AAV upgrades may serve as EFV backup plan - Marine Corps News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Marine Corps Times

AAV upgrades may serve as EFV backup plan

Marine officials are considering upgrades to amphibious assault vehicles, raising questions about whether the Corps is planning ahead in case the embattled Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle, expected to take the AAV’s place, is cancelled.

The Corps completed a 10-year, $300-million-plus overhaul of AAVs in 2007, extending the life of a fleet needed for at least another six years, when the EFV, manufactured by General Dynamics, is expected to be ready for combat. The new upgrades would modernize those same AAVs, although it remains unclear how long their service life would be extended. The majority of the 1,300-vehicle fleet was fielded at the tail end of the Vietnam War, from 1972-75, with 167 more built in the early 1980s, Marine officials said.

While the Corps says the EFV is back on track after years of developmental setbacks, the service recently issued a notice to industry that it will begin seeking options Monday to improve AAV armor, computer systems and other parts of the vehicle. No decisions have been made, but spending money on AAV upgrades would be difficult to do if the Corps plans simultaneously to complete existing projects such as the EFV and the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle, a four-wheeled armored truck expected to replace the Humvee, defense analysts said.

“All of these vehicle programs they have are expensive,” said retired Lt. Col. Dakota Wood, a past critic of the EFV and analyst for the non-partisan Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in Washington, D.C. “The only rationale for trying to modernize the AAV is that [Marine leadership] is working under the assumption that the EFV might be cancelled or significantly delayed.”

Marine officials would not say whether the possible AAV upgrades are tied to delays of the EFV, an amphibious armored troop carrier designed to deliver combat-ready Marines from Navy ships to enemy shores at speeds of up to 29 mph.

The AAV upgrades could include developing new, beefier bolt-on armor kits and modifications to the weapons station that would improve accuracy, although the AAV’s belt-fed 40mm Mark 19 automatic grenade launcher is expected to remain in use with the vehicle. Cost estimates for upgrades are not yet available.

“The specific [AAV] capability enhancements currently being explored are the result of lessons learned in combat and the need to upgrade selected functions of the [AAV] fleet to ensure longevity and compatibility with other Marine Corps systems,” officials with Marine Corps Systems Command said in an e-mail. “AAVs will be in service with the Marine Corps until [they are] replaced by the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle.”

Two years ago, the Corps completed a program started in 1998 known as AAV Reliability, Availability, Maintainability/Rebuild to Standard, or RAM/RS, that rebuilt 1,057 of the Corps’ AAVs at Marine Corps Logistics Base Albany, Ga., and MCLB Barstow, Calif. Handling about 30 vehicles per month, each of the depots conducted major renovations on AAVs, stripping decades-old vehicles down to the hull and conducting track repairs and preventative maintenance.

This round of AAV upgrades would focus more on modernization than refurbishment, but would still require the Corps to spend money that could be devoted to other projects. One example: The Corps’ M1A1 Abrams tanks are aging, but the service does not have the money to partner with the Army on a new M1A3 tank because too much is tied up with EFV and JLTV, officials have said.

Wood said that if funding is cut for the EFV or the program is cancelled, one solution to fill the capability gap could be modernizing the AAV. While it travels only 8 mph over open water, it has a proven track record and could be outfitted with modern equipment, he said.

In July, the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense decided to cut $50 million from the EFV program’s $293 million budget for fiscal 2010. The Senate has voted to restore the funding, meaning the two chambers must work out a compromise to decide what level of EFV funding should be provided in the next defense budget.

Manny Pacheco, spokesman for the EFV program, declined to discuss the significance of the AAV request to industry, but said the Corps expects to receive seven new prototype EFVs to test early in summer 2010.

The cost of the program has jumped from about $8.4 billion in 2000 to at least $13 billion, even though the number of vehicles to be purchased fell from 1,013 to 573, and the vehicles will not be ready for combat until at least 2015, 12 years behind the initial schedule.