Amphibious cargo ships, also called attack cargo ships, are ships designed or converted specifically to carry troops, heavy equipment and supplies in support of amphibious assaults. Compared to other cargo ship types, these ships can carry landing crafts, are faster, have more armament, and have larger hatches and booms. A troop is a military unit. ...
First used in the amphibious operations of World War II, the early attack cargo ships were typically converted cargo ships. World War II was a truly global conflict with many facets: immense human suffering, fierce indoctrinations, and the use of new, extremely devastating weapons like the atom bomb World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a mid-20th-century conflict that engulfed much of the globe... Cargo ships on the Rhine Cargo ship or freighter is any sort of ship that carries goods and materials from one port to another. ...
In the mid 1990s, both the United States Navy and the Royal Navy developed amphibious transport docks which took on this unique amphibious role. The United States Navy (USN) is the branch of the United States armed forces responsible for naval operations. ... The Royal Navy of the United Kingdom is the senior service of the British armed services, being the oldest of its three branches. ... An amphibious transport dock (also called Landing Platform Dock or LPD) is a warship that embarks, transports, and lands elements of a landing force for expeditionary warfare missions. ...
Cargoships are usually specially designed for the task, being equipped with cranes and other mechanisms to load and unload, and come in all sizes.
Famous cargoships would include the Liberty ships of World War II, which were prefabricated all over the USA and then assembled by the coast in an average of 6 weeks and as little as 4 days.
Cargoships are categorized partly by their capacity, partly by their weight, and partly by their dimensions (often with reference to the various canals and canal locks through which they can travel).
Amphibious assault ships, usually shortened to amphibs, phibs or popularly known as gator freighters, denotes a range of classes of warship employed to land and support ground forces on enemy territory by an amphibious assault.
While often resembling aircraft carriers, the role of an amphibious assault ship is fundamentally different: its aviation facilities have the primary role of hosting helicopters to support forces ashore rather than to support strike aircraft.
In general the ships carry the troops from the port of embarkation to the drop point for the assault and the craft carry the troops from the ship to the shore.