HMS Fearless and the price of beaching capability

A 1958 study examined how to replace Britain's aging amphibious force while lifting two assault battalions and their supporting arms. The alternatives were bow-loading beaching LSTs, stern-loading non-beaching LSTs, and a landing ship dock (LSD); American designs were rejected as larger, more complex, and more expensive than required. British planners wanted access to beaches with a gradient as shallow as one in 120. That requirement forced shallow draft, small propellers, a resistant hull form, and poor seakeeping, while the American one-in-50 assumption yielded a more seaworthy vessel at the cost of sharply reducing the number of usable beaches. The study expected wheeled vehicles to wade through five or six feet of water and assumed Centurion tanks could use duplex-drive swimming equipment, though it remains unclear whether a swimming Centurion was ever actually demonstrated. Competing beaching designs used either four Deltic diesels or two G6 gas turbines. Higher speeds were rejected because their cost would buy a speed usable only in calm weather. Each smaller ship would carry half a battalion, distributing the assault force across more hulls. HMS Fearless and HMS Intrepid emerged from these compromises among beach access, vehicle handling, weather, propulsion, cost, and force structure.