Where are the Amphibious Ships?

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Slash78
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Post by Slash78 »

Recently I have only been looking at the land vehicles, but I tryed to look at you're amphibious assault ships and landing craft and i couldn't find them! If you leave this out of the game, you're missing out. The US isn't the only country with these kinds of vessels. Britian a few, the newest being the Ocean-class. The French are building a large one, the Mistral (NTCD). Also the Navies of Italy, Spain, Greece, Belgium and Portugal either operation vessels like these or are designing them. That's just Europe, I'm sure other navies are working on similar projects. Also, not all these vessels can land equipment directly on the beach, they need landing craft or amphibious assault vehiles and the US is far from the only nation with these vehicles and vessels either.
Slash78
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Post by Slash78 »

Also, the main purpose of having amphibious assualt vehicles, land vehicles that can move from ship-to-short, is that you don't need specialized landing craft to land them.
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Hellfish6
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Post by Hellfish6 »

Yes, but tanks need landing craft. I'm also curious about Assault ships. I imagine we're getting Tarawa and Wasp-class ships and their counterparts around the world, but I haven't seen them mentioned yet.
Slash78
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Post by Slash78 »

Not all tanks, the chinese have built an improve version of the Type 63 for amphibious operations.
http://www.sinodefence.com/army/tank/type63a.asp
Slash78
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Post by Slash78 »

Most tank and most vehicles need landing craft. As for the Wasp and Tarawa-classes can only land stuff via landing craft like the LCAC or LCM. They can also carry large numbers of AAVP7A1s (and AAAVs when the come out) that don't need LCACs or LCMs to make a landing. Thats the whole point of having vehicles like these!

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Slash78 on 2003-06-05 23:13 ]</font>
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Hellfish6
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Post by Hellfish6 »

I didn't know they upgraded the Type 63. And they even upgraded the gun to fire missiles. Wow. That is a definite threat to Taiwan.
Slash78
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Post by Slash78 »

Actually I think it's a new tank based on the Type 63 design. Also look at the weight, 38 tons. The original Type 63 only weighed about about 20 tons. I don't think this is all because of the gun, I think it actually has some armor.
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Hellfish6
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Post by Hellfish6 »

Now, a real challenge would be to find pics or info on the Type 99 light tank. I've heard about it, but never seen it.
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Hellfish6
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Post by Hellfish6 »

Oh, wait.. the Type 63A *IS* the Type 99. I totally missed that. Yeah, this is a brand new tank.
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Balthagor
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Post by Balthagor »

BTW, the reason that landing craft haven't made an appearance yet is that some of the information listed here about how it works I was missing. I had intentions of adding the landing craft but have been working on the other boats in the list. The naval units is certainly the area of the equipment lists that have the largest gaps. I will likely sit down for a day or two to try and get a few more (at least of few of every possible type) into the list. Last set of boats I updated was to concentrate on air defense platforms. I'll be testing out some of the transport model elemtents early next week so when I'm done that, the landing craft will probably be my next task. I'd love suggestions on what units I should use as my basis. Obviously the AAAV and LCAC are good ones to start with, but what ships would be used for transport to the launch point and how far can AAAVs actually traval navally?
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Hellfish6
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Post by Hellfish6 »

Well.. and important distinction is the difference between landing SHIPS and landing CRAFT. Ships carry craft. Craft carry equipment to the beach.

If you're going to model a typical US LHA (Landing, Helicopter Assault ship), LHD (Landing, Helicopter Dock ship), LSD (Landing ship, dock) or LPH (Landing Platform, Helicopter) it should be able to carry troops, aircraft AND landing craft.

But I'm wondering in landing craft should even be modelled in the game? I mean, we're dealing with battalion-sized units, right? Each of these classes of ships can carry roughly a battalion of troops each. If helicopters are carried, then the embarked marines could load into them and launch from the ship. But it might be sufficient to model a ship's amphibious ability by simply requiring it to unload troops next to a beach/shore hex. Sure, LCACs have a pretty good range, but they carry very little equipment per trip. LCMs are very slow. It might be best to just abstract this for all landing ships by letting them choose between using helicopters for over-the-horizon assaults and moving the ship next to a beach hex to do an actual shore assault.

Embarked ground units with organic amphibious transport (like AAAVs, AAV-7s, etc.) could be allowed to disembark from the ship directly, next to a beach or not, and move, at a penalty vis-a-vis its ground speed and range, to the shore.
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Post by Balthagor »

Thank you! I had envisioned it the way you're suggesting but didn't know how to put it into words and wasn't sure what to do about units like the AAAVs. I had already felt that landing craft should be assumed to be an integral part of the ships that usually carry them. If you can give me an example of a ship to use as an example, I will try a few tests to see if we can make this work for shore based landings.
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Hellfish6
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Post by Hellfish6 »

Well... the smallest hex is 7km, right? That ought to work fine.

Take a Wasp-class LHD. Load up a helicopter unit and a light infantry unit. The light infantry should be able to load onto the helo and then act like any other unit that is helo-mobile. However, the option should also exist so that the player can move the USS Wasp to a water hex adjacent to a shore hex and have that light infantry unit storm the beach.

Some penalties should be applied for this case, because I don't think that the USS Wasp carries enough landing craft to land an entire battalion at once - I may be wrong about this, though. Going on what I suggested above, though, I'd either give the defending unit some kind of defense bonus, or give the attacking light infantry some kind of penalty. Beach assaults are difficult operations, and this ought to be reflected in the combat capabilities.

If you replace the light infantry unit with an AAV-7A1 battalion, though, there would be a different scenario. I'm pretty sure that the AAV-7A1 can't be loaded into a helicopter (even though in real life I'm pretty sure Marines are just as capable of movement using their AAVs as they are with their feet, trucks and helicopters) but it does have a special capability - it can swim to shore. Though I don't think this is a great distance they can travel, especially in rough seas, but they should be able to leave their ships and swim up to 30-50km to shore. Even more for the AAV-7's replacement, the AAAV. This distance I came up with not only factors in the inheirent amphibious capabilities of the AAV-7, but also includes the utilization of the USS Wasp's landing craft to assist in the amphibious assault.

Some things to note, though, are the fact that very few navies operate amphibious ships that have floodable docks and large helicopter decks like the US Navy has. Some assault ships, like the Italian San Giorgio-class can carry large helicopters, but have minimal landing craft capability. They do have bow doors, though, and would thus be required to be adjacent to a shore hex (or on a shore hex, if possible) because they must beach themselves to unload their cargo.

Some, like the Japanese Osumi-class have minimal helo capabilities, but large docking wells capable of supporting LCACs and other large landing craft. These probably should be modelled like the USS Wasp above, but without a helicopter capability.

It's certainly not easy to abstract all these amphibious ships. However, I think if we broke it down we can put every type of amphibious ship into SR2010 with a fair degree of realism.

Some basic critieria:

1. Can ship carry ground units? (should be yes)

2. Does ship have a large flight deck? (If yes, then helicopters and/or STOVL/VTOL aircraft can be carried, allowing for some ground units to be air transported from ship)

3. Does ship have docking well? (If yes, then certain amphibious vehicles like BTR series, PT-76, Type-99, Type-63, AAV-7, AAAV may be launched 30-50km offshore). For all other ground units, the ship must be adjacent to or in a shore hex.

4. Does ship have bow doors? (If yes, then ship must be on a shore hex to unload ground unit, unless there is also a docking well or large flight deck)

Are there any vessels that anyone can think of that these criteria won't apply to?

In regards to #3 above, I do have a question. In the SR2010 data sheets, ground units are simply listed as being amphibious or not. Would it be an oversimplification if we said that any ground unit with amphibious capabilities can launch from a docking well equipped ship 30-50km from shore? I mean some vehicles, like the M113 are amphibious, but are not sea-worthy. Would such an abstraction still be appropriate if we granted M113 units to launch from landing ships 30-50km offshore?
Slash78
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Post by Slash78 »

Bow Doors: allows a ship to unload vehicles directly on the beach.
Well Deck: Large floodable rear deck that allows landing craft and assault vehicles to load or unload from a ship.
Flight deck: I don't think an explaination is needed.
RO-RO: Roll-on, Roll-off. This means vehicles and equipment can be loaded and unloaded at a port facility much faster then normal transport ships.
There are also ships that lower landing craft from the side, i'm not sure what the technical term for this is.

You might want to 'group' smaller landing ships into 'squadrons' to give them the ability to land battalion sized units. And on the larger ships you might have them be LHA w/ LCM (landing craft mechinized) and have an upgrade to LHA w/ LCAC. Landing craft could seen as part of the larger ship, giving it more landing ability. Then again, you should be able to buy 'Landing Craft Squadrons' seperate, if you have a need for them. If you are playing somewhere like Indonesia you wouldn't want to buy large landing ships to make landings on so many small islands. Or of coarse you could buy the Landing ships, then buy a 'squadron' of landing crafts to support them.

About Amphibious Vehicles. Most of these have a range of 40 to 75 miles. You could just average it to 50 miles (80 km) for simplicity. If a AV goes too far it runs out of fuel and will eventually sink. Most of them are slow (except the AAAV) and would take 5 to 8 hours to do this (2 for AAAV). Most of the time they are unloaded 5 to 20 miles out. This isn't too much of a draw back because it will take 4 LCACs a while to land a tank battalion (4 at a time).

Though I know you have most of the ships as seperate units, you should think about have 'Amphibious Groups'. A quick example. You have 2 types of ships first I'll call Landing Ship A (LSA) and the second Landing Ship B (LSB). Let's say LSA can carry 2 Marine battalions, 30 Assualt Vehicles and 4 landing craft. Let's say LSB can carry 1 Marine battalion, 15 Assault Vehicles and 2 Landing craft. If you 'group' 1 LSA and 2 LSB you can carry 4 battalions of Marines, 1 battalion of Assault vehicles and probably 1 'squadron' of landing craft. If they are only carrying Marines, they can be split up, but if they are carrying a 'squadron' of Landing Craft or a Battalion of Assault Vehicle they should be able to split up. This could also work for Aircraft carried on these vessels. What do you think of that idea?
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Hellfish6
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Post by Hellfish6 »

Thank you for clarifying what I take for granted. :smile:

I also really like the idea of upgrading landing ships from LCMs to LCACs - that would work out well. LCAC upgrades would allow the ship to be farther away from the shore when unloading?

Also, good idea about the landing craft squadrons. I didn't even think of that, but it makes great sense. Especially if China invades Taiwan.

I did think of amphibious ship groupings, but thought it was too inconsistent with everything else to merit a mention. I'm glad to see you thought of it too. Maybe we can find a solution?
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