Developed by Higgins Industries of New Orleans, the LCVP was based on the flat bottomed boats that are used in the Louisiana marsh lands. This boat took part in all of the major amphibious operations of WWII, both in Europe and the Pacific. The task of the boat was to shuttle between the cargo/transport ships and beach with men and materiel. On the return trips, wounded were carried to recieve treatment. The LCVP was also able to carry light vehicles and light guns.

They were generally armed with two machine guns in the rear (as much for morale as anything). Power was provided by a sincle 250 hp Hall Scott gasoline engine or a 225 hp Grey diesel. When the war ended, the LCVP remained in service and saw action in Korea and other spots before being retired. Quite a few of these boat were purchased by civilians and adapted to a number of uses.

 This hobby never ceases to amaze me. For decades, those who wanted a landing craft were pretty well limited to the Lindberg kit. A nice boat, but one that was definitely a child of the 60's. Within the span of just a few years, there have been at least three or four new mold kits of various types of small landing craft like this one. One can now add Italeri to the list.

The kit is very well molded and provides four sprues worth of parts plus a solid lower hull. I saw no evidence of problems concerning flash, ejector pin marks or sink marks. Much of the construction will be used in gluing on the rather large number of internal frames t their supports. This will then be attached to the floor and rear section before the upper deck section is added and the whole construct is finally slid into the hull itself. Even then things are not at an end for one has to add all the usual external braces, the bumpers, shielding for the coxswain and gunners as well as building the guns and the three crew figures.

The kit comes with different diameters of line to be used for the fenders as well as for the ramp. Though the ramp does not appear to be operable, one can pose it up or down as the mood strikes. Italeri provides a nice display stand to go along with their LCVP kit

Instructions are very good and provide color references using Testors Model Master acrylic and enamel paints. Markings are provided for four boats. Three USN and one British. The USN boats are for operations at Normandy, Iwo Jima (3 number options) and Tarawa. These are painted an overall Navy Grey. The British boat is for the Normandy landing and it has the outside camouflaged in flat black, white and pale green. Decals are well printed and provide rather complete markings for whichever boat one decides to do.

I'm sure that this will build into a very nice model of this important naval vessel. Diorama fans will be able to fill it with troops or supplies and I can see that a jeep will fit into it with little or no trouble.

August 2005