The Government Accountability Office (GAO) said in a new report the accelerated pace at which the Marine Corps is procuring the first iteration of its Amphibious Combat Vehicle (ACV) poses risks to the program, though its reliance on mature technologies likely will produce the best return for the Defense Department’s investment.
In Mid-November, the Marine Corps will select two companies from a field of five to progress into the engineering and manufacturing development phase of ACV 1.1. The service has required non-developmental vehicles for ACV 1.1, quickening the engineering phase of the program in favor of speeding the ship-to-shore troop carriers into service.
In an annual report on the program released Oct. 28, the GAO said “most of the current activities of the U.S. Marine Corps’ Amphibious Combat Vehicle program have demonstrated the use of best practices, but plans for an accelerated acquisition schedule pose potential risks.”
The vehicles pitched thusfar – one each from Lockheed Martin [LMT], General Dynamics [GD], BAE Systems and Science Applications International Corp. [SAIC] and Advanced Defense Vehicle Systems (AVDS)–were tested thoroughly as part of a now-discarded Marine Personnel Carrier (MPC) test drive experiment. MPC was an effort to find a less-capable amphibious vehicle for land-based operations following an invasion from the sea.
The Marine Corps was so impressed by the capabilities demonstrated by the non-developmental MPC competitors that it decided to purchase one to satisfy its immediate need for an amphibious assault vehicle replacement.
“As the program approaches the start of engineering and manufacturing development, it is seeking to rely on mature technologies that have been demonstrated to work in their intended environment as well as fostering competition—a critical tool for achieving the best return on the government’s investment,” GAO said.
However, GAO found that the accelerated procurement schedule–particularly the decision to perform a preliminary design review after EMD begins, presents a risk to the program. This “deviation from best practices…could postpone the attainment of information about whether the design performs as expected,” GAO found.
Plans to conduct developmental testing in parallel with production also concerned the GAO. It found planned concurrency could result in deficiencies being found after the vehicles and systems are built, which would then require expensive aftermarket modifications. The Marine Corps maintains that the technological maturity of the vehicles on offer will cancel out the risks associated with planned concurrency.
The Marine Corps is closer than it has ever gotten to entering EMD with a vehicle that will update its aging AAV fleet. The phased approach is designed to avoid the pitfalls of previous attempts like the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (EFV) which was scrapped because the service’s insistence on high water speed made any vehicle that met the published requirements prohibitively expensive.
ACV 1.1 will have some amphibious capability but will rely on complementary ship-to-shore connectors like the landing craft air cushion (LCAC) for long sea voyages.
Plans are to convene a defense acquisition board sometime in mid-November, which should result in a downselect decision. The service will buy 16 ACVs from each of the companies chosen for EMD.
A single company will go on to produce about 200 ACV 1.1 vehicles beginning in 2018. The Marine Corps wants to buy about 204 ACV 1.1 vehicles at a unit cost of up to $7.5 million. Plans are to equip six battalions by 2023 with ACVs while modernizing 392 existing AAVs with survivability and communications upgrades. SAIC is on contract for the upgrade work.
ACV 1.2 will introduce greater amphibious capability, including the ability to self-deploy from ships.
Finally, with ACV 2.0, the Marine Corps again will endeavor to buy a vehicle that can achieve a water speed significantly faster than either 1.1 or 1.2. This vehicle will be the eventual permanent replacement for the AAV fleet. How it will achieve the amphibious capability envisioned for ACV 2.0 is undetermined, GAO said.