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ACU-4 Provides Wasp ESG Amphibious Capabilities

Navy Newsstand

Story Number: NNS031229-10

Release Date: 12/29/2003 6:00:00 PM

By Journalist 2nd Class Mark C. Schultz, USS Wasp Public Affairs

ABOARD USS WASP, At Sea (NNS) -- Assault Craft Unit (ACU) 4 provides the Wasp Expeditionary Strike Group (ESG) with additional capabilities that a helicopter can't provide.

"With a helicopter, you can basically put Marines on the beach," said ACU-4's Yeoman 1st Class (SW) Stanley Battle from Atlanta, Ga. "But can you put a hundred Marines on the beach at one time? Not only that, but can you put a hundred Marines with all of their equipment on the beach at one time? ACU-4 can."

ACU 4 provides the Wasp Expeditionary Strike Group with the unique capability for "over the horizon assaults from the sea through the surf zone onto land," said Senior Chief Operations Specialist (AW) Raymond Fischer, ACU-4 craftmaster. "We land the Marines on the beach on time, every time."

Fischer and other craftmasters of ACU 4 are pilots, but not in the usual sense. They don't fly helicopters or planes. They fly 88-foot long by 40-foot wide, 16,000 horsepower Landing Craft Air Cushion (LCAC) vehicles, or hovercrafts. Capable of carrying loads of up to 70 tons over water and land, the LCAC is the primary amphibious assault craft used to transport Marines and their equipment.

"You can put tanks, humvees, howitzer batteries and things of that nature on the deck and take it out," said Battle. "LCACs can land on the beach, set down their ramps, unload, pull their ramps up and get right back out to the ships to load more ammunition, personnel or vehicles."

"We can carry anything," said Fischer. "If you can get it strapped down to the deck, we can transport it."

LCACs sit on a cushion of air created by four lift fans that draw a million cubic feet of air per second each. Powering the fans are four gas turbine engines that produce 4,000 horsepower each. These fans can move the LCAC faster than 50 knots per hour (kph) over water and 25 kph over land.

Operated by only five crew members -- a craftmaster, engineer, navigator, loadmaster and deck mechanic -- LCACs can be loaded in 45 minutes, on average, to an hour. LCACs have two loading ramps where vehicles or cargo on pallets are driven onto the deck and strapped down.

"It can take a little while to load," said Fischer, "but we have to take safety precautions and once everything is loaded we have to do a foreign object debris walk down to make sure nothing will be sucked into the fans and damage the props. The fans are so strong they've pulled humvee doors off."

ACU-4 provides the multipurpose amphibious assault ship USS Wasp (LHD 1) with three LCACs and the amphibious dock landing ship USS Whidbey Island (LSD 41) with two.

When conducting operations, all five "travel together in formation completely independent from their host ships," said Fischer. "We don't need to be guided to shore like older amphibious craft. We have radar on board and know where we are and where we need to be. Once a course is designated, a dotted line shows our route and a circle shows up on the radar. I just keep the LCAC on that circle. We all hit the beach simultaneously."

Flying just above the water, LCACs can operate up to 200 miles from shore.

"That's with perfect sea conditions and a light load," said Fischer. "There are a lot of variables that determine the load we can carry and the speed we can travel."

Weather drives the operational tempo of ACU-4 with varying sea states and wind speeds.

"On a perfect day with seas less than three-and-a-half feet, we can operate up to 12 hours a day during daylight hours," said Fischer. "In seas greater than three-and-a-half feet, we can only operate eight hours a day."

These hours are more commonly called a crew day, which can be expanded by the Wasp Strike Group commander if operations require it. Crew days have been implemented so the crew isn't overworked.

"It is physically tiring for the deck and load masters and mentally tiring for rest of the crew," said Fisher. "Loading cargo and docking with the ship while it's moving is very difficult."

With a set crew day, maintenance personnel also have a chance to work on the LCACs repairing any damage caused by waves during an operation.

"Most people don't see what goes on behind the scenes, making sure the LCACs are up and running," said Battle. "When LCACs come in for the night, the maintenance crew is out there doing bag work, putting patches on the props, doing electrical overhauls sometimes, and making sure the radar works. Much of this work takes all night and the maintenance crews still have to be available the next day. If an LCAC needs work, the crews can fix it while it is being loaded."

"Transporting equipment; that's our mission," said Fischer. "We can do other operations as well. The LCAC can do mine countermeasure operations, for example. It can tow a line behind it while traveling over the water to detect mines or do 'lay bridge' operations where a cargo net laced with C-4 is shot out on a beach to clear a mine field. Those projects have come and gone, though. But we do have those capabilities if needed."

It is with the unique capabilities of ACU-4 that Marines of the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit embarked with ESG-2 are able to launch an attack from sea at a moment's notice.

The Wasp Strike Group and 22nd MEU make up the first East Coast-based ESG and second ESG in the Navy's fleet. The Wasp ESG recently finished predeployment exercises near the Atlantic Coast and in the Gulf of Mexico and is scheduled for deployment early next year.