By Emelie Rutherford
The Marine Corps’ long-delayed and over-budget Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (EFV) will be canceled if Congress agrees with Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ proposal yesterday, which he admitted is “controversial” and lawmakers are giving mixed reviews.
Gates told Pentagon reporters yesterday he agrees with Navy Secretary Ray Mabus and Marine Commandant Gen. James Amos’ recommendations to cancel General Dynamics‘ [GD] EFV development program. He noted the tracked amphibious vehicle first conceived during the Regan administration has already cost more than $3 billion to development, would cost another $12 billion to build, “all for a fleet with the capacity to put 4,000 troops ashore.”
“If fully executed, the EFV, which costs far more to operate and maintain than its predecessor, would essentially swallow the entire Marine vehicle budget and most of its total procurement budget for the foreseeable future,” Gates told reporters at the Pentagon while he unveiled an array of proposed budget cuts.
“As with several other high-end programs canceled in recent years, the mounting cost of acquiring this specialized capability must be judged against other priorities and needs,” he added.
Gates called the EFV an “enormously capable vehicle.” Sill, he said Navy and Marine Corps analysis suggests the need for projecting power from the sea could be handled by using new, not-yet-developed vehicles along with a mix of existing air and sea systems. He insisted he is not questioning the Marine Corps’ amphibious assault mission.
Amos said yesterday he recommended canceling the EFV and developing a “more affordable” amphibious tracked fighting vehicle after “a thorough review of the program within the context of a broader Marine Corps force structure review.”
“After examining multiple options to preserve the EFV, I concluded that none of the options meets what we consider reasonable affordability criteria,” Amos said in a statement.
The Pentagon, Gates said, will budget funds needed to build “a more affordable and sustainable amphibious tractor to provide the Marines a ship-to-shore capability into the future.”
The Marine Corps will issue “a special notice to industry requesting information relative to supporting our required amphibious capabilities,” Amos said. The service will use new rapid-acquisition processes to quickly develop the new vehicle, he added.
The fiscal year 2012 budget proposal the Pentagon will send to Congress in the coming weeks also will include monies to upgrade the existing amphibious-vehicle fleet with new engines, electronics, and armaments “to ensure that the Marines will be able to conduct ship-to-shore missions until the next generation of systems is brought on line,” Gates said.
Reacting to the EFV-termination proposal was mixed on Capitol Hill.
Rep. C.W. “Bill” Young (R-Fla.), a top defense budget-writer, told Defense Daily yesterday he is “OK” with axing the EFV. He is likely to be approved today as chairman of the House Appropriations Defense subcommittee (HAC-D), which plays a significant role in shaping the Pentagon budget.
“As a matter of fact, and I reminded Secretary Gates this morning, my subcommittee last year actually preferred to defund the (EFV) program because we weren’t really impressed with the management of the program and…some of our members were concerned about the safety of the vehicle,” Young said in an interview. “So we only funded it last year based on a strong statement (from the Pentagon) that it was a requirement. But I’ve talked to Secretary Gates about this and I’ve talked to the Marine Corps about this, and we think it’s OK…to see that program terminated.”
Senate Appropriations Committee (SAC) Chairman Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) did not mention the EFV in a statement commenting on Gates’ cuts. However, the SAC called last year for significantly trimming the Marine Corps’ FY ’11 EFV budget request and preparing for a possible program cancellation.
Still, the EFV has supporters on Capitol Hill.
House Armed Services Committee (HASC) Chairman Howard “Buck” McKeon said yesterday he is “not happy” with Gates’ proposed cuts and signaled support for the EFV.
“Members of the House Armed Services Committee remain committed to the Marine Corps as an expeditionary fighting force ‘in ready’, which includes the capability to conduct amphibious landings,” McKeon said in a statement. “This mission could be jeopardized by the cancellation of the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle, a capability re-validated by the Secretary just last year, and delays in the Joint Strike Fighter and amphibious ship construction.”
Rep. Todd Akin (R-Mo.), chairman of the HASC Seapower and Expeditionary Forces subcommittee, also pushed back on the proposed EFV termination. He charged many of Gates’ suggested cuts ignore “the strategic situation our nation is in, and the capabilities we need to fight and win today and tomorrow.”
“For example, do we as a nation think that the Marine Corps should be able to get from ships to the shore in a battle? If so, cutting the EFV is absurd,” Akin said in a statement. “If the President and the Secretary of Defense want to get rid of the Marine Corps, they should come out and say that directly.”
The Marine Corps has been conducting reliability-growth testing since last October on new EFV prototypes. The company built seven test vehicles, redesigns of the vehicle that missed reliability goals during a 2006 operational assessment.
General Dynamics is making a push on Capitol Hill to save the EFV, touting that the new prototypes are exceeding requirements for sustained performance under normal operating conditions. The new prototypes have completed more than 300 of 500 scheduled test hours at Camp Pendleton in California, and testing has been slated to run through late January, the company said. The plan had been for the Marine Corps to analyze test results and report to Pentagon officials by the end of February.
The EFV effort, which suffered a significant cost breach and technical problems earlier this decade, was restructured and successfully emerged in 2008 from a critical design review that determined the new vehicle design had favorable reliability estimates. As part of a second system design and development effort, formalized in a $766.8 million contract awarded in mid-2008, General Dynamics built the seven redesigned prototypes and modified existing, faulty test vehicles.