The Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) said the Marine Corps cannot afford to carry out its ground-vehicle strategy and wants changes to the service’s plans for vehicles intended to replace the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (EFV).

The Marine Corps is planning to develop a new Amphibious Combat Vehicle (ACV) to replace the EFV, General Dynamics’ [GD] long-delayed amphibious vehicle that Defense Secretary Robert Gates called for canceling earlier this year. The service’s post-EFV plans include buying a Marine Personnel Carrier (MPC) and upgrading existing Amphibious Assault Vehicles (AAVs.)

Yet the SASC, in its version of the fiscal year 2012 defense authorization bill and report, states these plans and other Marine Corps vehicle efforts need to be changed.

“The Marine Corps cannot afford its current plans for ground vehicle modernization, regardless of the cost of a replacement for the EFV,” the SASC’s report says. “The Marine Corps and the Department of Defense oversight process must evaluate and manage the Marine Corps ground vehicle programs on a portfolio basis.”

The panel warns that the Marine Corps “is going to have to come to grips with the fact that it will have to spend significantly more money on ground vehicles in the future,” and as defense budgets tighten it “will have to make difficult tradeoffs in multiple areas.”

The SASC’s bill would ban the Marine Corps from granting the MPC milestone B approval–allowing it to enter into the systems development and demonstration phase–until after the service submits a detailed analysis of alternatives (AoA) on the ACV to Congress. The legislation additionally would ban such Milestone B approval for any Marine Corps ground-combat vehicle under development–including the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV)–until after Congress receives from the Pentagon a life-cycle cost assessment of the service’s ground-vehicle portfolio.

The SASC’s report language also downplays the impact the EFV, and the ACV in its place, are having on the service’s vehicle funding woes.

“The committee agrees that the Marine Corps faces an immense budget challenge, but the problem is not confined to the EFV or the amphibious assault mission area,” the report says. “The fact is that the data that the Marine Corps presents shows that the Marine Corps’ ground vehicle portfolio is unaffordable by the Corps’ metrics even if a new amphibious tractor is removed altogether.”

“The reality is that modern ground vehicles are going to be much more expensive than they were in the past,” it states. It notes a Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle costs roughly $1 million a copy, and the future JLTV is projected to run at least several hundred thousands dollars each.

While the current per-vehicle cost of the EFV is $18 million, the SASC notes a vehicle such as the Bradley fighting vehicle, which costs roughly half as much, can only carry half as many troops and cannot operate in the water.

“The EFV would cost much more than the Marine Corps hoped and expected, and the Marine Corps may not be able to afford it, but it is not out of line with its complex mission and other fighting vehicles,” the SASC writes in its report.

“The committee also notes that the Marine Corps acquires a new amphibious assault vehicle only once every several decades…, and that the amphibious assault mission is the core mission of the Marine Corps,” it adds. “It is not unreasonable to expect the Marine Corps, the Navy, and the Defense Department to deviate from 30-year averages in combat vehicle acquisition to recapitalize the very equipment on which the Marine Corps most depends.”

The SASC slams the way the EFV requirements were crafted, writing in the report that “it now appears to the committee that the Marine Corps’ requirements process that led to the EFV requirement for high water speed was essentially mistaken–yielding a mistake that cost the taxpayer $3 billion and cost the Marine Corps as much as two decades of lost time.”

The panel says the EFV requirements “were not adequately scrutinized, challenged, or backed up by evidence,” and said that “mistake must not be repeated” with the ACV. The legislation thus spells out requirements for the ACV’s AoA. It also boosts funding for conducting pre-acquisition activities–testing and technology demonstrations–to support the ACV’s AoA and requirements definition.