[glorgau]

I wonder how missile hits it can take. Maybe one or two before it’s dead in the water.

Probably pretty fragile, but after first use it’s running as essentially another ship for free. Hard to beat those kinds of economy of scale if you don’t care all that much about losing some units.

[glorgau]

Also, this looks like a civilian ship. That means they’d probably be trying to slip this in for a first wave “suplize!” attack. After that any civilian ship in the entire region would vamoose because they’d be presumed guilty.

[Bedford Forrest]

I wonder how missile hits it can take. Maybe one or two before it’s dead in the water.

Missiles? Why waste expensive ordnance on thin skinned ferry boats? Zunis with HE. In the hull anywhere near the waterline and out the bottom. Used to shoot those puppies in the desert [smudge pot targets - zero dark thirty] Very accurate.

[Retain Mike]

When my type of ship, the LST, was originally built the idea was that it would be good for one assault landing and anything after that was gravy. That is the reason the permanent Navy memorial in DC commemorates its nick name of Large Slow Target.

I remember the Chinese had no trouble coming up with 500,000 "volunteers" for Korea.

My best guess though is that developing an amphibious warfare capability serves as a method of political intimidation.

[.44 Special]

Loaded with amphibs, fuel, and munitions - just one.