Seize and hold ground - CAIMEN landing craft

The Australian Defence Force will benefit from more than a decade of continual development behind BMT's family of small, medium and large landing craft.

16 February 2022

Defence

The Australian Defence Force will benefit from more than a decade of continual development behind BMT's family of small, medium and large landing craft.

Working with Army and Navy stakeholders over many years, through system definition, preliminary and detailed design, production and test, we've tackled the challenges of landing craft design, proving our ability to scale our versatile CAIMEN hullform to balance range, speed, payload, seakeeping, and beached stability.

With the Indo-Pacific region now the centre of strategic competition and rapid military modernisation, BMT is excited to draw on our learned experience in landing craft design to expedite and de-risk the delivery of new landing craft for Australia.

 

Flexible and affordable, the CAIMEN Landing Craft family provides customisable solutions that can be adapted to suit the requirements of military and security forces worldwide.

Due to operational pressures, many navies are now considering launching their landing craft further offshore, therefore increasing the demand for flexible design, increased speeds and enhanced safety functions of landing crafts, all of which are key elements of our CAIMEN designs.

CAIMEN-200

The CAIMEN-200 is a simple design that incorporates key benefits important for supporting expeditionary operations worldwide, ranging from amphibious assault to disaster relief and humanitarian aid/evacuation.

Logistical throughput is improved by almost doubling current large amphibious assault craft speed, enabling more weight and firepower of amphibious forces to be deployed in a shorter time and thus achieving greater military effect.

We can customise the vessel design according to client requirements in areas such as:

  • vessel size

  • accommodation and facilities for crew and embarked troops

  • propulsion, power and exhaust systems

  • weapons systems

  • communication equipment

High logistical throughput of the CAIMEN-200 is determined by both a large payload capacity of the vessel and the high operating speed, thus reducing the transit time to and from the beach.

The enhanced seakeeping characteristics of the CAIMEN-200 combined with the safe and efficient system for loading and unloading payload, are due to use of an ‘active bow ramp’ which allows both stable beaching and excellent hydrodynamic performance.

CAIMEN-90 Fast

Designed by us, the CAIMEN-90 Fast is a highly capable tri-bow fast landing craft designed to address many design and safety challenges for light weight, fast landing craft and reduced host ship vulnerability.  

It is able to operate at high speeds with heavy payloads, allowing faster amphibious offload from a host ship compared with slower, more conventional landing craft.

Through speed improvements, delivery and offload of similar quantities of vehicles stores and personnel can be achieved within the same timeframe and the specially designed hullform allows for reduced host ship vulnerability by launching landing craft further offshore and maintaining flexibility in stand-off distance.

The novel, tri-bow monohull is constructed from aluminium and has been extensively model tested, with the capability of the design being proven not only in terms of speed but also seakeeping and manoeuvrability.

CAIMEN-60

CAIMEN-60 combines the best of current LCM design and technology with our revolutionary tri-bow hullform to sit at the leading edge of the performance envelope for a landing craft of its size.

Its simple design ensures rapid transit and delivery of vehicles, equipment and troops from a host ship to the shore and vice versa.

As a low complexity and affordable design, the CAIMEN-60 benefits from strict attention to detail and structural continuity that facilitates durability and robustness.

The tri-bow hullform serves to provide excellent seakeeping and survivability performance, withstanding extensive bottom raking damage through excellent damage stability characteristics afforded through stringent watertight subdivision.

The vessel is also designed to interface with most well dock equipped ships and can also be tailored to be deployed via crane from ships without a well dock.

 

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