"American landing craft in 1941?" Topic

My not be exactly WWII but I'm hoping this is close enough for here.
In 1941 before and at the very start of the war what was the situation for American landing craft?
Most of my info seems to imply that many of the landing craft used in 1942 were new and experimental. So did America have dedicated landing craft before that? And if not what was the plan for carrying out an invasion?

If you watch the movie Guadalcanal Diary, in the scene when the marines come ashore, they are using the original version of the Higgins boat. It was called the Eureka boat.

Like Major Mike said, the US did not have dedicated landing craft before getting the Higgins Boat design. Where that wasn't available they used ships boats, like in the Makin Island raid.

The wiki article seems pretty good.
link

The Gallipoli landings seemed to offer convincing evidence that a landing from the sea against a defended beachhead was impossible. In the 1930s, the USMC started studying the issue, trying to figure out how you could land a force on a contested beach. This, in turn, led to the development of specialized landing craft. As with so many other things, it was just starting to be available when the war started.

By the way, I was amused by the orcish Higgins boats at Osgiliath in the LOTR movies. Like this is the obvious solution to the problem, instead of actually a rather brilliant idea.

Grelber

The Gallipoli landings seemed to offer convincing evidence that a landing from the sea against a defended beachhead was impossible

Not really. Most of the initial landings went well. The troops got ashore with minimal casualties, in one case they were unopposed. But then they failed to move inland and gave the Turks time to organize defenses and counterattacks with the inevitable results. The one exception was an attempted landing at a (known) well-defended spot, exacerbated by the Army's refusal to accept naval gunfire support.

Eisenhower once refereed to Andrew Jackson Higgins as "The man who won World War II for us." :)

Guadalcanal was an unopposed landing (LVT used for logistical support only) too and I don't think Bouganville had much landing opposition.

It was Tarawa where the concept was tested. They only had enough LVT's for the first three waves. The first wave got in not too bad because many of the defenders were out of position getting out of their bombproof bunkers and were expecting the landing on the seaside of the island, not from the lagoon side. Many of the LVT's actually sunk because of so many small arms holes in the hull.

Wolfhag

Thanks. That's all really helpful.
So then next question. These boats look to only be able to carry men. Was there any way to deliver vehicles to a beach or would the marines be required to secure a safe location to land ships for that?

If they wanted vehicles on shore, they needed to capture or build a dock or runway.

Like those one…

Amicalement
Armand

For the Torch landings in November 1942 the specialized vehicle landing craft like the LST, LCM, and LCT were not ready yet. They brought tanks down on ferry boats that were built to handle railroad trains. They still needed some sort of dock, but if one was available, the tanks could drive right off.