Marine: A Guided Tour of a Marine Expeditionary Unit

accommodation areas, you find the bunks are smaller and a bit shorter, and personal stowage space is more limited, than on Wasp or Whidbey Island. You find almost no recreational or fitness facilities. And Shreveport lacks the environmental-control systems found on every new warship today. In fact, her air-conditioning is even more cranky than her power plant, which can be tough on the crew and embarked Marines. During the MEU (SOC) workup in the summer of 1995, most of Shreveport's air-conditioning system went out during a major heat wave. Even though the ARG was at sea, temperatures in the Marine berthing areas quickly rose to over 90deg F/32deg C with high humidity. Little could be done other than to push cold fluids to the men, and to shift some smaller units over to spare berthing on Wasp and Whidbey Island. Everyone took it in stride, but such problems sometimes occur in older vessels.

Passenger comfort is not why warships are built; and despite her advancing years, Shreveport is well equipped to operate not only as an ARG flagship, if necessary, but as an independent amphibious unit. Shreveport's systems include:

• Command and Control Capabilities—In addition to accommodations as a flagship, Shreveport has full command and control facilities, although smaller and more limited than those aboard an LHD or LHD. These include a CIC, LFOC, SSES, and data links and communications gear.

• Troop Capacity—Along with her crew of 402 (plus a flag staff of 90 if carried), Shreveport can carry up to 840 Marines.

• Vehicle/Cargo Capacity—While she was designed before automated cargo handling, the Shreveport has 14,000 ft/1,301 m of vehicle space, as well as 51,100 ft/1,447 m for cargo. This is far more than Whidbey Island (LSD-41), allowing a great deal of autonomy if the ship must operate alone.

• Transport/Off-load Capability—Shreveport's robust aviation and transport facilities also enable her to to operate independently if required. These include a helicopter pad with two landing spots, as well as a hangar and air traffic control. The well deck can berth and support a LCAC or LCU, or up to four LCM-8s.

• Cargo Handling Capacity—Shreveport's cargo handling gear includes ten two-ton forklifts, a pair of three-ton rough terrain forklifts, three pallet conveyers, an eight-ton weapons and cargo elevator, and six cargo monorails like those aboard Wasp. There is also a thirty-ton deck crane for general-purpose lifting.

Shreveport can hold up her end of the amphibious task, either as part of an ARG, or all by herself, should that be required. Shreveport's armament is typical of her generation. Back in the 1960s the Navy did not expect that amphibious ships would have to defend themselves; that was the job of aircraft carriers, surface escorts, and submarines. Times have changed since then, though, and Shreveport has been fitted for basic self-defense. In addition to an SPS- 10F surface- search and SPS- 4 °C air-search radar, she carries the SLQ-32 (V1) ESM package, which can detect an incoming missile and attempt to confuse it with chaff or decoys from four Mk 137 SRBOC launchers. Two of the original four twin 3-in/76-mm gun mounts have been removed, and replaced with a pair of 20mm Phalanx CIWS mounts. There is none of the splinter armor that you find aboard Wasp or Whidbey Island. This means that she could suffer severe fragmentation damage from a sea-skimming cruise missile even if the CIWS detonates the warhead before impact.

As the Shreveport and her sisters enter the twilight of their careers, you might expect the Navy to ease up a bit and try to stretch out their remaining service life. But the LPD-4s will stay at the forefront of amphibious operations until the new LPD-17-class assault ships arrive in the early part of the 21st century. The plan is to stretch the life of the class from the normal thirty years to roughly forty to fifty years! This will demand improvements to environmental systems, some communications, a fiber-optical data network, and perhaps even the Cooperative Engagement System designed into the LPD-17. These will be difficult to fund in the current budget environment. But the LPD-4s are a national asset, and you can expect General Krulak to fight like a 'big dog' to ensure these venerable ships stay ready to land Marines.

Landing Craft

Ever since Stone Age men built the first raft to raid the neighbors downstream, small boats have been essential to amphibious operations. Captains of amphibs do not like to bring their large and sometimes vulnerable vessels within range of enemy artillery as they close a hostile shore. After the retirement of the last LST-1179-class ships, the option of running an ocean-going amphib up onto a beach (and getting her off again) will be gone forever. Given the dangers from mines, missiles, and guns, this is probably no great loss to our capabilities.

The amphibious equivalent of a delivery truck is the landing craft. As noted earlier, the development of landing craft during World War II was one of the key technologies that made amphibious warfare possible. Today, the Navy's landing craft range from the high-tech LCAC (Landing Craft, Air Cushioned) to conventional Landing Craft, Utility (LCU) and Landing Craft, Medium (LCM). While older craft are on their way out, they still provide amphibious planners with a range of delivery options. This is critical as the Navy and Marine Corps wait for long-delayed systems like the AAAV and MV-22B Osprey to enter service in the early 21st Century. The older landing craft provide vital support to Maritime Prepositioning Force (MPF) units for contingency and follow-on forces. Let's take a look at these delivery vans. Other than the Marines themselves, nothing is closer to the tip of the amphibious spear.

Landing Craft, Air Cushioned (LCAC)

When you first see one on its concrete pad at Little Creek, Virginia, it looks like a pile of Leggo blocks on a flattened inner tube. It is hard to believe that such an odd machine changed the face of amphibious warfare. When they first appeared in the late 1930s, landing craft were never called 'revolutionary' or 'world shaking.' But the Navy's introduction of the Landing Craft, Air Cushioned (LCAC) in the 1980s produced the biggest change in amphibious doctrine since the helicopter thirty years earlier. Pretty impressive for something that looks like a prop from a low-budget science fiction movie. Let's look LCAC over, and see for ourselves.

^{Landing Craft, Air Cushioned (LCACs) of Amphibious Craft Unit Four (ACU-4) operate during a 26th MEU (SOC) exercise in Tunisia in 1995.}

^{OFFICIAL U.S. MARINE CORPS PHOTO}

Amphibious planners always want to carry more payload, farther and faster. They dream of assault craft that don't need pleasant stretches of gently graded beach for landing zones. Conventional landing craft are limited to landing under optimal tidal and beach conditions — which means they have access to only 17 % of the world's coastline. Traditional flat-bottomed assault boats severely restrict a planner's options. What was needed was new technology that did not require pushing a boxy hull through the water. The requirement was for a magic carpet, to whisk a seventy-ton battle tank across the water to the beach, and even inland.

The solution they found was a surface-effect vehicle: the hovercraft. A hovercraft floats on a cushion of air contained by a rubber skirt. Like a puck in an air hockey game, it barely touches the surface, but 'floats' on the boundary interface. Riding a virtually frictionless layer of air, it needs relatively little thrust to move and maneuver. Hovercraft have great agility and speed, and they can carry a good payload with efficiency and economy. They are also relatively immune to rough weather and high seas. And they transition easily from water to ground, allowing the same craft to transport payloads some distance inland. Civilian hovercraft serve as high-speed ferryboats across the English Channel, and between Hong Kong and Macao in the Far East.

The Soviet Union, with its poor road network and vast marshlands, led the world in developing and