Calling all USN Landing Craft Utility (LCU) & Land Craft Mechanized (LCM) fans

[Fliger747]

I have been working for some time on USS Randall, APA 224. The ship is completely scratch built in all pieces and parts. On the number 5 hatch sit two LCM's. Here they are, in 1:120 scale, made from basswood, Strathmore paper, styrene and wire.

The ship project is in the Scratchbuilds section.

Cheers: Tom

[dhenning]

Fantastic work Tom! I have been following your build of the APA as well. Great craftsmanship and amazing that you are dedicated to scratchbuilding everything.

[Fliger747]

Thanks DH! Song is my inspiration for scratch building, I even tried replicating his feat of hand carving anchor chains, with lesser result. These auxiliaries, especially the amphibious gator navy were very busy with the business of war without a lot of time for anything else and aren't very square away which is some of their charm. They always seem to look like they pulled out of the yard with all the workers still busy with half finished projects. If there is a bare square inch, then I forgot something.

Cheers: Tom

[Diver type]

I have been trying to convince Dumas Products to make a 56' LCM-6 kit, to no avail as of yet. I'd think that it would sell well as that particular craft is/was used so widely, from plain landing craft to base structures for Vietnam era riverine craft, to more modern harbor craft.

"Come on, Dumas, get with it!!"

Now, to clarify, there are several different LCM's out there, and in the last number of posts I'm seeing a mix of boats all mentioned as LCM's as if they were all the same boats. As an example, the boats built for the APA model are LCM-3's, and are (the real ones) 50 feet long and 14 feet wide. LCM-6's are 56' long and 14' wide. There are also like three different types of LCM-6's (Mod 0, Mod 1, and Mod 2) and are fairly easy to tell apart. LCM-8's are about 73 feet long and 21 feet wide. They are all generically called 'Mike' boats.