A Question of Getting Them There - Landing Ships & Amphibious Warfare Part 2(i)

Interwar conversion plans and embarked landing craft still fell short of a complete amphibious fleet.

An apparently successful interwar exercise shows how limited opposition and small scale could hide the absence of specialist amphibious shipping.

Large, medium, small, and hand-hoisting LSIs did not always fit neat wartime categories.

HMS Glenroy's plans show how stacked LCAs, derrick-handled LCMs, and revised davits increased the craft carried by a large infantry ship.

A Glen-class LSI combined high-angle guns, nearly 1,700 embarked personnel, a 10,000-ton hull, and a stated 15,000-mile range.

A 15,000-mile range and the first LSI orders in April 1940 link procurement to a war spreading beyond northern Europe.

A 22-knot infantry ship could move a commando-sized force while davits placed LCAs and heavier LCMs into the water quickly.

Operation Claymore demonstrates how fast infantry ships, motorized landing craft, commandos, destroyers, and air defense had to work as one force.

Small and medium LSIs often began as ferries, producing useful but imperfect combinations of troop capacity, speed, space, and landing-craft fit.

Manually operated davits show how urgently Combined Operations converted available shipping while amphibious requirements kept growing.