Free Republic

GREAT LAKES, Ill.- Two Vietnam-era vessels docked at the Naval Station Great Lakes north of Chicago, landing craft that can hold 200 people each, are for sale, the U.S. Navy said. An auction of the two LCM-8s, capable of plowing through surf onto a beach, opening a ramp and unleashing an amphibious assault, began Tuesday and ends Thursday afternoon on the govliquidation.com website, the Chicago Tribune reported Wednesday. Bids started at $25 but reached $13,300 and $15,500 by late Wednesday afternoon. The landing craft, each 74 feet long, 21 feet wide and made of welded steel, can carry up to...

A Unique Landing Craft Concept (Source: French Direction Générale de l’Armement; issued Jan. 12, 2011) (Issued in French only; unofficial translation by defense-aerospace.com) French companies often are a source of initiative and ingenuity, and the L-CAT prototype imagined, designed and built on its own money by CNIM (société de Construction industrielles de la Méditerranée), a small company based in south-eastern France. This prototype vessel has the twin hulls of a catamaran, but its central platform, resembling an elevator, can be raised or lowered, thus transforming the L-CAT from a catamaran to flat-bottomed landing craft, and back again. The design, with...