

Jeff Head said:

I have always been surprised that the JMSDF dd not have a few smaller LST or type vessels. As it is, with one Osumi and one Hyuga dedicate to amphibious and air assault, the JMSDF could place a credible landing force ashore.

As I understand, the Osumi and Hyuga can each carry, in addition to their crews, about 350 troops. Is this correct?

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I forgot to mention about LC-2001 class utility landing crafts.



Overall Length 52 m
Width 8.7m
Range 1,706 nmi
Capacity to carry 70 personnel besides a crew of 28

I believe JMSDF owns two of these as well.

Hyuga class only has capacity of 100 men. Izumo class has capacity of 400 and Osumi class has capacity of 330 but this is to occupy the hangar deck.

SamuraiBlue said:

I forgot to mention about LC-2001 class utility landing crafts.

Overall Length 52 m
Width 8.7m
Range 1,706 nmi
Capacity to carry 70 personnel besides a crew of 28

I believe JMSDF owns two of these as well.

Hyuga class only has capacity of 100 men. Izumo class has capacity of 400 and Osumi class has capacity of 330 but this is to occupy the hangar deck.

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Ah, that vessel is like a JMSDF LCU vessel, eh?

Nice looking. Do you think they will build more in light of what I believe is a new emphasis on Amphibious/air assault capabilities?

I will take this post and my response to it to the LCU thread...since it is OT here on the carrier thread.