All language subtitles for Combat.Ships.S02E08.Amphibious.Assaults.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DDP2.0.H.264-BLOOM_track3_[eng]

This time on Combat Ships:
amphibious warfare.

From the beaches of Normandy...

World War II was an armoured war.

And to fight it, you had to get
tanks ashore onto a defended beach.

It's an extraordinarily
difficult thing to do.

...to the jungles of Vietnam.

Most of the time,
you're within a hundred,

two hundred yards of the shore,

an enemy
hiding in that jungle is able

to start rocketing
or machine-gunning your boat.

Specialised craft took
the fight to the enemy.

You could take 'em over rice
paddies, over dykes three feet tall,

right onto the river,
back onto the land.

No other vehicle in Vietnam
could do that.

Fighting in the shallows,

and driving the point of the spear
into hostile territory.

Combat ships.

Fast. Effective.

The mission is pure
James Bond espionage.

Deadly.

Japan is willing to throw the dice

to engage just about every aspect

of their military force,

in a climactic, decisive battle
to stop the United States.

They have changed the world...

Warships have been key factors
in global history

from the beginning of civilisation
to the present day.

...thanks to clever design...

...raw firepower,

and the heroism of their crews.

June 4th 1944.

Two days before D-Day.

On the south coast of England,

over 130,000 troops, 50,000 tanks,

trucks and jeeps piled
onto 4,000 landing craft.

The next day, those ships set off
into the English Channel,

bound for the French Coast.

The channel was rough
on the 5th and 6th June in 1944,

and men were throwing up
onto their boot tops,

and hoping to God that they lived
long enough to get to the beach.

They were en route
to the greatest amphibious assault

the world had ever seen.

In one day, you've got to throw
ashore a big enough force

to be able to take on the German
divisions already deployed ashore.

And not only have you got to put
the soldiers ashore,

you've got to put the engineers
and the artillery

and the tanks and the whole works.

To crack Hitler's Atlantic defences,

they needed
specialised combat ships.

Amphibious craft that could deliver
the huge Allied fighting force

onto the beaches of Normandy.

They built this terrific range
of landing craft -

small ones for carrying infantry,
bigger ones for carrying tanks.

One of the largest
was a British-built LCT,

or Landing Craft Tank.

Inside a huge naval dockyard hangar
in Portsmouth, England,

is the last remaining LCT
from the D-Day landings.

Returning to its former glory -

LCT 7074.

There were seven thousand ships

and vessels all told
in the D-Day landings,

eight hundred of them were giant
tank landing craft like this one.

And of all of those eight hundred,

this is the last survivor.

We are incredibly lucky to have her.

She wasn't built to last very long,
but somehow,

she's survived to today.

After the war,
LCT 7074 took on an unlikely role...

...as a floating nightclub
in Liverpool.

In 2007,
she sank and was left to decay...

...until the National Museum
of the Royal Navy

raised millions of dollars

to pull the 200-tonne craft
from the water.

She'd been underwater
for about seven years,

there was a tremendous amount
of suction built up

between the ship and the seabed.

So what we did was, we filled
her full of airbags, giant airbags,

and as we inflated those airbags,
we used a crane to...

And the best way I can describe it
is to jiggle the ship.

To break that suction
with the seabed and steady her,

and then the airbags provided
the lift that brought her up.

The years under the water
left 7074 in bad shape.

The team had to move quickly
to save it.

Now they are restoring the LCT to
the condition she was in on D-Day.

Early morning, June 6th 1944.

Allied warships opened fire
on entrenched German positions.

Under their cover,

the first landing craft reached
the Normandy beaches.

Twenty-year-old Walter Sharp
was piloting a sister ship

of LCT 7074 towards Gold Beach.

By the daylight,

we could see all these hundreds
of other ships joining with us.

Mindboggling, really.

See, hundreds of ships there,
all sizes.

Cargo ships and war ships
and all the landing craft.

It was very spectacular.

Wave after wave of landing craft

had to reach the beaches,
unload their cargo,

and then leave to make room
for the next wave.

All under intense enemy fire.

So they have a couple
of anti-aircraft guns for defence,

but essentially, these ships
are incredibly vulnerable.

There's no armour
except around the wheelhouse,

they're incredibly slow,
they only do about eight knots,

and they're driving into the beach
in a straight line.

They're a very predictable target,

so it must have been
absolutely terrifying for the crew.

Over a hundred landing
craft went down during the invasion.

On D-Day,

LCT 7074 carried a precious cargo

of seven Stuart light tanks,
two Shermans,

a Cromwell tank and their crews.

They'd need tanks to get off
the beaches and move inland quickly.

So you have to imagine this ship
on the 6th June 1944,

this space would be jam packed,
ten tanks jammed in here.

We'd be squeezing between two tanks.

Sixty or seventy soldiers,
the crews of those tanks,

they've been living in this space
for the best part of three days.

Landing Craft Tanks
had a shallow draft

of just over three feet,

allowing them to get
close to the beach.

But that also made them
pitch and roll.

Unfortunately for the soldiers,

the sea on D-Day was choppy.

I think some of them were
quite ill with the movement.

But there's nothing
they could do about it,

they just had to bear up with it,
the best that they could.

By the time they got to the beaches,

they had other things
to worry about.

They just went ahead.

Even as LCT 7074 hit Gold Beach,

a landing craft next to her
was sunk by enemy artillery.

She pushed
forward onto the beach

with her precious cargo
of ten tanks.

She drives in as fast as she can,

these enormous hinges drop
a huge steel ramp

that slaps down on the beach.

And as she runs in close,

behind us,
two giant watertight doors open

and those tanks
start to gun their engines

and run over the ramp one at a time,

grinding into the sand and heading
off to join the battle for Normandy.

But for all the noise that's going
on today with the restoration,

that's nothing compared to the sound
of ten tank engines revving up.

And around them,
hundreds of other ships,

hundreds of other ships
with hundreds of engines,

gunfire, aircraft overhead.

I can't begin to explain how noisy
D-Day would have been.

With the tanks on shore,
7074 made way

for the next wave
of landing craft...

...including Walter Sharp.

It's something
you'll never, never, never forget.

Hundreds of craft on the beach
in a line right down to...

Sword Beach is down there.

It's hard to describe to people,

you see the pictures
of the landing beaches,

but it's not like when you're there.

Just unimaginable.

The scale of D-Day
can only really be understood

by standing on something this big,

and realising that there were
800 of them in Normandy,

and then you suddenly realise just
how vast that entire operation was.

By June 11th, 1944,

the Allies had secured
the beaches of Normandy.

The march on Berlin had begun.

LCTs and other landing craft

continued to bring
vital reinforcements

and supplies across the Channel.

Over the next ten months,
two and half million men,

five hundred thousand vehicles,

and four million tonnes of supplies
came ashore at Normandy.

Once restored, LCT 7074
will serve as a striking reminder

of the landing crafts'
significant contribution to victory.

Just standing on these decks,

it sends a shiver down your spine
that actually this is...

It's not a replica.

It is the ship that drove ashore,
under fire on the beach,

and off-loaded tanks
and liberated Western Europe.

I just find it incredible, actually.

By the 1960s,

the US was strengthening
its military presence in Vietnam.

American troops were supporting

South Vietnam's
capitalist government

in its fight
against guerrilla forces

backed by communist North Vietnam.

They found themselves
fighting an elusive enemy.

The Vietnam War
is not your classic warfare,

where two armies meet
on the battlefield,

and one army is defeated.

It's an insurgent
or a guerrilla type of warfare.

And the United States is going
to have to figure out

ways to counter it.

The war was fought
on land and at sea.

But the US Navy was not battling
enemy warships.

Instead, they focused on breaking
up the enemy's supply routes.

Their new weapon for this mission

was a fast, small combat craft...

...the Swift Boat.

We had about 85 boats that patrolled

all up and down
the coast of Vietnam,

from about four
or five different bases.

And our job was to interdict
the supplies

that the North Vietnamese
were sending to the South.

These patrol vessels
were well armed.

You had
two 50-calibre machine guns

up on top in a...
gun turret, if you will.

Single 50-calibre machine gun,

mounted
in the aft deck section there,

out to the stern of the ship.

Underneath that, they had
an 81-millimetre mortar launcher.

They were also fast enough
to intercept almost any enemy ships.

They could get up to 25, 26 knots.

They're very fast,
fairly manoeuvrable,

they could get in and out
of harm's way fairly quickly -

that was a tremendous advantage.

In 1968,

the North Vietnamese
were using trawlers

to ship supplies
South to the battlefields.

The US sent the Swift Boats
to stop them.

After we took
out several dozen of those vessels,

the North Vietnamese decided that,

well, it wasn't cost effective
to do it that way.

The North Vietnamese
adapted their tactics -

taking most of the supplies over
land down the Ho Chi Minh trail.

This supply route led through
the jungles of Laos and Cambodia.

My hat is off
to the North Vietnamese people,

what a tremendous, tremendous
logistics problem they solve,

on bicycle, on carts
and a truck now and then.

But they moved everything
a thousand miles,

by Ho Chi Minh Trail
down to the delta area.

And once they did that, then
they came out on boats,

through the delta, to distribute
their arms, material and medicines.

Much of the population
lived around the delta.

With few roads to speak of,

the rivers and canals
became the highways.

It's really important
to patrol the rivers,

because this is how the Viet Cong

are getting supplied
from the North Vietnamese.

And the North Vietnamese are,
of course,

getting supplied by the Chinese
and by the Russians.

And so there is
a lot of material coming South

to keep this insurgency going

against the South Vietnamese
governments and the United States.

And so the rivers
are absolutely critical.

The Swift Boats shifted
their focus to the river systems.

Other specialist craft joined them.

Vessels like
the smaller patrol boat, River.

And Monitors -
which were slower moving,

but even more heavily armed.

This was the Brown Water Navy...

...named after the colour
of the rivers they patrolled.

The vast reedy delta

of the Mekong River where it flowed
into the South China sea,

those various branches
intertwined with one another,

and canals that connected them
back and forth.

And the reeds that grew so high,
visibility was quite limited.

A very confusing
kind of battlefield.

It was like fighting in a maze.

A typical patrol is
around 24 to 36 hours.

We get underway,
and we'll run as hard as we can

to get to the patrol area.

Our patrol was day and night.
There's a million boats out there.

All junks, sampans. Different sizes.

The narrow rivers meant
a constant threat of ambush.

When we went up the rivers,
it got a little dicey,

and that's when you start
to worry about everything.

Most of the time you're
within 100, 200 yards of the shore,

and with thick jungle on the shore,

that an enemy hiding in that jungle

is able to start rocketing
or machine-gunning your boat.

The Swift Boat crews fired
back with their 50 cal machine guns,

laying down
an impressive curtain of bullets.

The exciting times, of course,

is when there's tracers in the air.

When a machine gun shoots,
every five rounds is a tracer round.

And it actually leaves a red trail

in the case of American ammo.

So you can see
where your rounds are going.

And if it's green,
it means it's coming at you.

Green doesn't mean go,
green means duck.

Often, they were called
in to cover their comrades on shore.

Every night without fail
in most areas,

you're getting calls from the beach,
help, help, help.

Guys were being attacked,
and they want gunfire support.

We have an excellent after mount

that can provide anywhere
from just illumination

to actual putting in high-explosive,

or white phosphorous
willy peat rounds.

These incendiary munitions,

fired by the Swifts' mortar,

could clear an area or produce
a huge smoke screen,

providing cover
for the troops on land.

One of the most famous
Swift Boat commanders

was former Secretary of State
John Kerry.

John Kerry,
I think, was pretty representative

of what most Swift Boats
were doing in Vietnam.

So a lot of patrolling,
coming to the aid of other troops,

especially with the machine guns.

Quite a bit of engagement
with the enemy

as you get
into these close quarters.

Viet Cong are setting up ambushes
a lot of the time.

In February 1969,
Kerry and his crew were ambushed.

A rocket-propelled grenade
exploded close to their boat.

Kerry gave the order to charge

and take out the shooter
before he could fire again.

The boat hit the shore.

The Viet Cong fighter,
weapon in hand, turned and ran.

Kerry pursued him,

determined not to let the enemy
take another shot at his crew.

He fired his M-16...

...and took
out the Viet Cong fighter.

Kerry and his men then returned
to their Swift Boat...

...and continued fighting
the enemy ashore.

For his leadership
and actions on that day,

John Kerry was awarded
a Silver Star.

During his service on Swift Boats,

he would also receive
three Purple Hearts,

and a Bronze Star.

The brown-water navy
accomplished its mission -

blocking the critical supply arteries

in the waters of South Vietnam.

But of the 3,500 sailors
who served on Swift Boats,

fifty never returned home.

Honour, courage and commitment.

I think that's part of our legacy.

Hold on a minute.

And our dedication to the...
people we left behind.

They're the real heroes.

And we refer to them
as "still on patrol".

The boats
of the brown-water navy

were good at navigating
the Mekong Delta.

But in Vietnam,
there were some places

even Swift Boats couldn't go.

Vietnam's
unique wetland environment

meant some areas were inaccessible
to traditional boats and vehicles.

The US Navy hoped a new combat craft
could solve this problem.

In a bone yard

behind the Yanks Air Museum
in Chino, California,

hundreds of old aircraft
await restoration.

In between the supersonic jets

and WW2 bombers
are the remains of a unique craft.

Father and son Tom and Tim Comeau,

both retired Navy veterans,

search for this American combat icon.

There she be.

She's seen better days.

This would be
the right-side pannier and decking.

This is the last surviving example

of an experimental combat vessel.

That's the business end.
How many times did you sit in that?

Quite a few.

Repair bullet holes
and keep the thing flying.

This was once
America's first combat hovercraft.

British designer
Christopher Cockerell

invented the hovercraft
in the 1950s.

A machine that could travel
over both land

and water on a cushion of air.

In 1963,

the American
aircraft manufacturer Bell

purchased Cockerell's latest model,

and adapted it for military use...

...creating
the Patrol Air Cushion Vehicle,

or PACV.

In 1966,

the US Navy sent three PACVs
to Vietnam for trials.

The reason they ordered them
from the British

was because of their ability

to go anywhere they wanted
in South Vietnam.

Through the marshes,
through reeds, through small trees,

up rivers, down streams.

They could go wherever they wanted,
there was no restriction.

You can't do that with a tank.
Tank is great for land.

You can't do that with a truck,
good for land.

A boat, only on the river.
You know, helos, only in the air.

So this thing could go anywhere,
any time.

The hovercraft could do all this

thanks to its ingenious design.

A fan blows air
underneath the vehicle,

where it is trapped
inside a rubber skirt.

As the power increases,

the volume
and pressure also increase,

filling the skirt and lifting
the hovercraft off the ground.

As air escapes
under the edge of the skirt,

the craft literally floats on air.

Propellers then push it forward.

With almost no friction
between hovercraft and the water,

it's very fast.

The craft was listed
at 60 miles an hour roughly,

and it was the fastest craft
in the riverine force,

far exceeding
all of the other surface craft.

So it was very fast.

Powered by a jet engine,
PACVs were loud.

It's very noisy inside the cabin,

because you're
very close to the jet engine,

and it's always operating
at peak performance.

Plus,
you've got the added discomfort

of a few cannons going
off a few feet above your head.

Tom was a maintenance officer

on the PACVs
from 1967 to 1968,

conducting missions in Vietnam.

They were experimental craft,

and as such, they were used
in a variety of operations,

from insertion of troops,
quick insertions,

retrieval, extractions,
frontal assault,

rear actions, reconnaissance.

We even had medi-vac,
where we take wounded people back.

They were pretty versatile.

The noise from their jet engines,

and their intimidating look,

led the Viet Cong
to give the PACVs a nickname.

The craft were known as Quoi Vat,

which in Vietnamese
means "monster".

That speaks to how they reacted
to the sight of these things,

which had the front end
of each of the craft

painted with large jaws
full of sharks' teeth,

and two big eyes.

And it was kind of
a startling sight.

The PACVs carried
a twin .50 cal machine gun,

in a swivel mount,
situated above the cabin.

An M60 machine gun
was also mounted

on either side of the hovercraft.

But to hover,
the PACVs had to remain light.

The only armour we had on the PACV

was to protect the engine
and the gearbox,

we had armour plating.

The rest of it was constructed of
30,000s aluminium, like an aircraft.

You could lean on it with a
screwdriver and it would go through.

So there was not much
in the way of protection.

We relied mainly on our speed
to escape being shot at.

I see what looks like bullet holes.

Oh that could be, yeah.
That's patched.

These two here for sure
are bullet holes.

They weren't important enough
to patch.

That's right.

The incredible noise of the PACVs

meant the enemy knew
they were coming.

A sneak attack was impossible,

but for a full-on assault,
they were perfect.

In late 1966,

the PACV hovercraft

showed their full
amphibious combat capability.

The Plain of Reeds
in the Mekong Delta

had long been
a Viet Cong stronghold.

This 2,000 square mile marshland

was the ideal guerrilla hideout.

Inaccessible to boats
and land vehicles...

...but not the PACVs.

In November 1966,
they stormed the Plain of Reeds.

The PACVs would often work
in conjunction with the helicopters,

in that the helicopter would be used
as a forward-observing entity,

and then radio back
and vector in the PACVs

to intercept the Viet Cong.

They couldn't hide anymore,
and run across a rice paddy,

and get away from a jeep
or a group of guys.

The PACVs could just go
right after them.

The operation lasted 16 days.

The PACVs were credited with
destroying seventy enemy structures,

seventy more sampans,

capturing eleven Viet Cong fighters

and killing twenty-three.

The Navy commander
in charge of the operation

was used to operations at sea,
and noted...

"It was an unusual experience

directing the PACV operations
in rice paddies.

I couldn't help feeling a little
funny about being 60 miles inland."

Despite the success,

the Navy decided
not to expand the program.

The PACVs, in their role,
were very successful,

at, you know, getting the job done.

It's just keeping the craft online
was the problem.

You know, in those environments,
they just didn't last.

In a combat area,
you're constantly on the move,

so your parts supply,
you're very handicapped that way,

as far as trying to get parts
and replacement parts for repairs,

which was continuous, of course,

cos we had damage all the time.

The $1 million
price tag didn't help.

After 4,500 hours of operation,

the Navy PACVs left Vietnam in 1970.

- It's sad it's the only one left.
- Yeah.

You know, to see it
in this condition,

I hope they put it
back together properly.

After hearing all the stories
from you from Vietnam,

this is the real... you know.

This is the real deal
right in front of me.

Yeah.
Worth a million bucks.

It's in a sorry state of disrepair,
but it's here, it still exists.

It's a unique part of naval history.

Naval history. Yeah.

In the early 1970s,

the US Navy began developing
a new combat hovercraft.

They drew on knowledge
from the recently retired PACVs,

but gave these hovercraft
a different purpose.

The main impact of hovercraft
on naval warfare

was in landing operations.

Because something that could operate
over both the sea and the land

was a vitally important way
of getting a force ashore.

Especially for the US Marine Corps.

Today,
its Marines can be delivered quickly

to hostile beaches by Osprey,

helicopter or AAVs.

They move fast, but travel light.

In order to hold the beach,

they need heavy reinforcements -
and fast.

For this, there's nothing better
than the Landing Craft Air Cushion -

the LCAC.

Today, the US Navy has 72 LCACS.

Half of them are
at Camp Pendleton, California.

Modern conventional landing craft,

similar in looks
to those used on D-Day,

can hit just 15%
of the world's beaches.

LCACs can land on 70%.

Their motto?
"No Beach Out of Reach".

hey launch out of
huge Amphibious Assault Ships

stationed out at sea.

In an amphibious assault,
the Marines will go in there first,

secure the beach,
and then we would support them

by transporting cargo
from the ship to shore,

so that they can continue the fight
and continue pressing forward.

And they do this fast.

We have the capability of reaching
speeds up to 50 knots on the water.

Carrying payloads
like the 60-tonne M1 Abrams tank

takes a lot of muscle.

The LCAC's four engines

give it
an impressive 17,600 horsepower.

They work together
to not only drive the plant

and create propulsion
for the propellers,

but they also support um the air
that is created to raise up the LCAC

and bring us on cushion, so that
we can operate on land and on water.

They are
the ideal amphibious transport.

LCACs can launch from 370 km out -

well beyond the horizon -

making it harder
for the enemy to predict the time

and place of their landing.

So this is the starboard cabin.

This is
where the main crewmembers sit.

With no friction
between the craft and the surface,

the LCACs are difficult to handle.

You can imagine this
as an air hockey puck,

it elevates on the ground
by the controls that I input.

I have to manipulate it, it always
wants to go to the lowest point,

wind plays a factor,
so it is a stressful job,

but my crew come together
to get things accomplished.

Today, Anthony's team are practising

what's known
as shallow beach landings.

Swinging the LCAC
around quickly by 90 degrees,

the moment they hit the beach,

allows vehicles to disembark on land
no wider than the LCAC itself.

On D-Day in Normandy,

some landing craft had to wait hours

till the tide was right to pull back
and leave the beach.

For the LCACs, landing,
unloading and returning to the water

takes no more than ten minutes.

This is a perfect landing.

We're perpendicular to the beach,
we've got the water to our right,

so if it's a shallow beach
we can off-load the vehicles,

come back up
and proceed out to feet wet.

If the beach
has been hit by chemical,

biological or radiological weapons,

known as a CBR attack,

the LCAC has
a clever trick up its sleeve -

the "birdbath".

In case we have a CBR attack,

we're able to sanitise the boat
before going back to a naval vessel.

We're just gonna 360 and
it'll create a huge mist of water

that washes down the boat.

The hovercraft -
the ultimate amphibious vessel -

will be part of the US Navy
for decades to come.

Today, the US Navy must anticipate
potential adversaries,

and the combat ships
they might need to fight them.

With the end of the Cold War,

there was much discussion
in maritime strategic circles

about the importance
of the littoral,

the area close to the coast,
both land and sea.

And a group
of American officers decided

that a special class of warship,
high-speed warship,

should be developed for operations
in the littoral in a range of roles.

And so the littoral combat ship -

or LCS - was born.

It's a small, fast warship

specialising in operations
close to shore.

Two designs were submitted.

Impressed equally by each,

the US Navy decided to order
both variants.

The Independence class...

...and the Freedom Class.

These ships have
the ability to adapt to any mission.

They can carry a range or drones,

smaller craft
and other combat machines...

...and can mount
an array of different weapons.

Both Freedom and Independence LCSs

use helicopters
to carry out key missions...

...both manned like the Sea Hawk,

and unmanned like the Fire Scout.

So the Navy came out
with a set of requirements,

and they wanted to have a ship

that was very fast
but also very flexible,

to be able to handle
three different mission sets.

These aim
to eliminate different threats.

The first:
small and silent submarines.

The LCS's sonar detects them,

then helicopter-launched torpedoes
take them out.

The second:
small and fast surface craft.

The LCS's array of gun
and missiles destroy these.

And third: mines.

The LCS can deploy unmanned vehicles
to locate and disable them.

Eliminating these threats clears
the way for larger combat ships,

or an amphibious assault force.

The two LCSs have
radically different designs.

Both bring unique combat ability
to the battlefield.

In Mobile, Alabama,

Austal USA are building
the Independence Class LCS.

So it takes us about three years
to build one of these ships.

And we build them
in three phases of construction,

we have module manufacturing,

final assembly
and then vessel completion.

Once the modules are completed,

they're tested
and they're inspected.

Then they come over to one
of two assembly bays,

where we put the modules
together like LEGO pieces,

and then they turn into the ship.

The distinctive shape
of the Independence Class

gives it impressive speed.

So these ships actually
travel in excess of 40 knots,

which is very fast for a ship
that's 127 metres.

And the reason
why it's able to do that

is because
of the trimaran hull form.

The trimaran consists of a long,
slender centre-line hull

that's also supported by two other
hulls outboard of each other.

That gives
the slender hull stability,

but it reduces
the drag in the water,

and allows you to go fast
with relatively low horsepower.

The three hulls also give
the vessel a wide, stable body.

This ship has
actually the largest flight deck

of any surface combatant
in the Navy,

because of the fact it's so wide.

It can actually operate
two helos at once,

which is the only ship in
the surface navy that can do that.

The Freedom Class LCS,

designed by Lockheed Martin
and built in Wisconsin,

looks very different.

It has a semi-planing hull design.

This means
that as the ship speeds up,

the hull lifts out of the water,

increasing speed
and manoeuvrability.

This makes it ideal
for congested choke points

like the Strait of Hormuz
in the Middle East.

Here, for the past decade,

small, fast Iranian attack boats

have harassed US warships.

Five unidentified,
small surface contacts.

Inbound.

You are approaching
a coalition warship

operating in international waters.

Request you establish
communications.

Identify yourself
and state your intentions, over.

In a full-scale military conflict,

Iran could use huge swarms
of these fast attack boats

to overwhelm the US fleet.

Freedom class ships
would take these out,

using either two 30mm guns...

...or hellfire missiles.

Both the Freedom
and Independence class

can also rely on the same
formidable built-in weapon.

So this is the Mark 110,
57 mm, Bofors gun.

She's the main battery on board
USS Freedom, here on LCS1.

This gun is capable of fighting

against fast attack craft
as well as air contacts.

She shoots at 220 rounds per minute,

she holds 120 rounds up inside
of her herself at the ready,

and each round carries
2,400 tungsten pellets.

When the shell bursts,

...these pellets,
made of extremely hard metal,

deliver a deadly shotgun effect -

ideal against both sea
and air targets.

21 LCSs are already
stationed in California and Florida.

With a total of 35 planned,

these versatile combat ships

are a key asset
for the US Navy of tomorrow.

Whatever
the future of naval warfare,

the need for effective amphibious
assault vessels will remain.

They have the toughest job
in naval warfare:

charging into hostile territory,

and taking the fight to the enemy.

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