page_title: Well deck
section_title: Modern military
hierarchical_section_title: Well deck / Modern military
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Le TCD Ouragan L9021 de la Marine française au large des côtes gabonaises English: The French Navy ship TCD Ouragan L9021 near the Gabonese coast.
context_page_description: In traditional nautical use, well decks were decks lower than decks fore and aft, usually at the main deck level, so that breaks appear in the main deck profile, as opposed to a flush deck profile. The term goes back to the days of sail. Late-20th-century commercial and military amphibious ships have applied the term to an entirely different type of hangar-like structure, evolving from exaggerated deep "well decks" of World War II amphibious vessels, that can be flooded for lighters or landing craft.
context_section_description: In modern amphibious warfare usage, a well dock, is a hangar-like deck located at the waterline in the stern of some amphibious warfare ships. By taking on water the ship can lower its stern, flooding the well deck and allowing boats, amphibious vehicles and landing craft to dock within the ship. In the U.S. Navy, this is referred to as a well deck, and officially termed a wet well when the well deck is flooded for operations,
  The structure on the latest naval amphibious ships does not precisely fit the traditional meaning of a weather, or open deck, that is lower than adjacent decks, surrounded by bulkheads and lacking proper drainage would form a catchment for water; however the structure has its origins in such an exaggerated deep deck on World War II era tank landing craft (TLC) the British forces were considering. On 19 July 1941 Major R. E. Holloway, Royal Engineers, forwarded a design from a 1924 patent by Otto Popper of the Danube International Commission concerning a barge transporter for Danube barges. The application of that idea to TLCs evolved into the British "Tank Landing Craft carrier" and  that would become the Dock Landing Ship (LSD) that had an open, very deep and special purpose well deck open to the elements and thus technically a "well deck" in the traditional definition.
  The structure underwent an evolutionary change to become an enclosed structure, essentially a floodable compartment, for docking amphibious vehicles that in most modern versions has lost its weather deck character even as the more modern commercial ship designs have abandoned the traditional well deck structures that are not typically features of today's bulk cargo ships, container ships or passenger ships.
caption: A landing craft approaches the well deck of TCD Ouragan.
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "", "Image Make": "NIKON CORPORATION", "Image Model": "NIKON D1X", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Ver.1.10", "Image DateTime": "2005:02:01 10:07:55", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "252", "GPS GPSVersionID": "[2, 2, 0, 0]", "Image GPSInfo": "28572", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "300", "Thumbnail YResolution": "300", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "28696", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "5333", "Thumbnail YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/640", "EXIF FNumber": "10", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2005:02:01 10:07:55", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2005:02:01 10:07:55", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "2", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "5", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire", "EXIF FocalLength": "95", "EXIF SubSecTime": "23", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "23", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "23", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "3008", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1960", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "28542", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CVAPattern": "[0, 2, 0, 2, 2, 1, 1, 0]", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "142", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "Low gain up", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0"}