That video is a little confusing for anyone who's unfamiliar with this type of vessel. Is that a body of water inside the ship? If so, it must be the Landing Craft Well. I didn't realize that ships (of any type) could be loaded/unloaded in that manner.

Although I've lived in a coastal city my entire life, the only ships I'm personally familiar with are BC Ferries.

[This message has been edited by Patrick (edited 07-16-2020).]

Yes, a 'body of water'. The well deck is flooded by ballasting down the ship, both fore and aft. All ocean going ships use ballast tanks to maintain trim and they either have empty spaces they flood or they shift fuel around to different tanks, but Amphibs have specific spaces they flood. The upper and lower rear ramps are opened, and ballast (sea water) is added to drop the ship down in the water..usually just enough so the larger craft can exit. The below picture shows an LCU that had already been launched while the ship was ballasted down farther than in the picture to provide enough draft for it to get out. It then pulls up to the ramp and the cargo is either driven on or in the case of palletized loads, brought on via forklift. Air cushion LCACs can exit dry deck tho they usually do not. This ship's sole purpose is to transport and land Amphibious troops and their equipment..ie, US Marines. The MEU sometimes works with 2 other amphib ships, (LSD, LSH, and LSA)s and It can carry nearly a full Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) and everything they need to fight for 15 days, anywhere in the world. There is always at least 1 MEU afloat, and usually 2..one in each major area of contention or conflict, but the 3 ship group makes up what is called and Expeditionary Strike Group (ESG) . It carries enough supplies and troops to fight 30 days. There are 9 ESGs and each is usally backed up just over the horizon by one of 10 USN Carrier.



A little bit older ship (USS Iwo Jima) and the layout is similar but not as big or modern as the current class LHD



I spent over a year on LCUs, LCM8s, and other 'gator' craft so I'm pretty familiar with them. The newer vessels and vehicles came after I got out of the military.

No one other than bar owners and brothels wants to wake up one morning and find an Expeditionary Strike Group parked just offshore, especially since there's a pretty good chance that just over the horizon there's one or more of these loitering about.

[This message has been edited by maryjane (edited 07-16-2020).]

quote You have any pictures of the upper and lower vehicle storage areas when they were loaded?

I probably do somewhere but I would have to dig up a cruise book to find them.

I can't remember exactly what they were capable of holding in the ship in terms of vehicles since the loadout was dependent on the Marines projected mission but basically if there is a clear space on a ship, the Corps will find something they need to fit there We always had preloads on the deck of the LCAC when deployed since we aren't going to let that flat space go to waste.

We would have 3 LCAC deployed inside the LHD and onload/offload of a ship would take between 20 and 30 runs. A typical LCAC loadout might be 10 uparmored HMMWVs or 2 7-ton truck pulling howitzers or even an M1A1 tank with mineplow.

Most likely since they were in the yard, the welldeck was completely empty of Marine vehicles. They generally aren't loaded for any length of time until the beginning of deployment when we roll down from Norfolk to Camp Lejeune to pick them up. Before that we only had them on board for a week or two at a time when doing predeployment exercises.

My guess is the contractors had that area slam full of repair parts, metal, paint, welders/welding gas bottles, removed parts/equipment, you name it. It becomes a sheltered secure place to store things until needed in the repair cycle. Fighting a fire in that area would be trying to drag a firehose through a junkyard. I feel for those guys and am glad nobody seems to have been seriously injured

[This message has been edited by AlanD (edited 07-17-2020).]

[This message has been edited by CoolBlue87GT (edited 07-17-2020).]