A recently successful demonstration of automated fire control upgrades for the weapon systems on board the Marine Corps Amphibious Assault Vehicle could lead to a future low-rate initial production deal to upgrade the service’s entire AAV fleet, a senior industry official leading the effort told Defense Daily.
The work was financed by by the Crane division of Naval Surface Warfare Center in Bloomington, Ind., which handles weapon systems upgrades, specifically major gun retrofits and major depot work, for Naval special operations, Kevin Eschner, program manager for AAV upgrades at Moog Inc., said.
SAIC [SAI], the lead contractor working the AAV gun upgrade work for Crane, contracted Moog to handle the specific automation and fire control applications for both the .50 caliber machine gun and Mk19 40mm grenade launcher mounted on the AAV.
“SAIC had done some upgrades on Hummers and [Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicles]…as they got into this one, they realized they needed more partners,” Eschner said.
The upgrades, if integrated service-wide, will allow a Marine to fire either weapon remotely from inside the vehicle, the same way the heavy caliber weapons are fired from the Army’s Stryker vehicles, he said.
“In this case, the Marines had a slightly different control scheme they wanted to use, so we worked on integrating those,” Eschner added, regarding the differences between the Stryker and AAV fire control systems.
The upgrades will also allow Marine Corps personnel to toggle between full color, black and white and infrared imaging when using the automated target and fire control systems, he said. Along with the auto aim and fire capability, the AAV upgrade would also still allow Marines to visually sight potential targets “if required” independent of the automated control system, Eschner added.
In the end, the AAV weapon upgrades will reduce target acquisition time, improve accuracy of the initial shot and engage both moving and stationary targets.
Since entering service in the 1970s, the gun system on the AAV has not changed, Eschner said.
“The Marines were looking for what is truly the technology available,” Eschner said, regarding the upgrade work the Marine Corps were looking for initially on the now-defunct Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle and now the Amphibious Assault Vehicle. “They were so far behind the learning curve on automated weapon control,” he added.
As a result of the recent tests, which were done using a land-based, fixed gun mount and engaging moving and stationary targets, acquisition to engagement time for both weapons went up 75 percent, with double-digit improvement in first shot accuracy, he said. Those tests marked the end of the initial demonstration contract with NAVSURFWARCEN, he said.
If approved by Navy and Marine Corps acquisition officials, the next phase of weapons testing would be sea-based engaging the same target sets on shore, according to Eschner. “We are now in the mode of proposing a more [low-rate initial production] type contract, so there will be a number of demonstrations,” Eschner said. “We figure at least two [more] demonstrations at this point.”
The initial demonstration focused on only on AAV, the follow-on LRIP deal would cover up to seven or eight vehicles, and likely be awarded by next year.
In February, Navy acquisition officials issued three separate requests for information (RFI) 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.
Plans to modernize the current AAV fleet and extend MPC buys, which had already been planned, were intended to bridge the gap for the Marine Corps, until the EFV was fielded, Navy acquisition chief Sean Stackley told Defense Daily that same month.