Scale: 1:48. Tank landing craft (LCT) were amphibious assault ships for landing tanks on beachheads and were first used during the Second World War.

Following the evacuation of Dunkirk in 1940 it quickly became apparent that the only way that Allied forces would reclaim mainland Europe was to fight their way back onto the beaches. The rapid development of LCTs was pivotal to the subsequent landings at Normandy and elsewhere that helped to turn the tide of the war. The LCT was produced in several configurations and variants and built in both the United States of America and the United Kingdom to an initial design by the shipbuilder Hawthorn Leslie and Company Ltd, Newcastle upon Tyne. It incorporated features that we now take for granted such as the ramp, hinged just above the waterline, that later featured in roll-on roll-off ferries, and a double floating dock-type of hull. The ‘LCT Mark III’ first appeared in May 1941. The design was 191 feet in length, 305 gross registered tons, and a total of 235 were built. While the major dockyards were needed for building the bigger warships, many small yards in Britain were used for the construction of landing craft of various types. One of these was the D Badcock (Marine) Ltd Yard (formerly the London Yard) at Cubitt Town on the Isle of Dogs. Badcock built four large LCTs. As they could carry several tanks, they played an important part in amphibious operations alongside the smaller LCAs (Assault Landing Craft) and other vessels. The model was commissioned and owned by Badcocks along with models of the other five types of landing craft that the company built during the War.