The world's first true amphibious assault ship, the Iwo Jima class, did not carry a general purpose landing craft, so most of the personnel and equipment could only be transferred to other amphibious warships to carry out the landing, which to a large extent limited its amphibious operational capabilities. In view of this, the U.S. Navy in the 1970s began construction of a more versatile "Tarawa" class multi-purpose amphibious assault ship. The Tarawa class has an all-access flight deck with a large rectangular island on the starboard side. The helicopter hangar is located below the aft flight deck, and there are two elevators, one on the port side and the other at the centerline of the aft flight deck. Forward of the helicopter hangar deck in the hull were various stores, as in the Iwo Jima class, and this equipment was transported to the flight deck by two small elevators. Below the helicopter hangar is a large dock for four 1610 class general purpose landing craft. The ship is also fitted with side thrusters for entering or leaving the dock.
"Tarawa" class ships look like aircraft carriers, the ship in addition to helicopter hangars, but also has a dock for landing craft like the dock landing ship, can be used as a helicopter attack ship, amphibious dock transport ship, landing material transportation ship and amphibious command ship, can fulfill the task of four to five landing transport ship. At the same time, due to this class of ships will be landing troops and their equipment, helicopters, landing craft and vehicles, etc. in proportion to the load in a ship, so it can be avoided that a special transport ship was sunk and lost the ability to land troops in combat, thus improving its operational efficiency. "The Tarawa class is equipped with comprehensive medical equipment and can also be used as a hospital ship. "The Tarawa class has a large tonnage, high speed, high endurance, and a high capacity for sustained operations, thus adapting to the needs of ocean warfare.
The Tarawa class ships have the same facilities as aircraft carriers, such as a straight-through flight deck, island superstructure and hangars. The island superstructure is located on the starboard side in the middle of the ship, with two chimneys and two lattice masts on top of the superstructure. There are 9 landing spots on the flight deck for helicopter landing and takeoff. The flight deck can be used for 9 to 12 helicopters to be operated at the same time. There is a hangar under the aft part of the flight deck, which is about 65 meters long, 30 meters wide and 8.5 meters high, and can accommodate 19 CH-53D Sea Stallion large helicopters or 26 CH-46 Sea Knight medium helicopters. Some of the helicopters can be replaced with AV-8B Harrier vertical/short take-off and landing aircraft to enhance air support and ground attack capability. "The USS Tarawa and USS Nassau were partially equipped with Harrier aircraft during the 1991 Gulf War.
Below the bow flight deck, there is a 450-square-meter cabin for acclimatization training, where the temperature can be manually controlled to simulate the climatic conditions of the landing zone. Marines are usually trained in this chamber before landing operations.
Ship **** with two elevators, the transom hangar deck below the 81.6-meter-long, 23.8-meter-wide, three-deck-high docking bay, can accommodate four 41-meter-long landing craft. The forward part of the docking bay is separated from the center and provides access to the vehicle deck. The landing craft can be launched or docked through the transom door when water in the ballast tanks sinks the transom. The boat dispatch office divides the docking bay into two parts: one for incoming boats and one for outgoing boats, which do not interfere with each other. The boat is connected to the vehicle deck by a tongue door. Vehicles can be docked and loaded on the boat, or in the hangar or on the flight deck for helicopters. A monorail on the top of the dock ensures automatic supply of materials to the landing craft.
The vehicle deck of this class has two levels, connected by two upper and lower ramp plates. One level is the main vehicle deck, which is used to load heavy vehicles such as tanks and armored vehicles, and the other level is the secondary vehicle deck, which is used to load light vehicles such as jeeps. When the vehicles are transported by landing craft, they can be lowered directly to the dock deck along the lower ramp; when the vehicles are transported by helicopter, they can be raised directly to the hangar deck along the upper ramp. The vehicle deck has a loading area of 3,135 square meters.
"Tarawa" class is equipped with air-to-air missiles, naval guns and close defense weapon systems, electronic warfare systems, with strong air defense and anti-missile capabilities. In a landing battle, the class has three capabilities: deploy helicopters to implement vertical encirclement; deploy vertical/short takeoff and landing aircraft for air support; and deploy amphibious fighting vehicles and landing craft to implement the attack. Due to the strong firepower on board, the ship can provide a certain amount of maritime fire support and close air support, so it can be tasked with escorting the task force together with other ships. Command and control, communication system is complete, so that it can also be used as a land, sea and air forces joint landing operations of the command ship. This class of ship attaches great importance to fire prevention. The hangar is separated into three sections by two fire doors, each with an automatic fire extinguishing system. In addition, automatic fire extinguishing systems are also installed in important areas such as docking bays, ammunition depots and cargo compartments. In the event of a fire, it can be extinguished within 30 seconds.
The class of ships was completed and put into service, after several modernization and modification, such as the "dense array" close-in weapon system instead of the "sea sparrow" ship-air missiles, add two "Ram" Close-range air-to-ship missile system, remove the 127mm gun, increase the ability to take off and land AV-8B Harrier vertical/short take-off and landing aircraft.
U.S. Navy multi-purpose amphibious assault ships. *** built five ships, the first ship "Tarawa" (LHAL) in 1971 to start construction, in May 1976 service. The ship is 249.9 meters long, 31.8 meters wide, 7.9 meters draft, 39,925 tons full load displacement, speed 24 knots, range 10,000 nautical miles / 20 knots. It can carry 6 AV-8B Sea Harrier vertical take-off and landing fighters, 4 AH1-W Super Cobra attack helicopters, 12 CH-46 Sea Knight transport helicopters, 9 CH-53 Sea Stallion transport helicopters, and 4 UH-1N Huey utility helicopters (or 6 AV-8B Sea Harrier vertical takeoff and landing (or six AV-8B Sea Harrier vertical take-off and landing fighters, 12 CH-46 Sea Knights and nine CH-53 Sea Stallion transport helicopters); two LCU general purpose landing craft, one LCAC large air cushion landing craft and four LCPL large personnel landing craft. The crew consists of 964 people, including 82 officers. Can carry 1,900 Marines at a time. The ship's armament includes two 21-unit RAM air-to-air missile launchers, two MK15 six-barrel 20-millimeter close-in defense systems and four MK38 25-millimeter machine guns.
Missiles: 2 RAM close-in air-to-ship missile launchers.
Port No. Ship Name Started Launched Served Decommissioned Homeport
LHA-2 Saipan 1972.3.211974.7.18 1977.10.15
LHA-3 Belleau Wood 1973.3.51977.4.11 1978
LHA-1 Tarawa 1971.11.5 1973.12.1 1976.5.29
LHA-5 Pelillo 1976.11.12 1978.11.29 1980.5.3
LHA-4 Nassau 1973.8.13 1978.1.2 1979.7.28
Load capacity: 1,703 landing personnel; four LCU- 1610 general-purpose landing craft, or 2 general-purpose landing craft (LCU) and 2 LCM-8 mechanized landing craft, or 17 LCM-6 mechanized landing craft, or 45 towed landing vehicles, or 1 air cushion landing craft and 4 light personnel landing craft; 1200 tons of aviation fuel; 19 CH-53 helicopters, or 26 CH-46D, CH-46E helicopters. Some of the helicopters can be replaced by six AV-8B fighters if needed.
Guns: 2 Mk-15 "dense array" close-in weapon systems, 6 Mk-242 25mm fully automatic guns, 8 12.7mm machine guns.
Radar: SPS-48E three-seat standard air search radar, SPS-40E air search radar, Mk-23 type target capture system, SPS-67 (Ⅴ) 3 type of search radar to the sea, SPS-64 (Ⅴ) 9 type of navigation radar, SPG-60 type of fire control radar, URN-25 type "Tacan " tactical navigation system, CIS Mk-XV enemy identification radar.
Electronic warfare: four Mk-36-type 6-tube fixed SRBOC decoy launchers, SLQ-25 "water spirit" towed torpedo decoys, NATO "Sea Mosquito" SLQ-49-type jamming buoys, SLQ-32 (Ⅴ) 3 The SLQ-32(V)3 electronic warfare system.
Command and Control: ACDS-0 Naval Tactical and Advanced Combat Command System, Amphibious Operations Tactical Integrated Data System (AOTIDS), 4A, 11, 14, and 16 datalinks, SSR-1, WSC-3 (UHF), and USC-38 (EHF) satellite communication systems.