DESIGN OF

VEHICLES USED
FOR AMPHIBIOUS
OPERATIONS
Presented By
Onkar Madhukar Thite

INTRODUCTION:
Lifts the armed forces and deploys them far from its
natural borders.
They carry troops and other armoured vehicles and
their crew.
Very important in tactical warfare and deploying
forces in carrying out supreme attacks.
Also used in rendering assistance to civil authorities
at the time of natural calamities.

TYPES OF AMPHIBIOUS VESSELS

Landing Platform Docks (LPD)
Landing Air Cushion Vehicles (LCAC)
Landing Ship Tank (LST)
Medium (M)
Large (L)
Landing Craft Unit (LCU)
Landing Craft Assault (LCA)

Initial estimates
-Type of ship (Class)
-Displacement
-Electrical load
-Switch board
-Tank capacities
-Main Dimensions and form
parameters

Major Design Considerations

- Tactical influence
- Wading depth / Beach Gradient
- Hull form for shallow draft

Characteristics features

-Tank hold arrangements

-Arrangement for trucks
-Helicopter landing facilities
-Bow door and Bow ramp
-Machinery and stores
-Water tight integrity

GENERAL SHIP SYSTEMS

-Air conditioning systems

-Ventilation
-Salt water systems
-Fire fighting systems
-Ballasting and deballasting systems
-Prewetting systems
-Fuel oil systems
-Sewage treatment plant
-Fresh water systems

 PREWETTING SYSTEM: A deck washing line

is provided all over the exposed portions of
the ship. This system provides sea water for
washing away any nuclear, biological, or
chemical products of a NBC attack. Sea
water is taken from salt water main through
control valves. Prewetting nozzles are
provided for this purpose on the weather
deck and the superstructure.

-Factors governing the forward draft at

the time of beaching

Wading depth
Ramp length
Ships displacement
Tidal conditions

TACTICAL INFLUENCES
a) Landing troops, freight and, vehicles on
to a beach.
b) The conveyance of troops, freight and
vehicles through water.

DEPTH
a) The requirement to have the smallest
mean draft possible to allow the operation
in very shallow water.
b) Military operations require the landing of
tanks and other wheeled vehicles having a
wading depth of approximately one meter,
on to a beach with an assumed gradient of
1:40. The Wading depth of the vehicles
determines the forward draft of the vessel.

LENGTH AND BREADTH

c) The length required to arrange the tanks,
other wheeled vehicles, the flight deck etc.
together with the length of the engine room,
auxiliary engine room (if any) and the
steering gear compartment determine the
length of the vessel.
d) The minimum beam is determined by the
arrangement of vehicles and the troops
accommodation. The size of the building
berth also influences this parameter.

HULL FORM GENERATIONS

Operates in shallow waters

Flat keel for beaching
Obtuse bow
Long parallel middle body

WADING DEPTH:
The forward draft of the vessel must be
small enough to allow the military vehicles
to be discharged on a beach of gradient
1:40. Steeper beaches will be a bonus and
of course lessen the actual distances to be
waded. They also lessen the wading depth
in certain circumstances.

FLAT BOTTOM BOX SHAPE

HULL
To obtain a reasonably shallow draft, it is
necessary to have a flat, box shaped hull.
flat bottom has the advantage for a landing
vessel when it has to sit on the bottom.
The flat bottom, box shaped hull will give
additional buoyancy to the hull, thus
reducing the draught

DISADVANTAGES
The sea water intakes on the bottom are
closer to the sea bottom due to the
shallow draught. This sucks in the mud
from the bottom.
Flat bottom also makes it susceptible to
damage due to grounding.

provide a design trim by the stern

It gives a lesser draught at the forward

end
ensures that the ship does not trim by the
bow in any normal sea going conditions
it gives the required clearance for the
propeller from the keel line.

But there is limit for the design trim which can

be provided from the operational point of view
the effect is an increase in resistance. There is
also the increased risk of stern touching the
beach before the bow
reducing the forward draught is by trimming
the ship by stern, as and when required
at the time of beaching . This is achieved by
the judicious distribution of the weight along
the length of the ship.

To demonstrate an acceptable degree of safety

of the ship, the stability of the ship was
assessed as per Stability criteria for warship
(NES 109)
Cases listed below were considered

-high speed turning

-effect of wind

-lifting of heavy weights particularly over

the side

-crowding of personnel to one side

-bow collision

-weapon damage

side loading in olden days ships is

avoided

Due to the unusual hull form of the ship,

resistance prediction has a lot of serious
problems
Resistance estimation by standard program
is not valid for LST
Series data applicable for such hull form,
with high B/T ratio and Cp are not available.
Since the new design does not have an exact
parent ship, the method of interpolating from
the parent ship data was also not applicable.

Propulsion
LST being a shallow draught vessel, the
propeller diameter is restricted, mainly due
to the following factors:
- Clearance between hull and waterline
from the propeller tip.
- Clearance of the propeller blade tip
above the keeline, from beaching
considerations.

GENERAL ARRANGEMENT
a) Tank hold for the arrangement for tanks
and their embarking and disembarking
facilities.
b) The arrangement for trucks on the weather
deck and their embarking and disembarking
facilities.
c) Helicopter landing facility
d) Bow door and bow ramp

BOW DOOR AND BOW RAMP

To allow the embarking & disembarking of
the vehicles to and from the ship, bow
door and bow ramp are to be provided in
the forward end of the ship. These are
hydraulically operated and are watertight
integrity of the ship. The system
comprises of outer shell doors, in two
halves, formed to the shape of the stern
and a three section ramp. The control of
the whole system should be both, local
and remote from the bridge

ANCHORING SYSTEM
Kedge anchor assists in the beaching
operation and the retraction of the ship
from the beach. This anchor along with
Dankforth anchor which is fitted at the
aft of super structure on the main deck.

Amphibious Vessels for the Indian

Navy

L-20 INS Magar LST(L)

L-23 INS Gharial LST(L)
L-14 INS Ghorpad LST(M)
L-17 INS Sharabh LST(M)
L-18 INS Cheetha LST(M)
L-32 to L-39 LCUs

US to sell India its Austin-class LPD

. Presently, the most capable ship that the Indian Navy
possesses for amphibious operations is the 3,600-ton
Magar-class Large Landing Ship Tank (LST-L). It can
carry up to 500 troops, 15 tanks and 8 Armoured
Personnel Carriers (APC). It can also operate two
medium-lift helicopters, which are primarily meant for
'inserting' a small team of Special Forces (marine
commandos) with conventional beaching system. In
contrast, a LPD like has carrying capacity roughly
double that of the LST-L and it has a greater endurance
of 7,700 nautical miles at a speed of 20 knots, as
opposed to the LST-L's 3,300 nm at 14 knots. More
importantly, it has a large platform to operate up to six
medium-lift helicopters and a floodable 'well-deck' at its
stern for housing smaller landing craft or hovercraft. This
implies that a LPD does not need to 'beach' to discharge
its personnel and cargo.

References
Surface Warships P J Gates
Amphibious vessels A literature
survey Lt S B Anandan
Considerations in landing ship design
- Lt J F Vellara

QUESTIONS