With the strong focus on underwater and general marine operations in ARMA 3, we badly need a a staging platform for any kind of marine operations.
An amphibious assault ship could be one element, a LPD could be another option and finally a full scale submarine could be a great addition for the divers and SDV's.
This feature would make the new marine features a more interesting addition.
-Landing Platform, Helicopter (LPH)
-Landing platform/dock (LPD)
It would be great to have the ability to make amphibious landings. I would suggest that an actual
landing craft is more important for gameplay than a LPD. We already have amphibious vehicles,
but I dont't think they are seaworthy engough to be launched from a LPD (but I may be wrong).
It might maken more sense to include a large air cushioned landing craft. Large enough to land main
battle tanks. Like the United States Navy's LCAC. Altis has many places on it's coastline where
the vessels could land.
For the NATO side the successor of the current LCAC, the Ship-to-Shore Connector (SSC)
from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landing_Craft_Air_Cushion:
Current projections foresee the inventory rising to 60 SSC LCAC-100s in 2031 and 72 SSC LCAC-100s on 2034.
And for the CSAT side the Zubr-class LCAC. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zubr-class_LCAC)
Apparently they are still being build, so they could be in service in the arma3 timeframe.
And the Greek navy has 4 in service at the moment, which suggests the are suitable for the Mediterranean environment.
Some forum dicussion on the forum about large ships and landing crafs and engine support:
http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?158865-How-realistic-are-the-introduction-of-Aircraftcarrier-LHD-s-and-LCAC-s-on-ARMA-3
http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?157367-The-answer-you-were-waiting-for-carriers-are-possible-in-arma-3
http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?154612-Ships-in-full-gam
Overall, Altis and Stratis need more Navy involvement.
The currently deployed Navy vehicles within the game are too slow! And there's no real sea platforms for targeting except for the coastline of the islands. (ie. No ships, no oil drilling platforms, ...)
They have fully functioning underwater gear and slow moving amphibious vehicles, but nothing to contest the equipment with. In other words, the current small amphibious vehicles were meant to be deployed by larger ships. Instead, the best method of transport toward an objective is still by aircraft. And with map makers setting the AI to greater than 30% skill (which is a level not human capable), flying near an object near enough for an amphibious assault is still suicide.
I think Stratis's Kamino Firing range was one of the best area's to contest with an amphibious assault. One could drop amphibious or troops on the south side of a heavily wooded peninsula (without landing), and within 50-100 meters engage the objective. The future Tanoa island will likely aid this objective.
You're absolutely right. Even though Stratis is an island which has a cove in the middle of it, we don't have developed naval warfare in-game. And it would be shameful if they didn't fix that in Tanoa, since it'll be consisted of a few islands, but I guess it'll be fixed in Apex (aka Tanoa)
Yup, using Tanoa/Apex developer snapshots, would really be nice to have amphibious ships capable of transporting heavy armor. Or some sort of heavy transport aircraft.