ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Air-cushioned landing craft

So, imagine you have a boat, but it's not like a regular boat that sits in the water. Instead, it has these big pillows underneath it, like the soft pillows on your bed. When the boat goes into the water, it sits on top of these pillows, and they help it float.

Now, let's say you want to take that boat and drive it right up onto the beach! That sounds crazy, right? But with air-cushioned landing craft, you can do just that.

As the boat gets close to the beach, the driver starts to push a lot of air out of the pillows underneath it. This creates a kind of cushion of air that lifts the boat up off the water and lets it slide right onto the beach. It's kind of like when you jump into a pile of leaves: you jump on top of the leaves, and they cushion your landing.

This makes air-cushioned landing craft really useful for things like delivering supplies or people to a beach or even bringing military personnel to a battlefield. Because they can glide right up onto the shore, they don't need ports or docks to unload, and they can get really close to the action.

So, that's air-cushioned landing craft for you! With their special pillows of air, they can go from water to beach and back again with ease.
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