Italeri 6441 Landing Craft Vehicle Personnel

The American armed forces during World War II carried out a series of smaller or larger scale amphibious operations, the largest and most famous of which is Operation Overlord in 1944, which led to the landing on the beaches of Normandy. One of the main vessels supporting these amphibious operations was the ship marked as LCM, i.e. Landing Craft Mechanized. In total, several types of such a barge were created, which in total was produced in the number of approx. 12,000 pieces, both for the American and British needs. It was used to land an infantry or a tank. In the case of the LCM (3) model produced by Higgins, it was 15 meters long and was armed with two 12.7 mm M2 Browning machine guns. It was able to carry 60 landing men or one M4 Sherman tank. Its crew consisted of four soldiers: the commander, the helmsman and two machine gunners. It is worth adding that although the LCM barges handled land-sea operations, their crews were composed of sailors and were under the command of the US Navy.