Lockheed Martin [LMT] has put forward an entrant for the Marine Corps’ amphibious combat vehicle program, but it’s not the Havoc 8×8 armored modular vehicle they developed with Finnish company Patria and marketed together for four years.
The U.S.-based defense giant and European vehicle manufacturer broke off their partnership before the former submitted its bid in May, Lockheed Martin spokesman John Kent told Defense Daily.
Because Lockheed Martin is not an original equipment manufacturer of combat vehicles, it likely partnered with another firm for its offering.
“Lockheed Martin looks forward to providing an amphibious combat vehicle solution with significant growth margin for all future ACV variants. Prior to Lockheed Martin’s ACV proposal submission, Lockheed Martin and Patria mutually agreed to end our exclusive association on the program,” Kent said in a statement. “For competitive reasons, we are not disclosing information on our proposed solution at this time.”
The companies announced their partnership on Havoc 8×8 in 2011 for the now-defunct Marine Personnel Carrier program. The vehicle was based on Patria’s 8×8 AMV—which is operated by several European countries and South Africa—while Lockheed Martin acted as the prime contractor and systems integrator.
Lockheed Martin’s new ACV will be unveiled at the Modern Day Marine event in September, Kent said. He declined to share further information on the vehicle or potential partner in the competition.
The firm is one of five entrants in the ACV program (Defense Daily, May 20). BAE Systems, General Dynamics [GD], Science Applications International Corp. [SAIC] and Advanced Defense Vehicle Systems are also competing for contracts to build the first increment of vehicles, called ACV 1.1. The Marine Corps plans to buy about 204 ACV 1.1s at a unit cost of up to $7.5 million. Later iterations could include more advanced weapons, communications and command-and-control equipment.
The service in November plans to downselect to two vendors that will each create 16 vehicles, Manny Pacheco, a spokesman for Marine Corps Program Executive Office Land Systems, told Defense Daily this May. After that, it will choose one of those companies to produce the first ACV increment. Full operational capability is slated for 2023, with the first ACVs arriving in the fleet as early as 2020.
The ACV will replace the service’s fleet of aging amphibious assault vehicles (AAV) from the 1970s. The new personnel carriers swap the AAV’s tracks for wheels and will have the same land speed, mobility and survivability as an M1 Abrams tank.
General Dynamics proposed the light armored vehicle (LAV) 6.0, which boasts a 25mm cannon turret and 62 miles per hour land speed.
SAIC offered Singapore Technologies Kinetics’ Terrex, a 62,000-pound infantry carrier vehicle that can swim in four-foot seas.
BAE put forward the 63,000-pound Superav, originally manufactured by Italy’s IVECO. The vehicle can transport up to 13 Marines at speeds of 65 miles per hour on land and 6 knots in water.
ADVS has not confirmed what its ACV offering is. However, the small Lake Orion, Mich.–based company has partnered with seasoned defense firms Textron [TXT] and IR Technologies, which will be acting as subcontractors.