Amphibious Combat Vehicle

The ACV should have countermeasures able to contend with a full range of direct fire, indirect fire, and land mine threats. Visible and thermal signature reduction technologies will also be utilized. Modular protection can be applied as necessary.[1]

The vehicle must have the capability to transition from water to ground operations without tactical pause. It must be able to maneuver with the M1A1 Abrams in a mechanized task force. It must have the capability to destroy combat vehicles similar to itself. Weapons must have sufficient range to engage targets from a standoff distance. Weapons will apply precision fire from a stabilized system. It must provide direct fire support for dismounted infantry in an attack.[1] The Marine Corps identified speed on water as a top requirement, even at the cost of troop carrying capacity.[2]

The ACV must be able to self-deploy from an amphibious assault ship at least 12 miles from shore with 17 Marines aboard. It has to be able to travel 8 knots or faster through seas with waves up to three feet. The vehicle was to be operational between 2020 and 2022, with 573 vehicles planned to be procured.[3]

Given the budget environment and the technological challenges involved, the ACV program was split into two separate phases. The first phase is for immediate upgrade to existing equipment types while testing and trying out new concepts. The second phase is to develop then field a single, ultimate vehicle using new technology and the lessons learned operating the improved vehicles to replace the equipment from the first phase.

A U.S. Marine Corps Amphibious Combat Vehicle (right) and an Amphibious Assault Vehicle (left) are staged outside the II Marine Expeditionary Force Headquarters Building at Camp Lejeune, N.C., Aug. 2018.

The first phase, will consist of several hundred commercial off-the-shelf wheeled armored vehicles each costing $3–$4.5 million. It will rely on connectors to get it from ship-to-shore, like the Landing Craft Air Cushion (LCAC) and Joint High Speed Vessel. Relying on connectors to bring the vehicle to a beach allows the sea base to be located 100 miles from enemy threats. The less ambitious Phase 1 ACV will be fielded in the interim, while research and development will commence to refine the features of the Phase 2 ACV.[4]

Phase 1.1, the first increment of Phase 1 of procurement, will buy wheeled personnel carriers. Phase 1.2, the second increment of Phase 1, will include mission-role variants like command-and-control and logistics, and weapons variants; these iterations may reintroduce tracks or stay wheeled.[5] ACV 1.1 vehicles will be an operational and commercially available design that is "good enough" to operate. Its water performance will be comparable to the AAV, and will have survivability attributes of an Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicle, including high-ground clearance and a V-shaped hull, with the ability to drive with a wheel blown off. For the second lot buy (1.2), engineering and design changes will be made to meet roughly half of desired amphibious vehicle fleet size requirements.

The ACV 1.1 is to carry 10–13 Marines, have a swim capability similar to the AAV, and have equal or greater mobility to the M1 Abrams tank. Although tracks are traditionally considered better for all-terrain mobility, the Marines believe wheeled vehicle technology has advanced enough to enhance survivability and mobility in a 35-ton-class platform; the Marine Personnel Carrier technology demonstrator used "in-line" drive technology that enabled all four wheels on each side to pull together much like the way a track does. This demonstrated ability when combined with a higher ground clearance and central tire inflation system, substantially closes the maneuverability gap for wheeled vehicles and results in equal or better maneuverability than the M1A1 and better performance over the AAV, both of which are tracked.

Improved technology used to inform requirements to build ACV 1.2 vehicles will later be applied to delivered 1.1 versions to upgrade them to 1.2 standard.[6][7] Each ACV 1.1 vehicle will have a 3-man crew, and two vehicles will carry a reinforced rifle squad. Armament will consist of an M2 .50-caliber machine gun in a remote weapons station, with the potential to install a stabilized dual-mount M2/Mark 19 grenade launcher turret. Potential water speeds are for a 12 nmi (14 mi; 22 km) ship-to-shore capability at 8 knots.[8]

The second phase is the original high-water-speed effort to develop a vehicle capable of self-deployment from ships and travel at speeds of 13–15 knots on water, each costing $12–$14 million. This last phase of ACV procurement would be purchasing a high-water-speed vehicle, but only if technologies make it achievable without sacrificing armor and weapons.[9]

A Request For Information (RFI) was issued to industry on 17 February 2011. The document outlined expected requirements and asked industry for informal design proposals and program methodology feedback. Responses were due by 22 April 2011.[1] An industry day was held on 6 April 2011.

In August 2012, General Dynamics was awarded an ACV Hull Survivability Demonstrator contract for the design, fabrication, and test support of a full-scale hull to demonstrate crew-protection technologies. In November 2012, they conducted simulated mine-blast tests on their ACV ballistic hull design, successfully meeting mine-blast survivability requirements. Work concluded by May 2013 and will be used to refine requirements for effective protection against under-vehicle threats.[10]

In April 2013, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) awarded a $1 million prize to a team in the Fast Adaptable Next-Generation Ground Vehicle (FANG) contest. The team beat out 1,000 other competitors to submit their design for a drivetrain for the ACV. The FANG initiative was to demonstrate a way to procure working systems better than the current defense acquisition process, which frequently leads to delays and cost overruns. The Marines are in charge of the ACV program, so there was no guarantee that the DARPA-crowdsourced mobility drivetrain would result in a vehicle bought by the Corps.[11]

At a roundtable discussion on 26 June 2013, Marine Corps General Jim Amos told the media that the program was still being pursued, and that a Request For Proposals (RFP) would be issued in early 2014. The Corps has secured and saved a "moderate amount" of money for early development. With the previous EFV cancelled from cost overruns, the Marines are being cautious to identify trade-offs between requirements and cost for the platform. Amos noted that they were working with contractors to see which type of vehicle would meet requirements without proving too costly.[12]

In January 2013, the ACV team was created and tasked to evaluate the feasibility of building an affordable, survivable amphibious high water speed vehicle. The team includes representatives from over six Department of Defense commands. Their initial requirements and engineering analysis evaluated 198 requirements for the platform. From July 9–11, 2013, 25 Marines gathered at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia for a Warfighter Requirements Workshop to review the team's capabilities analysis and determine the value of various capabilities. 30 requirements with cost and weight implications were considered "tradable," including armament and armor protection. Safety and design-specific capabilities, like transportability (fitting on an amphibious ship) were considered non-tradable. The point of the workshop was to get input from fleet Marines about what capabilities they wanted to prioritize with current financial pressures. Over the next month, the team ordered the preferences and applied actual cost and weight data to determine feasibility recommendations for Marine Corps leaders by the fall.[13]

In March 2015, the Marines revealed that the separate ACV 1.1 and 1.2 increments may be merged into a single vehicle. Given that the winner of phase 1.1 will likely be awarded the 1.2 contract, industry is already planning to make their submissions meet the later requirements early. The main differences between the phases is the 1.2's greater self-deploying capability and more seating capacity. Merging the two phases to meet higher requirements earlier could speed up the acquisition timeline and drive down price, since the quantities for both would be bought in bulk.[14] The Marines released the final RFP for ACV 1.1 on 26 March 2015.[15]

In July 2015, Lockheed Martin revealed it had ended its association with Finnish company Patria on their previous collaborative Havoc offering for the program.[16] Lockheed unveiled their new ACV offering in September 2015.[17]

In October 2017 deputy Marine commandant Lt. Gen. Brian Beaudreault stated "We have to find a solution to getting Marines to shore, from over the horizon, at something greater than seven knots (8 mph)," the swimming speed of the existing Amphibious Assault Vehicle (AAV) and its Amphibious Combat Vehicle (ACV) replacement. Continuing, he said "we must find a high-water-speed vehicle on the surface. We must." [18]

The Deputy Commandant's statements seemly contradict the phased approach to having a non-self deploying vehicle in the ACV 1.1 and then a fully amphibious vehicle in ACV 1.2. The question remains if the Marines are still interested in procuring a high speed connector vehicle after merging ACV 1.1 and 1.2.

In May 2018 a former Marine officer, Jeff Groom, published an article concerning the ACV. Both BAE System's and SAIC's ACV 1.1 test vehicles could self-deploy and swim from a ship in contradiction to General Dunford's testimony in March 2015. However, there is apparently no longer a need for speed on water as both test vehicles move through the water at 7 knots using traditional water propellers, the same speed as the legacy 1970s AAV. The article questioned the acquisition decision of a vehicle that swims at the same speed as the vehicle it replaces, carries fewer troops, and is more expensive.[19]

On 24 November 2015, the Marines selected the BAE Systems vehicle: SuperAV as well as the SAIC's: Terrex vehicle to move on to the Engineering and Manufacturing Development (EMD) phase of the ACV 1.1 program, beating out Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, and Advanced Defense Vehicle Systems. The Marine Corps valued swim operations, land operations, carrying capability, and force protection equally in the selection process, but the two winners were chosen for emphasis focused on amphibious swim capability, since the ACV is "fundamentally an amphibious vehicle." Each company was awarded a contract to build 16 vehicles by late 2016, 13 initially and three more when funding becomes available, with testing beginning in early 2017 and lasting one year. A winner is planned to be selected in 2018 to build 204 vehicles, with the first entering service in 2020 and all delivered by 2023.[20][21]

The Marine Corps' newest ACV being tested at Camp Pendleton, 2019

In June 2018, the BAE design was selected, with an initial order of 30 ACVs.[22] In June 2019, BAE Systems and Iveco were awarded a contract to develop Command and 30mm gun armed variants.[23]

On 15 October 2020, Iveco announced that the first fleet of 18 ACVs had been delivered to a platoon of Marines after five years of testing development.[24]

On 10 December 2020 the Marine Corps and BAE Systems announced the commencement of full-rate production, with an initial batch of 36, expected to grow to 72 in early 2021 with an option for 80 vehicles per year thereafter.[25]

A January 2021 report from the Department of Defense's Director of Operational Test & Evaluation (DOT&E) pointed to several problems with the ACV, including cramped quarters, difficult egress, and frequent breakdown.[26]