By Emelie Rutherford
The Marine Corps is further delaying the development of its future Marine Personnel Carrier (MPC) because of “budget pressures,” though it remains committed to building the vehicle, service officials said yesterday.
Robert Lusardi, deputy program manager for the Marine Corps’ Light Armored Vehicle Program, told reporters at a Washington, D.C., conference that the service will not consider allowing the MPC effort to enter into the initial milestone A technology-development phase early this year, as previously planned.
“It’s going to slip a while, but we don’t have the definite date yet (for the milestone A review),” he said after addressing the Defense Technology and Requirements conference hosted by Aviation Week. “(The) Marine Corps’ still committed to it, and there’s still money in the (program objective memorandum) POM for it. Right now, it’s an affordability issue.”
The service now is preparing the POM for fiscal year 2012. Lusardi said officials just last week negotiated plans for the MPC, a future medium-weight armored vehicle.
He said the service is very committed to developing the vehicle. He highlighted how Marine Lt. Gen. Duane Thiessen, deputy commandant for programs and resources, talked about the MPC during a presentation at the same conference on Wednesday.
William Taylor, the program executive officer for Marine Corps Land Systems, told Defense Daily last year he expected the MPC milestone A decision to be made around April 2010.
Lusardi said yesterday the new milestone A date is not certain.
“The best I can tell you on that is as we can go through the POM cycle right now, it’s one of those things in terms of putting a stake in the sand (regarding a final decision)…we haven’t done it yet,” he said.
The Marine Corps already delayed the MPC, when in 2008 it pushed off the milestone A review until early this year.
Officials at the time similarly attributed the delay to fiscal constraints (Defense Daily, July 1, 2008).
Thiessen and Lusardi talked about the MPC serving as a companion to the future Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (EFV), a tracked amphibious vehicle General Dynamics [GD] is developing.
The Marine Corps reduced the number of planned EFVs earlier this decade, and the fiscal year 2011 budget request the Pentagon sent to Congress this month seeks to extend the already delayed EFV development schedule by an extra year (Defense Daily, Feb. 2).
The EFV is intended to carry combat-ready Marines from ships far offshore to land.
“EFV takes you in to the assault, but because they’ve cut back on the number of EFVs, we’ve got a bunch of infantry Marines who need a ride,” Lusardi said. “MPC is that ride.”