Ian Haskins wrote:
>
> The USMC in the South Pacific used a mixture of "higgins" boats (wooden
> landing craft in effect) that drafted only 3 feet of water and some form of
> floating tank (called a xxxxxx tractor I think) that was originally designed
> in the 1930's for taking people on tours of the Florida Swamps
> As a point of History the final invasion of Japan was timed for spring 1946
> The Japanese had an estimated 2,000,000 troops plus the local militia
> defending the main island, had this gone ahead then the Americans had
> planned to loose at least 200,000 men. Japanese losses were expected to be
> in the Millions.
Operations "Coronet" and "Olympic". Nothing I've seen to date has caused
me to revise those figures downwards: in particular, japanese civilian
deaths I think are greatly under-estimated, based on Okinawa.
When talking about landing-craft, merits thereof, ill-designed etc there
is one paramount consideration:
THERE WERE NEVER ENOUGH.
Designs were made that were distinctly sub-optimal, but which could be
manufactured in Dave's Small Boats Shop, Dinghys R Us etc. and out of
non-strategic materials, rather than those in short (or non-existent)
supply. Often the choice wasn't a bad design vs a good design, it was 10
bad ones tomorrow vs the promise of 1 good one next year if they could
get the parts.
--
aebrain_at_... <> <> How doth the little Crocodile
| Alan & Carmel Brain| xxxxx Improve his shining tail?
| Canberra Australia | xxxxxHxHxxxxxx _MMMMMMMMM_MMMMMMMMM
abrain_at_... o OO*O^^^^O*OO o oo oo oo oo
By pulling MAERKLIN Wagons, in 1/220 Scale
Received on Sat Sep 26 1998 - 00:39:22 UTC