Corps seeks ideas for new amphibious vehicles - Marine Corps News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Marine Corps Times

Corps seeks ideas for new amphibious vehicles

The Marine Corps wants a new family of vehicles to carry out the business of amphibious warfare, and has issued a series of requests for information seeking industry input.

The Corps needs a replacement for the canceled Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle, a complex, high-speed amphibious vehicle that had grown too expensive to buy and operate and no longer fit the tactical bill for the way amphibious assaults will be carried out.

In lieu of buying EFVs, the Marines are seeking industry proposals to upgrade the service’s existing AAV7A1 amphibious assault vehicles, and to create an amphibious combat vehicle (ACV) able to perform across a full range of military operations.

Additionally, the Marines issued an RFI for a new Marine personnel carrier (MPC) that would complement the AAV in land operations.

The RFIs were published Feb. 18 on the Federal Business Opportunities website at www.fbo.gov.

The moves were expected after Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced his decision Jan. 6 to cancel the EFV and develop a lower-cost alternative. A number of requirements for the ACV were set out in the RFI, including:

• The ability to autonomously deliver a Marine infantry squad from an amphibious ship to shore a minimum distance of 12 nautical miles, at “a speed to enable the element of surprise in the buildup ashore.” The notice acknowledges that a high rate of speed “may prove to be unaffordable.”

• Protection against direct and indirect fire, mines and improvised explosive devices. The protection can be modular, “applied incrementally as the situation dictates.”

• Employ open architecture principles to rapidly integrate new technologies, and be reconfigurable to carry out alternative roles, including operation of heavy mortars or rockets, and logistic or medical evacuation missions.

• Be powerful enough to engage and destroy similar vehicles, provide direct fire support to dismounted infantry and maneuver with M1A1 Abrams main battle tanks.

The Marines want the vehicle to be configured in several variants, including as a squad maneuver/fighting vehicle, a command-and-control vehicle, and for recovery and maintenance.

The AAV sustainment and survivability upgrade effort seeks to modernize about half the Corps’ 1,057 existing AAV7s. The new request builds on a previous RFI issued Aug. 18, and adds new requirements to improve the vehicles’ lethality, propulsion system, command-and-control facilities and water mobility.

The accelerated MPC development effort is being made in conjunction with the Army, which issued the RFI on behalf of both services. The Marines intend to carry out “an aggressive, competitive acquisition approach with the intent to field an MPC fleet as rapidly as possible,” and the notice directs competitors to assume a start date of Oct. 1, 2011. The wheeled vehicle is intended as a replacement for the existing Light Armored Vehicles operated by the Marines.

The Marines are seeking responses to the AAV RFI by March 4, and those to the ACV and MPC on April 22.