Date of last Real-world Marine Beach Assault?

Factual Questions
1

I see the Pentagon Is Poised to Cancel Marine Landing Craft

Now beach assaults were pretty common in WWII, but have there been many since?
When was the last large scale beach landing? Grenada perhaps?

Haven’t helicopters largely replaced landing craft for this kind of mission?
Aren’t they much more cost effective when one doesn’t expect to have to do something like retake the Philippines?

2

I am going from memory, but I seem to recall footage of Marine’s landing on a beach in Somalia.

3

Inchon, during the Korean war comes to mind.

When you say beach assault, do you mean just ‘landing on a beach’. Or do you mean landing on a beach under fire?

4

Was that the one where the beach where they landed was crowded with journalists with video and still cameras? That was hilarious.

5

Yeah. That was also the one where the military kept trying to track down warlord leader Aidid, but could never find him.

Yet he was constantly on the news being interviewed.

6

Under fire, or at least threat of fire.

Inchon certainly qualifies, but I’m hoping for something more recent than 1950.

7

Does the Falklands count, or are you asking about US Marines only? I think they used both landing craft and helicopters there.

http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/san_carlos_bay_landings.htm

8

Marine’s have this really cool thing called an LCAC. I can see why they are dropping the other craft.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/ship/lcac-gallery.htm

9

I was in the amphibious navy a quarter-century ago, and we were told* the last hot beach landing was Inchon. I’m not aware of any updates.
*when we asked why we had to use old, beat-up equipment from the Vietnam War while the aircraft carriers and guided missle cruisers got all the nice, new stuff.

10

On March 21, 2003, US, Britain and Poland launched an amphibious assault at Umm Qasr Iraq. The actual assault went pretty well, but they met heavy resistance in the city itself.

11

I see this more as a cancellation of a failed prototype- a landing craft intended to operate a significant distance inshore- than as a total repudiation of amphibious assaults. Basic problem: tanks don’t float very well.