U.S. Forced to Cancel Hovercraft Beach Landing

For the second straight day Monday, heavy seas wiped out a key part of a U.S. mock amphibious assault that was designed to send a signal to Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

Wind-whipped swells up to 14 feet high stopped the launching of Hovercraft to ferry U.S. Marines to the beach, Navy spokesman James Taylor said. The landing was canceled.

The Hovercraft, called Landing Craft Air Cushion or LCACs, can work in seas up to 12 feet but at speeds greatly below their top rate of 50 knots, a spokesman said.

As part of the amphibious assault exercise the U.S. military calls Imminent Thunder, up to 800 Marines were supposed to storm a beach by Hovercraft and helicopter, then establish a beachhead as a base for future war games.

Sunday, about 400 Marines were flown in by helicopter but the rest stayed aboard ships about 20 miles off the Saudi coast because of swells up to 10 feet high.

The Navy had hoped that the sea would be calm enough Monday for another try with the Hovercraft, but when there were high seas again, the operation was abandoned.

Taylor said it was called off to protect both the Marines and the Hovercraft. “In an exercise, why take unnecessary risks?” he asked.

The Navy has 16 Hovercraft, each costing $24 million, and funds have been authorized for 32 more of the 200-ton vessels. Under proper conditions, they can glide on a cushion of air four feet high.

Taylor acknowledged that the windy winters of the Arabian Peninsula will test the Navy’s ability to use the Hovercraft, which are crucial to an attack strategy called “over the horizon.”

An over-the-horizon amphibious assault requires fast air and sea craft that can get soldiers ashore quickly from ships so far off the coast that a sentry onshore cannot spot them.

“It presents a challenge, but not an insurmountable challenge,” Taylor said of the weather.