Every class of landing craft with which I am familiar has a bow-facing ramp or door. The reason for this is fairly simple to grasp if you think about how a beach is laid out. Generally speaking, beaches have deep water offshore, which gets shallower as you get closer to the shore. A landing craft, when it comes ashore, will have deep water behind it, and shallower water behind it. Ideally, the bow is touching the beach, while the stern is in deep enough water for the propellers to operate, but this would often not be feasible. Disembarking a landing craft over the stern, therefore, means going into relatively deep water. Swimming is quite hard when wearing battledress, boots and steel helmet and carrying a weapon and assault pack, and commanders didn't want their assault force to drown before they hit the beach. Even if the troops landed in shallow enough water that they didn't have to swim, they would have to wade ashore. This is slow, and makes them easier targets than they would be disembarking over a bow ramp. Similar concerns preclude disembarking over the sides. It should also be remembered that landing craft were also used for ship-to-shore transfer of troops, supplies and equipment following the assault phase of the landings. Disembarking from a bow ramp in such situations would greatly speed this, and, as noted, was a lot less risky than disembarking over the stern or sides.

Amphtracks, or LVTs (Landing Vehicle, Tracked) were in service with the Allies, as were the DUKW amphibious truck. The LVTs, as their full name shows, had tracks, allowing them to move over a beach, rather than having to run aground like a landing craft. As such, the troops could use the rear ramp to debus onto dry land, rather than into the water as they would have for a landing craft. LVTs were not used to a great extent in the Normandy landings, mainly because most of the production was sent to the Pacific. Here, most of the atolls and islands to be attacked were surrounded by coral reefs, or had beaches with shallow slopes. Landing craft would beach far from the tide-line, and the troops they carried would have to wade considerable distances, making them easy targets. LVTs could drive over the reefs and beaches without exposing the troops to fire. The Normandy beaches were more suitable for the use of landing craft, so the LVTs were sent to the Pacific, where they were more necessary. The DUKW was used heavily during the Normandy landings, thanks to its large transport capacity, and its ability to move supplies inland immediately after landing. However, as an unarmoured vehicle, it was poorly suited for the first wave of an amphibious assault. It also had a low freeboard, meaning that a considerable number were swamped and sank in the relatively high seas prevalent on D-Day.