US Marines Demonstrate Ultra Heavy-Lift Amphibious Connector Prototype 91
Zothecula writes In a recent demonstration carried out during RIMPAC 2014, the US Marines displayed and tested a fully-functional, half-scale prototype of its new amphibious transport vehicle. The proposed full-size version of the Ultra Heavy-Lift Amphibious Connecter (UHAC) is designed to power across the water with a payload of nearly 200 tons at up to 20 knots and be capable of driving up on to the shore and over the top of obstructions up to 10ft high.
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the land-sea capability of the UHAC is provided buy a set of tracks – similar to a tank – fitted with captured-air foam cells that provide buoyancy, act as paddles when in the water, and behave as track-driven pads when on the land
The first thing that came to mind was bubble-wrap. [wikipedia.org]
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That is what is important. Whatchgonnado?
The thing it carries from the ship, through the surf zone, over the sand and onto the hard ground has the killing power -- an M1 Abrams main battle tank.
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At 200 Tons capacity, it could carry three.
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At 200 Tons capacity, it could carry three.
due to comment scores I could see your comment but not the parent and my response was "What, Americans?"
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At 200 Tons capacity, it could carry three.
This just goes to show how obesity has become a real problem for the American military.
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200 tons of marines.
Each marine carries between 97 and 135 lbs of equipmen so let's just say an average of 116 pounds. Let's say the average marine weighs 181 (I took 6'2" as the height marker and average weight between max and minimum weight for that height by their own charts). So one marine puts a load of 297 pounds. This monster is capable of carrying 1346 combat geared marines (space not-withstanding). That about an entire marine brigade.
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Though after reviewing the dimensions..... 1346 marines would be a bit beyond its capability unless you're stacking them like a lincoln logs.
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It's a coffin. It's slow, easily seen, loud.
Re: But does it have more KILLING POWER? (Score:1)
I agree with you but only partially. A D-Day style beach invasion with today's tech would truly be suicidal. These days though, no amphibious assault would be considered without air- and naval-superiority being firmly established with a control zone measured in the hundreds of miles around the beachhead first.
Only an adversary of similar tech-level would be a threat since there is no real defence against super long range missile artillery like cruise missiles. The UHAC's advantage here is that it will be a
Haven't we seen something like this before (Score:3)
Don't know why but I kind of feel like I have seen something like this before.... The ww2 landing vehicle tracked (LVT) looked very similar to this, just on a much smaller scale.
Some of the variants even used paddled tracks like this. oblig wiki link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re:Haven't we seen something like this before (Score:4, Insightful)
The tracks on this one look rather different: it seems that it's massive air-filled chunks in the tracks that provide bouyancy, not the hull. This seems to be designed to cross muddy bogs as well, something I doubt that much older vehicle could do.
Certainly anphibious assult vehicles are not a new concept, but this one does look really cool.
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Here is a picture of their very first prototype [nauticexpo.com] (the one that was too alpha to show the press).
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These tracks are side by side. Marines always move single file to hide their numbers.
20 knots isn't that fast (Score:1)
20 knots isn't that fast, when the marines already have the LCAC that does 40+ knots and can carry an Abrams ashore and across the beach
Who are we planning to invade anyway?
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This would have over three times the capacity of the LCAC. I'm not sure what they're planning to haul on it (3 tanks, maybe?). There certainly is construction equipment that weights 200 tons, or industrial equipment.
Re:20 knots isn't that fast (Score:5, Funny)
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It does seem odd that a defense budget would need to pony up so much for craft that are only useful for invading.
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Sometimes you are invading to defend a friendly nation. See D-Day, and Incheon.
Other times you are bringing large amounts of help to a nation see Haiti after the earthquake.
Also it probably is not that expensive.
Re:20 knots isn't that fast (Score:5, Insightful)
This has three times the capacity of the LCAC but takes up the same amount of space in an Amphibious Assault Carrier. So even though it is half the speed, it will be able to transfer equipment to shore at a 50% greater rate than LCAC.
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No one. Read about the LCACs; they are maintenance beasts and the Marines are reducing their number by half. This thing looks a bit maintenance heavy too, but with 3X the carrying capacity it's still a cost savings in terms of cost/ton carried.
These are used not just to invade, but on humanitarian missions as well. They're one of the few craft that can land on a ravaged or destroyed or undeveloped coastline, and with a 200 ton carrying capacity they can carry some seriously heavy construction equipment.
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Just as a reference, a typicle semi truck running down the highway will have almost 50,000 lbs carying capacity or roughly 25 tons. And these are not built to operate off road or with debris in the road. So if one of these shows up with supplies for disaster relief or whatever, its about the same as trucking in 12 fully loaded semis -or more if you figure the reduced hauling capacity from suring them up to operate in those conditions.
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It's usual for Gizmag to have this article posted yesterday? Outside of Alice in Wonderland, what would that even mean?
Flip-flops (Score:2)
It looks pretty much like a tank on flip-flops.
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That would be weird... the Romans named the area Palestine when the Jews were living there. Why would anyone want to give the land to Arabs?
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Give Amerikka back to the large mammal species that the Native Americans drove into extinction (there were horses on North America, and giant sloths the size of bears, and many other large mammals) shortly after they arrived here over the Bering Straight.
The Indians didn't have horses again to ride until the Europeans broght them over and showed the noble wise red men how to ride, not eat, them.
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I'm saying the Native Americans were a stone age culture, one that drove horses to extinction without ever figuring out how to tame and ride them.
Granted, the humans who ate almost all of the large mammals to extinction were many generations back from the more evolved Native Americans that the first European settlers encountered.
The European settlers didn't decimate the American Bison out of stupidity, incidentally. It was impossible to build a transcontinental railroad system with the huge bison herds int
'MURICA (Score:1)
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So this self-loathing you are afflicted with, is it something you are attempting to spread around?
Phew! (Score:2)
I'm glad I'm living in a landlocked country.
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You shouldn't be. The marines haven't carried out an actual amphibious assault since Inchon in 1951; just some small operations and one giant feint with 40 amphibs during the Gulf War that never happened. The marines have carried out significant humanitarian assistance however in the past few decades, including during the Haiti earthquake and the 2004 tsunami. The primary advantage of landing craft like this is that they can land on completely undeveloped shoreline of which some 70% of the world's coasts
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About as much "valie" as making sure one's post is free of typos like "Cooyimg".
Oh thank God! (Score:2)
Now we can continue to kill people of no threat to us, in greater and greater numbers!
Look out, Boston! (Score:2)
For some reason, roughly half the apparent street traffic in Beantown is amphibious tour vehicles. What's it going to be like when these things replace the current WW II design?
Another boondoggle (Score:2)
And the last time Marines stormed a beach was? The last time US ground forces were put in the fight prior to aerial decimation of the opposition was?
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The last time US ground forces were put in the fight prior to aerial decimation of the opposition was?
WWI probably. Why would you want to? It's pretty much the cornerstone of our entire war fighting doctrine to gain air superiority and then pound the heck out of our adversaries prior to full engagement. I can guarantee you the air strikes on D-Day were coming fast and furious. We spent nearly five months before that destroying the Luftwaffe in order to ensure air superiority prior to the invasion.
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The invasion of Guadalcanal, and the following months of bitter fighting, were without air dominance, although the Marines usually had some degree of air superiority. The Marine invasions in 1943 and later tended to follow the pattern: destroy all nearby Japanese airfields, aircraft, and boats of significant size, shell the #$#@^)&* out of the Japanese positions, and attack. It didn't make it easy (think Tarawa or Iwo Jima), but it made it possible. No US or British amphibious assault of the war ev
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And the last time Marines stormed a beach was?
Kuwait [wikipedia.org]
The last time US ground forces were put in the fight prior to aerial decimation of the opposition was?
Grenada, Panama, Kuwait City. Aerial bombardment has limited effects and can not completely wipe out opposition. It will weaken them but ground forces still need to go in and hold the land.
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Kuwait: bombing went on for a month prior to that. Grenada: Operations were already well underway before a small Marine amphibious landing
Few landings of Marines happen in contested zones and one of the only reaons they continue to try to build things like this is the ego of the Marine's who feel without the amphibious capability they are just Army. Rather than think of better ways of delivering equipment they just try to make a new spin on an old story.
So.... (Score:2)
Wonder where the government wastes money? Look no further.
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You know why the U. S. Marine Corps hasn't had to conduct a contested amphibious landing in over 50 years?
Because the world fully understands that it most certainly could, and woe betide anyone that earns that distinction.
Si vis pacem, para bellum. [wikipedia.org]
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You know why the U. S. Marine Corps hasn't had to conduct a contested amphibious landing in over 50 years?
By the way, we haven't had to conduct a full scale cavalry charge on horseback for a while either. I wonder if that's just because the world knows we're just so damn good at them? Or maybe they're just not as fucked in the head.
could use a turret (Score:2)
Turret would allow it to play secondary role of a scout.
Now that I think about it, turret like that is perfect for a gun!
Lets not forget to put some armor on it now that it has this scary gun, and tow missiles.
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The article's about a half-scale prototype. The real deal is supposed to be lightly armored and have a few self-defense machine guns. The real deal will also be too big to be an actual tactical vehicle, comparable in size a current LCAC.
That said, there were interesting experiments in putting self-contained 30mm antitank gun pods onto the cargo deck of LCACs, making them into ghetto gunships, and I bet that would work here too. Something to make beach defenders keep their heads down long enough for the land
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You are not going to put significant armor on an amphibious vehicle. Heavy armor is for things that either don't have to float in fairly shallow water, or very specially designed ships that aren't much good for anything else (see British monitors of WWI and WWII).
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I call bs, Bradley is amphibious and look at that glorious scout with big turret and sexy gun/tow missiles.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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It's well armed, and by APC standards well armored. That doesn't count as heavily armored. It's a gimme to any reasonable AT weapon.
And, yes, I think my irony detector was on the fritz yesterday.
WHY? (Score:2)
Except to waste my tax dollars!