I've tried using Google to find a picture of the hull of a modern Navy LSD vessel and had no luck so far.

What I'm trying to do is find out if they have flat bottom hulls.

Can anyone help me out?

What's it to you?

Did someone say LSD?





"You are freaking out......man"

A co-worker (who actually happens to have been an active duty Marine) has a bet with another co-worker about whether or not they have flat bottom hulls, and he's asked me for help finding out.

How's that satisfy you???

If they are used for beaching and cargo transport, then yes most likely flat bottomed. The Army's LCM, LCU, and LSV all have flat bottomed hulls.







From the look of the LSD 44, it is not flat bottomed.

LSD-49 USS Harper's Ferry

I just called my brother and asked, the Whidby Class had a very shallow vee hull (about 2-degree), about as flat-bottomed as you can get with a modern ship.



He's walked under them before during refit, so I can pretty much take this answer to the bank.

Pointy/Vee up front, kinda flat in the rear.





It's a compromise, between seakeeping and having a wide well deck for amphib ops.

My Dad was on LSD for years.....

Ok, to sum it up, it looks like a modern LSD does not have a flat bottom hull, as you would find on a ship or boat who's purpose is to run up on a beach and off load cargo?

Portions of the hull are 'flat', but not the whole thing.

We got out of the business of beaching amphib ships when we decommissioned the LSTs. LCMs,LCUs, LSVs are considered Landing Craft (At least to the Navy).

I took a 12-day LSD trip back in 1990 on the USS Fort Fisher.  It did not have a flat-bottom hull.





By contrast, an LPH in the same group, which had a flat bottom, rolled wildly for most of the journey.

 

I've been on a number of LSD during my time in the Marine Corps.  This is the first time I have ever heard they were designed to run up on shore.  Since I was involved in running beach operations with a Landing Support Battalion with Navy Beachmasters and setting up the causeways used for beach landings of Navy ships that were so equipped I believe you are confusing LSDs with LSTs

Landing Ship, Tank.

I was attached to the USS Spartanburg County LST-1192 on a Med Cruise in 1980 to train the flight deck crew on helicopter ops from the ships deck.


This ship was designed to beach for unloading of equipment, but we would first land the causeway the ship carried and erect it into the ocean from the beach prior to offloading equipment from under decks.  There was a ramp that would lower from the bow that vehicles could then ride up and off the ship if I remember correctly.  The ship bounced around on the ocean like a cork due to its hull design.  Sold to Malaysia

USS Spiegel Grove LSD-32 was the ship I spent most of the Med Cruise on.



It now swims with the fishes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gy_cuK0LHxA

When and where? Never mind, saw your edit.

I'm a former "Beach Critter" 1996-2000 BPT Alfa, BMU-1

It was an interesting tour. As Salvage Officer for my BPT I pulled a lot of drowned equipment out of the surf zone on Red Beach at Camp Pendleton.



Some "Beach Critter" porn (not my team)

Always liked the Beachmasters and Seabeas.  They would invite us over to their tent on the beach for steaks and beer in faraway places when we would spend a week on the beach during ops.  They always wanted C-rats which we would have many of them that we had to fly out to other units in the field, they would have actual fresh food delivered from the ship.  We were red patchers and if I remember correctly the Beachmaster had green patches on their utilities.  This was back in the late 1970's and early 1980's.  We were called Shore Party back then.  Did the beach landings and Helo Ops delivering supplies and artillery/vehicles by Helicopter transport.

Spent two out of four years on Navy ships.  USS SHREVEPORT (LPD 12) and USS Austin (LPD-4) were two other ships I did cruises on.  One in 1978 for a North Atlantic cruise to Northern Nato countries and in 1981(?) a goodwill cruise to South America and the Caribbean Islands.

On one landing on the 1980 Med Cruise we had to have SEALS/UDT come in an recover some weapons and equipment that was lost in the high surf during landing ops.  The Marine Corps was unhappy at losing M16s and a large bulldozer when the landing craft dumped us out in water that was too deep for the bulldozer to operate in.  A very large bulldozer that ended up completely underwater with all the engineers equipment and arms.  They dropped the ramp and ordered everyone off.  We're like "You're joking. It's 8 feet deep".  "Time the waves, we can't get any close."

We had something similar happen once: Red Beach at Camp Pendleton was always a bitch to land LCUs on. Close to the beach was a nasty 3 knot littoral current that ran to the north and 2 sets of sand bars you had to punch through before you got to the beach. Many times the LCUs couldn't punch through the inner sand bar.

With timing you could get the HMMWVs ashore if you timed it just right but the Reserve Marines we were off loading didn't want to pay attention to our directions. 44 of the 48 HMMWVs we off loaded that day did not make it ashore under their own power. Much equipment was drowned that day, I was a busy mother pulling all that gear out of the surf.




ETA: BMU always ate good on the beach. 1st thing we did when we got to a ship was to suck up to the MSs in the galley, we'd load our coolers up before hitting the beach. The smell of scrambled eggs and bacon wafting up the beach in the morning would bring in Marines for miles.

I'm on LSD right now and you, sir, are purple.

I was just messing around (forgot the though)





 

LSTs had flat bottoms to allow them to beach, the other L platforms don't/didn't drive till they hit the shore.

Sir, the answer to the question largely depends on what the person asking the question defines as "flat bottom".  Most US Navy surface ship hull designs have a flat bottom at some point in the length of the keel, meaning the hull extends outboard on a horizontal plane for some distance somewhere between the bow and the stern.  Most of the LSD's I've worked on fit that definition to an extent because they were never actually intended to be driven onto a shore line like the ship's that participated in the anphibious landings at Inchon South Korea.  Our modern LSDs are intended to carry some number of landing craft usually air cushion vehicles known as LCACs.  The hulls of these ships are somewhat rounded forward of the bilge keels, remain relatively flat between the bilge keels, and angle gradually upward beginning where the propeller shafts penetrate the hull at the stern tubes extending to the stern gate.  The upward incline of the hull aft to the stern gate is generally of sufficient angle to allow a balanced rudder one located just aft of each of the two propellers to extend downward onto the baseline of the ship.  Pictures I cannot provide because many of the drawings are proprietary to the shipbuilder.  FWIW, I've worked on a few of the east coast LSD's and should mention that the Whidbey Island class are significantly different than older class's that had the same hull designation.  HTH, 7zero1.

LPH or LST... hmmm!!! Winters in the North Atlantic.