Recently picked up a copy of Combat Fleets of the World 1988/89. It lists the U.S. Army as having 65 LARC XV, 30 LARC LX, and 25 LARC V. I have never seen nor heard of these before. Just what are they and how were they employed? Are these still being used?

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/ship/larc.htm

A LARC was also used in the movie Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. It was the vehicle Angelina Jolie was riding in some of the Arctic scenes.

They come up for sale every so often.

Here's one in Conneticut.


Hey, we could start the Tank Net Gator Navy with this pair.

There are half a dozen of them slowly rotting away on Camp Shelby MS....

Here's a LARC LX in Lockport, LA, for sale: http://www.yachtworld.com/boats/1952/Landi...A/United-States FlyingCanOpener, your hurricane survival vehicle awaits!
http://www.wareham-steamship.com/larc-lx.htm Other LARC-LX & LARC-Vs for sale (Great Britian, I believe).
Another LARC-LX in Miami: http://www.miamilaunch.com/html/larc_lx.html
Video of Lane Automotive Museum LARC-LX running over a stripped car: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=la6lFhroB4I...player_embedded Other LARC videos are linked in the sidebar.

There was an article in Professional Mariner magazine a few years ago about a construction company in Maine that was using two LARC-60s since they were handy for hauling equipment and supplies to the many islands in the area. As a matter of fact, I think it was this outfit: http://www.seatruk.com/

The LARC-V was basically a DUKW replacement and had a 5 ton payload. LARC-15s and LARC-60s had payloads of 15 and 60 tons, respectively (actual loads could be higher, apparently). They had better water characteristics than the DUKW, but sacrificed road performance. I'm not sure how their offroad performance compared.

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:BARC-LARC-XV-2.jpeg

According to Global Security, the LARC-LX went out of service with the Army in 2001. I do know that I saw some LARC-Vs in operation at NAB Little Creek, VA in 2003.

See the Global Security article here: http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/ship/larc.htm

Douglas

http://www.amphibiousvehicle.net/amphi/B/b...ecial/barc.html BARC [LARC60]

I saw one of these in 1967 at the Amphib Base, Little Creek. It was indeed huge. I was told an escaped prisoner once tried to get away in one, started up 'the' engine, gave it full throttle, merely dug in the one wheel it propelled!

It looks like the conceptual parent of the LCAC; a vehicle to move large loads from ship to across the beach.

Hmm... Lockport's only a little over an hour from here; Anyone have a spare quarter of a million bucks?

I think that is what killed them, the LCAC was faster, able to go over many obstacles.

Speaking of going over obstacles, does anyone know if the ground pressure of an LCAC (or other hovercraft) will detonate land mines if it passes over them?

The LCAC was a Naval hovercraft designed to replace various LCM, not LARCs, which were an Army vehicle rather than a naval one. The LARCs were meant to be replaced by the Army with the Bell Model 7467 LACV-30 hovercraft.

See

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/sys...hip/lacv-30.htm

and quoting from that site:

"The Army purchased a total of 26 LACV-30s. The Army operated the LACV-30s up until the mid 1990s. Most of these were ultimately turned over to a Native Alaskan corporation that continues to lease them to meet requirements in Alaska. The 331st Floating Causeway Company was part of the 6th Transportation Battalion (Truck). It was inactivated at Fort Story as a LACV-30 company in 1995 because the Army no longer needed air cushion vehicles. "

Doug, thanks for the link. This is the first I've ever heard of the LACV. I had wondered why LARCs were taken from service.

Well, there were only 26 of them, and they only lasted 10 years in service, which is a fairly short time for post 1960 equipment. They would have been overshadowed, and perhaps even mistaken by casual observers for, LCAC, of which there were considerably larger numbers.

I also wonder whther, even though the LACV was not intended for assault, whether it was similar enough to the LCAC in general concept and capacity (actually being able to carry more than the 'advertised' 30 tons) so that it was in sufficient competition with the LCAC to be a threat to that program, whereas no LARC would ever be mistaken for a LCM.

One last point, and I don't know the answer, whereas a LARC, particularly a LARC 60, could come alongside an 'Army' supply ship to be loaded via crane, the LACV would appear to need either considerable floating dock support, and I wonder whether the USN would have been loath to let LACV operate from its amphibious assault ships.

And anyway, does the US Army still have an interest in amphibious assault and supply post the Cold War?

Memories, memories

In April 1962, my platoon, the 4th DS Platoon of the 94th Ordnance Company (Direct Support) was supporting the 2nd Squadron of the 150th Armored Cavalry Regiment (WVNG on active duty for the Berlin Crisis) in Operation WETHORSE II at Fort Miles, Delware. In addition to a lot of LCU, there were several of these LARC LX there for the exercise. At the time, it was called the BARC and the LARC V was called the LARC. The 150th rotated each of its squadrons through the exercise and each squadron made an amphib landing on the beach the M100 trailer behind my M38 jeep banged down on the LCU ramp as my platoon rolled off and needed some work from the metal body shop after the exercise.

In 1988, the CINCLANT reserve augmentation element took a ride in a LARC LX at Fort Story, VA deuring one of our weekend drills.


The Army marine craft fleet was more for lighterage in over-the-shore operations as opposed to assault landings.

Hmmm, various cities have DUKW tours. A LARC could fit the tourists and a cash bar. Recommission a BARC and you can have tourists, bar, party band and dance floor.

I took a class next door to Little Creek back in '02, and didn't realize those LARC's wern't Army.

http://www.mobyduck.com/salem/groups.html

Not much of a view from the well deck of a BARC/LARC LX. The sides are higher than the sides on a LCU.

Raise the dance floor and plenty of room for a disco ball.

Here's my account of my LARC 5 ride.

19 years old, mid-1980 and serving 2 years' full-time conscription in SAF infantry brigade S2 Branch.

The mission was a night recce of coastline, river mouth etc. Can't reveal actual nature.

I remember the wheel was almost as tall as me (1.7m). And IIRC, the wheels spun during traverse at sea, but I could be wrong.


In the sea - which was calm that night, moon-less - the LARC 5 was a beautifully smooth ride. Probably because it is so heavy? It was going at a stately speed though I don't kow if it can go any faster.

But the beast of an engine was loud as hell. We could barely hear each other talk. Up front was better, but only slightly.

We nearly rammed a sampan (small wooded boat) as the guy was fishing without lights on. Luckily our spotlight caught him in time and the driver took immediate action. Since we're not police, we moved on after the driver scolded him.

After a couple of hours, we reached a beach where the driver tried to land. It turned out that the shape of the sand bar meant that the craft couldn't overcome. He tried several other spots and similar result. I was quite astonished as I thought having wheels meant you could go anywhere, but apparently NOT.

Finally the driver moved further down and we proceeded to land at another stretch of beach that happened to be one of Singapore's few recreational beaches.

A small crowd of people gathered at the beach watching this "boat" with a spotlight fumbling around. And then to their astonishment, the "boat" proceeded to shore. They scattered as most had never seen an amphibious craft before. (Nor I until that night.) Then we traversed along the length of the beach looking for a way out to the main road. Couples were jumping out of bushes etc.

On the roads, the LARC 5 was not a comfortable ride and rocked left to right even though out roads were in perfect condition.

I don't know what purpose the LARC 5 served in SAF other than they were given FOC by the US. They are too noisy for any kind of work that requires any degree of stealth.

I recall seeing a few LARC Vs (I think, judging from the Globalsecurity pix) at the Naval/Marine portion of Ft Bonifacio back in, oh 1997 when we had an ROTC session there one day. I dunno if it's still being used, I reckon it still is.

SRN6 had a skirt pressure of around 28lb per square ft, they succeed in crossing various mines in testing.

I recall the USN LCAC was tested against tilt-rod AT mines -- the only type they would detonate, except for a designer magnetic mine -- and it lost a skirt panel or two, remained mission capable. The USMC also asked for a complete destructive testing of the LCAC, using one of two prototypes, but the USN refused.

Squids must still have been mad about that MOGAS aboard ship for the FAVs.

Well seeing that the LARCs are gone from the Army, and so have the LAVCs, does the Army have anything to do the ship to shore lifting? Or is it assumed that with the end of the Cold War everything over the beach can be done by the Navy and USMC? Or by helicopter perhaps? Chinooks instead of LARCS?

LARCs of course could also be used for river crossings, and would have been very useful for engineers constructing bridges. Has the US Army also gotten out of the buisness of river crossing as well? Or will all Army amphib operations be conducted by Strykers. including supply of any beachheads?

The Army never used LARCs for river crossings. They were strictly Transportation Corps lighterage. The Corps of Engineers did the river crossings using assault boats, pontoon ferrys, and pontoon bridges. The only non-Transportation marine craft units to own any of the lighterage were the Engineer Port Construction units which had two LCM each.

Thanks for that information Richard.

I understand then the the USA never adopted anything like the Gillois Bridge System.

Meanwhile the Soviets developed a tracked vehicle with similar capacities to the LARC in the PTS amphibian, and the British had the Stalwart Cargo vehicle. Of course the impressive M520 Goer could also be considered as having similar capabilities to the LARC.

None of the Stryker variants are amphibious...

Sorry, I assumed because of their LAV heritage that they would be. Which means that the USA effectively has no amphibious vehicles?

This would leave helicopters and UAVs to do any recon or follow up across water barriers.

Huh? The USMC has plenty. The LAV series are swimmers, if so equipped, not amphibs. River crossings are best done by infiltration, vertical envelopment.

And the army still has a Corps of Engineers, last I heard. For larger water obstacles, the USMC can provide, as Ken pointed out.

Opposed river crossings are a thing best avoided, but that doesn't mean there is no capability to do so.

Sorry, USA as in US Army, not USMC.

I thought the Bradley could swim with preparation?

In its original configuration, perhaps yes. But nowadays, IIRC I read somewhere (here or in a book, not sure) that with all the weight of add-on armour, etc etc, the swimming capability was lost.

That was my understanding as well, that is it was margin when firts introduced, but now the Bradley is 'amphibious' with the inflating of rubber pontoons around the hull, which is a bit like saying that Shermans were amphibious because some could float when fitted with a canvas screen and had propellers.

The US Army adopted a French slf-propelled bridge component (string four of them together to make a ferry and a bunch of them together to make a bridge) called the ARCE in the early sixties while working on fielding a US designed replacement, the Mobile Assualt Bridge (MAB). The MAB was fielded around 1970. The Corps of Engineers had three different bridge companies, the MAB company, the Float Bridge Company (M4T6), and the Panel Bridge company (Bailey Bridge). The M4T6 was replaced by the Ribbon Bridge and the Bailey by the Medium Girder Bridge.

The US also had the Light Tactical Raft to make light ferries (a single 2-1/2 ton truck was max load). The pontoon sections of the raft could be used as storm boats for assault river crossings. There was also the smaller assault boat which was used for stealth river crossings.

The Gillois Bridge System was a French self-propelled bridge component system, so was probably that adopted by the US Army. I was not aware of this.

Picture of a LARC swimming on board a Navy amphib here.

That is am interesting photo in a few ways. The markings are clearing 'USN' rather than US Army.

This bit of information can be found at:

http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/LARC-V


U.S. Navy service life extension program
The United States Naval Facilities Engineering Command (NAVFAC) has directed the Sealift Support Program Office (SSPO) to supervise a Service Life Extension Program (SLEP) on the LARC V's used by the Navy. This SLEP involved upgrading the towing capabilities, changing from a mechanical to a hydraulic transmission and updating the electrical system. These SLEP'd LARCs began delivery in June 2007 for use by US Navy Beach Master Units, Underwater Construction Teams and the Maritime Prepositioned Force ships. A total of 38 LARC's are currently funded to transition through the SLEP process. The first four of them have were delivered to Beachmaster Unit OneBeachmaster Unit One with no fanfare from LARC Commanders, Engineers, and mechanics. The advertised "upgraded towing capabilities" were non-existent, and even considered a down-grade to the already troublesome LARCs. The SLEP program also did away with four-wheel driveFour-wheel drive, making scaling of medium berms difficult. Also included in the so-called "upgraded electrical system" was a throttle-by-wire Electronic throttle control system that was computer controlled. This made engine speed and acceleration very erratic. Most importantly, the single pump hydraulic system provided a single point of failure, and even a minor hydraulic leak could cause a complete loss of steering and braking.

We had them in 3rd Armd Div when I was there in 64-66.

Big boat shaped hull with side panel that opened to discharge and fill up big cigar-shaped baloons. The decking swiveled 90 degrees from travel mode to bridge/ferry mode.

Repair parts were from France using a special fund.

Was that the Gillois??

Yup, looked it up on Google. The US had them as interim equipment until the MAB was fielded.

Richard, It seems funny that we lagged so far behind in modern bridging and river-crossing gear until the late/80-90s. Apart from defbud problems, was there an internal army problem with things that did not go 'bang'?? Didn't USAEur have an annual Rhine bridging event ever since the earth cooled? Ken

The MAB was fielded about 1971 to replace the Gillois/ARCE.

The Ribbon Bridge was one of the top five R&D projects in 1971. I think funding was slow in coming.

The M4T6 bridge was usually used for the river exercises and the engineers were pretty good at putting it together. a new and modernized Bridge Erection Boat was fielded in the 70s.

Like the Bailey, the Medium Girder Bridge was developed elswhere (UK I think).

What do you mean by "modern"??

The only spur the army had on river-crossing was Europe. As Europe wound down in importance after 1990, so did river crossing.

I always thought Ribbon was pretty much a copy of the Soviet PMP:

Ribbon equipment was actually reverse engineered at the United States Army Mobility Equipment Research and Development Command (MERADCOM) at Fort Belvoir, Virginia from photographs and drawings of the Soviet PMP Bridge. Since 1962 the Soviet Army was armed with this type of PMP. The Soviet steeltype Folding Float Bridge designated PMP that was used by Egyptian units to cross the Suez Canal in 1973. The only difference was that the US used duralumin instead of steel for pontoons and installed them on American trucks. The US copy even used the same number of bolts on hatches leading inside pontoons.

The ribbon bridge system was type classified in June 1972, and is currently the United States Army's primary assault floating bridge.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/ground/rb.htm

Yes, it was derived from the Soviet equipment. It was slow going because there was a significant element in the US bridging community that felt you needed space between pontoons to let the debis coming down current to pass though. You also had the admin hurdles to go through for requirments documentation, R&D on the truck launching system adaptation, and the testing.

When I received a tour to the For Sci & Technol facility at APG in 1975, the major there told me that three items had been reverse engineered to date from the Soviet Army: the ribbon bridge, the mine roller kit for tanks and a cable tensioning device for large capacity winches, such as in the tank recovery vehicle.

Because they thought there would always be class 70 highway bridges in places like Iraq, and they were always going to capture them intact?

I could be wrong but I seem to recall seeing pictures or footage of a US ribbon bridge deployed in the FRY in the early-mid 90s.

Me too, they used them to cross the Danube? or maybe the Sava? big river whatever it was.

IIRC, Sava between Slavonski Brod and Bosanski Brod.

How long can these temporary bridges last?