LCVP / Higgins Boats - Guide 386

[Music] [Music] being a relatively small craft the amphibious Landing vessel that would become widely known as the Higgins boat but was officially the lcvp or landing craft vehicle personel was developed and built in a remarkably short time as the 1930s Drew to a close the US Marine Corps was looking for better ways to get troops ashore The Eclectic collection of ships boats and improvised rafts that had been used in Landings Through the Ages had proved to be somewhat less than ideal in World War I as Landings opposed by artillery and machine guns were now to be expected Higgins Industries a former lumber company turned boat builder based in Louisiana had already landed a contract for a derivation of its Eureka boat which was designated lcpl or landing craft Personnel large and which would also be known to many as a Higgins boat at in the time period but the craft we're looking at today was what would come next as useful as the lcpl was it was a proper boat with a prow and everything which meant that to get out you had to climb over the side this somewhat slowed down exit for soldiers which was not really brilliant when you were possibly under extensive machine gun fire and it also made unloading cargo a some what complex job that was best done by chains of stationary men it also really couldn't carry Vehicles as there was simply no easy way for them to get out over on the other side of the Pacific though Japan was steadily taking chunks out of China and part of this involved operations using their dihatsu landing craft the US Marine Corps noticed that these had a handy little ramp at the front and one US Marine Corps officer asked Andrew Higgins owner of Higgins indust indries to maybe develop a similar craft for the us since this wasn't an official request Higgins had to undertake the work all at his own risk and with his own finances but by early 1941 prototypes were ready and that spring they demonstrated their capability to both carry and offload both vehicles and men in remarkably shallow water initially designated the lcpr landing craft Personnel ramp the design would be very slightly refined into the lcvp which would go on to outnumber both the lcpi and lcpl combined production by almost a factor of five with well over 23,000 lcvps eventually being produced displacing just 8.2 tons when unloaded the lcvp was capable of 12 knots at least in calm conditions courtesy of a single engine diesel engines were more common but petrol versions were also available if you particularly liked being set on fire generating somewhere around 220 to 250 horsepower depending on which particular power plant you had Armament by default consisted of a pair of 30 caliber machine guns in two single open topped Capas mounted AR plus whatever Small Arms the embarked troops had with them although the depth of the hole meant that if they were going to use these It could only really be for desperate close strange air defense armor came in two flavors thoughts and prayers or hopes and dreams due to the requirement for shallow water operations the bulk of The Craft was made of plywood only the ramp which was made of steel mainly so as not to break under the weight of a vehicle driving off of it offered a modicum of protection at least against light shrapnel and Small Arms fire however half inch thick steel plates could be mounted on the sides to extend the Small Arms fire protection down the sides of the vessels which proved to be a rather popular modification for somewhat obvious reasons cargo capacity was almost 4 tons or alternatively a 3 ton vehicle in a dozen men or three dozen men could be packed in a little bit like sardines thanks to their relatively small size at barely over 36t long the lack of use of strategic materials for most of the hull in its basic form and their relatively simple overall design they were quick and easy to build and so saw their first major combat deployments just over a year after the first prototypes had been tested with early examples being deployed in the guad canal campaign and Operation Torch subsequent to this they'd be a common site in all major European amphibious operations from Sicily to Italy to both sides of France and in the Pacific anywhere that had at least 3T of water offshore would see swarms of these craft present as well it was only in areas where significant Coral sand or Rock barriers blocked the beach approaches that they would be superseded by other vehicles like the lvt whose steel Underside was less likely to be ripped open and whose tracks allowed it to surmount the obstacle lcvps would continue to see use in the postor War II period seeing extensive service in the Korean War but they were gradually being replaced in US service by larger and more capable craft in the late 1950s and early 1960s albeit that some would go on much much longer in Foreign Service a few of them are still apparently in service today in various places around the world although quite a lot of them would be scrapped or just rotted away as they fell out of use their sheer numbers meant that a decent number have actually made it into museums in good condition or are still operational in private hands or are currently undergoing restoration that's it for this video thanks for watching if you have a comment or suggestion for a ship to review let us know in the comments below don't forget to comment on the pin post for dry do questions

Channel: Drachinifel

Views: 60,220

Keywords: wows, world of warships, LCVP, LCPL, LCPR, Higgins Boat, Daihatsu, Operation Overlord

Id: GgNx0FxTi6U

Length: 6min 42sec (402 seconds)

Published: Sat May 04 2024