By Geoff Fein
The outgoing deputy assistant secretary of the Navy (DASN) for expeditionary warfare threw his support behind General Dynamics‘ [GD] Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (EFV), citing the improvement that has taken place since the program underwent restructuring.
“I personally believe that we probably would need to create that capability in some amount of capacity,” Roger Smith, DASN for expeditionary warfare, told reporters during a Pentagon briefing last week.
Smith said there might be other ways to bring Marines ashore, including extending the service life of the amphibious assault vehicle (AAV). And although an amphibious landing might be the last manner of combat operations the Marines would want to execute, Smith added that he doesn’t see the Marine Corps giving up ion EFV without a fight.
“The Marine Corps is very focused in what they believe they need. They have been sticking to their position that that’s a viable requirement for them,” Smith said. “My personal opinion; ‘it won’t die easy.’ I think the strategy is going to have to swing pretty wide for there to be a different manner in which we are going to have assured access. The focus is to stay focused on EFV right now.”
Smith spoke to reporters days before retiring from his position as DASN, a job he has held since summer 2003.
While there are some lawmakers and critics of the Navy and Marine Corps who question whether there will ever be a need for an amphibious landing, Smith said that type of operation was used effectively in the first Gulf War.
“We certainly used it in a very effective manner in the last Gulf War to strategically place a large landing force off of Southern Iraq and Kuwait,” he said. “That was a very effective manner of using that capacity.”
Some of the loudest critics of EFV point to the problems with developing the system including cost overruns and schedule slips, as opposed to the need for the technology.
Smith noted that the Joint Staff validated the requirement for EFV back in June 2007 just as the Navy acknowledged EFV was facing a 43 percent increase in cost over its baseline, resulting in a “critical” Nunn-McCurdy breach (Defense Daily, June 8, 2007).
The Joint Staff validated EFV as a viable requirement for several scenarios, he added: The Middle East and East Asia, to be able to combat certain types of requirements.
“The requirement has been validated and it is being reviewed as most new administrations would do,” Smith said. “It’s probably not a bad idea because of the types of combat operations we have been executing for the past eight years.”
There have been technology challenges with the program, Smith said. However, technically, the vehicle and the program are right now tracking along quite well.
Since June ’07, the Navy had a whole year of restructuring that had to occur, he added. “Trying to get that program restructured…it was a tough year for the first year.”
General Dynamics did not have the depth…in their program office down in Woodbridge, Va., to actually execute a lot of the additional types of oversight and reporting requirements, Smith said.
“There was a lot of maturity that had to be developed, so we spent that first year out of the blocks really doing that,” he added. “The second year, it’s actually been progressing quite well. There’s a few things [that] always come up in a program, but they have always been able to be attacked quickly.”
Under the restructured EFV program, General Dynamics has seven new vehicles it is building. Smith said they are “quite different” from the nine system design and development (SDD) phase I vehicles that exist today.
“Those seven vehicles are being built today at the Joint Systems Manufacturing Center in Lima, Ohio,” Smith said. “The first vehicle is about to be integrated and it’s progressing on schedule.”
Additionally, as part of the June 2007 restructuring, the Marine Corps reduced the total number of EFVs it was planning on buying from 1,013 to 573.
The latest iteration of EFV has a different hull design, Smith noted. “We moved to a 2000 series aluminum. It will be a little different…won’t be that drastic.”
The baseline cost for EFV SDD-2 units is $16.8 million, Smith told reporters.
Another source of concern for lawmakers has been the effort to develop armor shielding for EFV.
Smith said there’s been a large debate within DoD as well as from Congress on the work.
“We designed a underbody appliqu� capability. It’s a design right now, but from all types of modeling… that armor would provide very good protection to the vehicle,” Smith said. “It would have to be added to the vehicle after it has done [its] landing.”
There will need to be a deployment strategy and a pause, during which EFV crews can install the armor, he added. But it can be done in the field, and was designed with that in mind. “It will be heavy, no doubt. It will add additional weight.
“But if you are going to do extended land war type of combat operations where underbody type of threats would persist, that would be the strategy,” Smith said.
The Marine Corps and General Dynamics look at the schedules in a very detailed manner, Smith said.
“Right now, we have a lot of testing and DOT&E was very integrated in that whole Nunn-McCurdy process. They have been very diligent in their oversight and working with the program office and OSD to ensure we do the appropriate amount of testing,” Smith said.
He added that the testing may be a little bit more than has been done in the past. “For example, we are actually installing some of the high failure components from the operational assessment that was done back in June 06. We redesigned them over a period of several years.
“And we are installing some of those assets onto the SDD 1 vehicle and testing its reliability…that was the main reason why the vehicle didn’t pass operational testing,” Smith said. “So there is more testing, and it [is] focused, specific testing.”