BAE Systems announced Thursday it has delivered the first production representative test vehicle of the turreted variant Amphibious Combat Vehicle, or ACV-30, to the Marine Corps for testing.
The company has previously said testing with the ACV-30, the version of its vehicle outfitted with a
Kongsberg-built 30mm cannon, will inform the Marine Corps’ full-rate production decision for the variant.
“ACV-30 equips dismounted Marines with direct fire support allowing them to simultaneously find, fix, and engage targets more effectively and efficiently than current systems,” Garrett Lacaillade, vice president of BAE Systems’ amphibious vehicles product line, said in a statement. “Innovating for the future, consistent with Force Design 2030 priorities, we have teamed with our strategic partners Iveco Defence Vehicles, Kongsberg and the Marine Corps to deliver not only an incredibly lethal capability, but a vehicle and weapon system that has the growth potential to incorporate new technologies to defeat future threats.”
The Marine Corps is pursuing a family of vehicles approach for ACV, which includes the base personnel platform, a command and control platform (ACV-C), a recovery variant (ACV-R), and the ACV-30 set to undergo testing.
BAE Systems was awarded an $88 million deal in August 2022 to build several ACV-30s for testing (Defense Daily, Aug. 16 2022).
Prior to that award, BAE Systems in May 2020 selected Kongsberg to provide its unmanned RT-20 medium caliber turret for the ACV-30 (Defense Daily, May 13 2020).
“The vehicle mounts a stabilized, medium caliber Remote Turret System manufactured by Kongsberg that provides the lethality and protection Marines need while leaving ample room for troop capacity and payload while keeping the crew under armor,” BAE Systems said on Thursday. “The remote turret eliminates the space requirement of legacy turreted cannon systems and provides more room to transport troops or mission essential equipment, and reduces weight for better mobility.”
Both the base personnel ACV and ACV-C are in full-rate production, with BAE Systems having announced last month it has delivered the first production command and control variant to the Marine Corps (Defense Daily, Jan. 12).
BAE Systems in March 2022 received a $34.9 million deal for design and development of the ACV-R, having now completed the first phase of the design process and with plans to deliver the first production representative test vehicles in 2025.