LPD NEWCON
Morocco has a need for ships which can provide a seabasing capability; combining roles of transporting or housing vehicles, and personnel. Both Egypt and Algeria are substantially enlarging their amphibious assault capabilities. Many sources report Morocco's lone amphibious assault ship as inactive, though it was photographed on 01 June 2011 tied up next to a pair of Patrol Combattants OPV 64 class 320 Rais Charkaoui and Rais Maaninou or Rais Al Mounastiron. The Sidi Mohammed Ben Abdallah was a Newport class Tank Landing Ship - LST, built as USS Bristol County (LST 1198). The ship was commissioned in the US Navy on August 5, 1972, decommissioned July 29, 1994, and transferred to Morocco: August 16, 1994.
As of 2015 the amphibious capacity of the Royal Moroccan Navy consisted of three 40-year old LSM of the French Champlain type - Daoud Ben Aicha (402), Ahmed Es Sakali (403) and Abou Abdallah El Ayachi (404). These are 80 meters long and 13 meters beam, and fitted with an helicopter deck and light weapons.
In the global arms market there are significant difference in such ships, some having paratroop capabilities, corresponding to a medium aircraft carrier. In general these ships can be divided into three main groups of amphibious ships with export prospects:
- amphibious assault ships of total displacement of 16,000 to 30,000 tons wtih aircraft with advanced capabilities;
- functional landing helicopter dock ships (LPH) with a total displacement of 9,000 to 20,000 tons, to address a number of tasks;
- "Cheap" amphibious transport docks (LPD) and small landing helicopter dock ships full displacement of 6,000 to 13,000 tons, aimed at addressing amphibious transport problems. Some of these are little more than armed ferries, but they are suited to the intended tasks.
Due to the possible lack of land bases near future battlefields, vehicles and troops may be supported and deployed from large ships or mobile basing platforms. In existing naval fleets, these roles are usually separated, and ships that fulfill one or more of these roles are often of limited capacity and capability. Amphibious assault ships (such as the US Navy LHA and LHD) provide marine units a seaborne platform for support of combat operations from the sea. Vertical takeoff aircraft are positioned on the flight deck of a LHD ship, takeoff marks aligned with the ship indicate from where aircraft can launch. While such ships rely primarily on air-cushion landing craft to deploy heavy combat-ready vehicles, including armored vehicles, to a beachhead, they also provide facilities for helicopter transport of troops, light vehicles, and supplies.
The US military uses special roll-on roll-off (RO-RO) ships to pre-position heavy armored vehicles close to where they may be needed. Such a ship includes provisions for armored vehicles to drive onboard, and typically minimal helicopter landing provisions 304. The deployment of heavy legacy armor including Abrams battle tanks and Bradley armored troop carriers, heavy artillery, and engineer vehicles requires substantial port facilities in the area of operation to deploy on land.
In amphibious warfare, many different kinds of marine vessels, usually referred to as landing craft, have been employed for the purpose of transporting cargo and personnel from a mother ship or base to a landing upon a beach. A wide variety of vehicles, both wheeled and with tracks, which were necessary to carry out the designated mission have been transported by these landing craft to positions upon a beach. Such cargo landing craft are rather ponderous in structure and move at slow speeds through the water. Thus, a rather long period of time is required to travel from either a base or mother ship to the beach landing area. Since the mother ship may be anchored about 20 miles from the landing beach, the long time required to make the trip from the mother ship to the beach is undesirable and may even cause discomfort and illness among the personnel.
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