By Carlo Munoz
The Marine Corps officially kicked off its competition to revamp its amphibious capabilities this week, issuing a slate of industry notices seeking not only a replacement for the canceled Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (EFV), but also ways to modernize its existing fleet of tactical amphibious platforms.
Navy acquisition officials issued three separate requests for information (RFI) on Monday for modernization work on the Marine Corps’ Amphibious Assault Vehicle, follow-on acquisition of the Marine Personnel Carrier and development work on the Amphibious Combat Vehicle (ACV), according to service documents posted on the FedBizOpps.gov web site Feb. 22.
The timing of the RFI releases reflects the streamlined, “system of systems” approach the Marine Corps is looking to use on all three efforts.
The plan, according to Navy acquisition chief Sean Stackley, will be to place management of all three programs under a “tactical vehicle” lead within the service. Under such an approach, all three efforts would essentially be managed “as [if] they were a single program,” he said after his Feb. 17 speech at an Aviation Week-sponsored defense technology symposium in Washington.
Specifically, service officials “would like to see industry focus on affordability by designing [or] proposing solutions that will reduce the operational and support costs over the life cycle and consider such things as commonality, modularity of proposed solutions and interoperability among [a] systems of systems,” the notice requesting information for the ACV states. General Dynamics [GD] is the prime contractor for EFV.
That new platform, according to the RFI, will “provide increased force protection, water speed, land mobility, lethality, and survivability, while balancing capacity, mobility, transportability and total ownership costs” compared to the current AAV fleet.
Specifically, the new vehicle will be expected to “autonomously” carry and land a squad-sized force from a 12-mile minimum distance away from shore, while maintaining a “seamless transition from sea to land,” the notice states.
Once on land, the ACV must be able to maneuver with Marine mechanized units, particularly alongside the M1A1 tank, while maintaining a counter-IED capability.
The new vehicle must also be able to support “emerging technologies” via open architecture applications and maintain a modular design. That design, it adds, must be able to accommodate cargo transport, heavy weapons–including mortars and rockets–and medical evacuation missions, along with its standard troop transport capability.
The Marine Corps is also looking to begin modernization work on its AAVs, to bring that same modularity and open architecture capability into the legacy fleet, the documents state.
The system of systems approach taken on by the Navy was adopted shortly after the Pentagon’s decision to terminate the EFV program earlier this year. Even though plans to modernize the current AAV fleet and extend MPC buys were already in the works, consolidation of those efforts with the new ACV would expedite that new replacement effort.
Under a tactical vehicle lead, program officials working the individual elements of the effort can share information and lessons learned faster, which would inform the requirements development and design process for the ACV (Defense Daily, Feb. 18).