Welcome to the Forum.

Operational life of a vessel depends on the design, the use it is put to, the care it receives, and how it is treated both in use and in storage.

Engineering design includes a desired life expectancy, based on specific uses, maintenance and attention. So for example:

- A landing craft might be designed to make one trip to the beach under combat conditions. The actual life can be compromised by storms, beach obstacles, and enemy artillery, or be enhanced by flat calm unopposed landings on sand beaches.

- A bicycle might be designed for a 120 pound woman, but borrowed by a 300 pound man. If this happens often enough, the bicycle fails from fatigue.

- A submarine might be designed for a maximum depth of 600 feet, but incurs excursions to 1000 feet. It may have endured a 180 depth charge attack (close explosions), or its owner (a third class state) allowed it to rust away in storage.

One exaample would be YFU54 and LCU1498, which were built for a single trip to the beach during WWII, which I operated in 1976 in Vietnam. Both had spent time in the mothball fleet in Suisun Bay during their 30+ year storage.


Hope this helps, the question is complicated, and the answers "depend" on the assumptions.



Dan B. Odenweller