Talk:Landing Ship, Tank

Hammond Innes's Atlantic Fury

Just read the Kindle edition of this book. The novel clearly states that the two ships caught in the storm are LCTs and not LSTs. Also, the description of the ships with uncovered tank decks fits LCTs. I propose this book description be moved from this article to the LCT article. Thoughts? Tfdavisatsnetnet (talk) 09:56, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

OK, moved. Thanks! Tfdavisatsnetnet (talk) 03:04, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

"This enabled amphibious assaults on almost any beach."

This description of LST use in the lede paragraph is highly misleading. As stated in the Landing Craft Air Cushion article, "Due to its tremendous over-the-beach capability, the LCAC can access more than 80% of the world's coastlines...Previously, landing craft had a top speed of approximately eight knots (15 km/h; 9.2 mph) and could cross only 17% of the world's beach area".

While this quote states 'craft', the number for LSTs was similar.

Thoughts?Tfdavisatsnetnet (talk) 20:09, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

The Newport Class is not mentioned

The Newport class has it's own page, as do each of the ships. I don't know how to add a box on the right side of the page. Jtmilesmmr (talk) 20:54, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

Requested move 4 August 2024

• Landing Ship, Tank → Tank landing ship
• Landing craft tank → Tank landing craft
• Landing Craft Infantry → Infantry landing craft
• Landing Craft Assault → Assault landing craft
• Landing craft mechanized → Mechanized landing craft
• Landing Craft Utility → Utility landing craft
• Landing Craft Support → Support landing craft

– The military likes to list things by major category first, followed by modifier. The normal English way of referring to these things is actually more common in independent sources (some in all sources), and is more recognizable to most non-military readers than the backwards way that the military likes for list alphabetizing. None of these are proper names, as evidenced by frequent lowercase usage in sources. Example, from a Life magazine photo caption in 1943: "Boat is an infantry landing craft, carrying about 200 men. Offshore is tank landing ship." Another, from British War Production, H.M. Stationery Office, 1952: "It was, however, the tank landing craft, not the tank landing ship, that was to form the backbone of the British programmes of 1942 and 1943." I will add book n-gram stats for each, to compare both word order and case. Dicklyon (talk) 22:36, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

• Note – Several of these were reverted after my bold moves, so now we discuss.
• Usage data – I have checked book usage stats on each, and compiled these comparisons, where both the case and word order can be compared. Some are much more common with lowercase and normal word order (e.g. tank landing craft), but in others the capitalized modifier-last order is somewhat more common (e.g. Landing Craft Infantry). It's still better to adopt the "English" over the "military" phrasing, for recognizability to the typical reader.
  • Tank (ship)
  • Tank (craft)
  • Infantry
  • Assault
  • Mechanized
  • Utility
  • Support

  Dicklyon (talk) 22:43, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

More on usage of "Landing Craft Infantry" in particular: most occurrences seem to be in tables, e.g. this 1943 book page has it 4 times, and this 2011 book page has it 9 times, for different varieties, in a table of acronyms, as well as it being in the title of the book. These repetitions get counted in the n-gram statistics. Using contexts that knock out tables and titles and are more likely to represent usage in sentences, we see "infantry landing craft" ahead. The military style is great in tables and catalogs, but isn't what's mostly used to refer to these things in normal writing. Dicklyon (talk) 05:08, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

"Mechanized landing craft" implies the landing craft itself is mechanized while the meaning is that its used for armoured fighting vehicles (mechanized warfare). GraemeLeggett (talk) 07:20, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

Compare with landing craft vehicle personnel (which is at LCVP). Come to think of it, it may be these vessels are better known by their initialisms than their written out names. GraemeLeggett (talk) 07:24, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

I suggest that the most common place for a person consulting Wikipedia to have seen a name for any of these vessels is in military history and memoirs. This is where you will find the military word order or, as pointed out above, just the initials. Given the commonness of the initials, it seems contrary to have the full name something that does not directly support the initials.
Use of the normal military name also makes clear that we are talking about the exact class of craft, as described by the name given by the military, rather than a generic description that would be less precise. There is no hesitation in using the military name given to a class of aircraft (Spitfire, B17, etc.) so why be different here? ThoughtIdRetired _TIR 07:56, 5 August 2024 (UTC)