Tuesday 8 April 2014

Marine LVTs

The Allied forces had many years to learn what worked when carrying out amphibious operations after learning the hard way fighting the Japanese in the Pacific. One of the lessons learnt was the design of the LVT series of amphibious armoured vehicles. Experience had shown that the armour was too thin and carrying capacity was limited, so in response to this Allied designers created a larger model in late 1946. 
This model carried a 17pdr gun for use against enemy infantry and armour as well as the cabability of carrying 16 fully eqquiped type 2 infantry. First use was a limited deployment by the Marines around the Delta areas of the Tigris in Iraq. The amphibious capability, type 4 armour, 17pdr gun and numerous 50 calibre machine guns made it a firm favourite of the Marines in Mesopotamia.

    New LVT coming ashore