LHA, for Landing Helicopter Assault, is the US Navy hull classification symbol for the general purpose helicopter-carrying amphibious assault ships of the Tarawa and the future America classes. They are used to transport Fleet Marine Force personnel and equipment while operating in a deployed Marine Expeditionary Unit. They normally travel in groups called Amphibious Ready Groups. These ships and their escorts are capable of anything from landing operations, to humanitarian operations.
The new America-class LHAs differ from both the older Tarawa-class LHAs and LHDs in that they will have no well deck.
| Hull number |
Name | Commissioned | Decommissioned |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tarawa-class amphibious assault ships | |||
| LHA-1 | USS Tarawa | May 29, 1976 | September 30, 2009 |
| LHA-2 | USS Saipan | October 15, 1977 | April 20, 2007 |
| LHA-3 | USS Belleau Wood | September 23, 1978 | October 28, 2005 |
| LHA-4 | USS Nassau | July 28, 1979 | March 31, 2011 |
| LHA-5 | USS Peleliu | May 3, 1980 | |
| America-class amphibious assault ships | |||
| LHA-6 | USS America | Under construction | |
| LHA-7 | USS Tripoli | Under construction | |
Famous quotes containing the words landing and/or assault:
“I foresee the time when the painter will paint that scene, no longer going to Rome for a subject; the poet will sing it; the historian record it; and, with the Landing of the Pilgrims and the Declaration of Independence, it will be the ornament of some future national gallery, when at least the present form of slavery shall be no more here. We shall then be at liberty to weep for Captain Brown. Then, and not till then, we will take our revenge.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“[Humanity] has unquestionably one really effective weapon—laughter. Power, money, persuasion, supplication, persecution—these can lift at a colossal humbug—push it a little—weaken it a little, century by century; but only laughter can blow it to rags and atoms at a blast. Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)