Modern Day Marine Military Expo Daily 1
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Day Defense Daily® Modern Day Marine Military Expo Daily 1 Defense Daily® Marine Corps Moves On From EFV To Three New Amphibious-Vehicle Efforts By Emelie Rutherford The Marine Corps is busy with its revamped plans for amphibious vehicles, with its major effort to plan a new Amphibious Combat Vehicle (ACV) taking shape follow the recent completion of a major study. Col. Keith Moore, Marine Corps program manager for advanced amphibious assault (PM AAA), is just wrapping up the very final stages of the service’s contractual relationship with General Dynamics [GD] for the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle. The EFV, a tracked amphibious vehicle that battled technical challenges earlier in its decade-long development lifespan, ultimately was canceled last year by former Defense Secretary Robert Gates because of its cost. It was intended to be a swimmable armored vehicle that would quickly carry combat-ready Marines to land from ships far off shore. Now Moore is guiding three successor amphibious vehicle efforts that are at various stages: the nascent ACV, which is intended to be a more-affordable alternative to EFV, as well as an upgraded version of the existing Assault Amphibious Vehicle (AAV) and a new, likely off-the-shelf wheeled Marine Personnel Carrier (MPC). It’s the ACV that is taking up the bulk of Moore’s time. Service officials have completed an analysis of alternatives (AoA) on six types of vehicles that could be the ACV. The AoA document was approved out of the Marine Corps and awaiting final briefings to congressional and Pentagon officials as of this writing. After the AoA briefings are done, Moore plans to go before the Defense Acquisition Board (DAB) later this fall for in-process review of the development path forward. Armed with a draft of the ACV’s capabilities definition document, Moore is hoping the DAB meeting will clear the way for releasing the first request for proposals (RFP) for the initial ACV development contracts with ▶ Continued on page 2 Sponsored By: Published By: Visit us at the %BZt5VFTEBZt4FQUFNCFS Modern Day Marine Expo Defense Daily® 4FQU4FQUr#PPUI www.defensedaily.com © 2012 by Access Intelligence, LLC. Federal copyright law prohibits unauthorized reproduction by any means and imposes fines of up to $150,000 for violations. K-MAX: SIMPLER. STRONGER. MISSION: SAVING LIVES, SAVING MONEY. The K-MAX Unmanned Aerial Truck (UAT) is simpler and stronger by design, saving more lives and money with every flight. Simpler: Single transmission, no tail rotor, low maintenance Stronger: Proven capability of two million pounds of cargo per day The K-MAX UAT. Only from Team K-MAX. www.kaman.com [email protected] 310-64788_KMAX_MDMD.indd 1 9/11/12 11:22 AM September 25, 2012 Defense Daily ® Page 3 ▶ Continued from page 1 industry. Moore, in an interview, said the AoA “reaffirms the need for a self-deploying amphibian for the force.” “There were non-self-deploying alternatives that were part of the analysis of alternatives,” he said. And the AoA “reaffirmed that the timelines for getting ship-to-shore, the cost that that would impose on the Navy for connectors, for amphibious shipping and all that, it just makes that not a viable option. So you’re back into (understanding that) you need a self-deployer.” Moore said he was not surprised by the AoA’s findings. “I think most of us that have been around this business expect that the answer was going to be a self-deployer,” he said. “What the specific thing ends up looking like, that’s sort of the next turn of the crank.” The AoA examined six vehicle options: developing no vehicle and sticking with the current setup, reviving the EFV, using an MPC-type wheeled vehicle with a ship-to-short connector to get it ashore, creating a significantly- improved AAV, and designing and building an amphibious-combat vehicle--with two alternatives for this last option. The final AoA does not recommend pursing the MPC-type vehicle with a ship-to-shore connector or sticking with the current setup, Moore said. The EFV also is not looked upon favorably because of its high cost. The document thus shows the two new-design vehicles and super-improved AAV “typically do fairly well,” with “some doing better than others depending on the exact scenario,” he said. Moving beyond the AoA, to determine what the right solution set is, “is now going to require engagement with industry, additional contractual engineering efforts so that we can actually figure out where…the most cost-effective point is…within the continuum of capabilities that these vehicles” possess, he said. Meanwhile, plans to upgrade existing AAVs, which were first fielded in 1972, are moving forward. The effort is intended to improve the survivability and land-and-water mobility of the vehicle as the service waits for the successor ACV to be built. Moore said he expects Marine Corps Combat Development Command will have the requirements for the AAV upgrade effort completed by the end of this calendar year. After that, he hopes officials advance the program to the Milestone B phase of development so the service can award engineering and manufacturing development (EMD) contracts to companies. The Marine Corps already has worked with industry on the AAV upgrade effort, in recent weeks awarding four companies trade-studies contracts that allow them to work on the existing vehicles. “The product out of this trade study is their best estimate as to what sort of things (are possible) and how they would go about enhancing the survivability of the platform,” Moore said. That will help answer questions like “Are we asking for something that’s just unachievable by some law of physics?” and whether the upgrade can be completed with available funding, he said. “We’ve been trying to do a lot of up-front work with these trade studies and all so that everybody on both government and industry is leaning forward so that we can get all the engineering work done as quickly as possible,” he said. One example of an AAV improvement the service is examining is a way to better protect the underbelly of the vehicle from improvised explosive devices. Industry also is working with Moore’s team on the wheeled MPC, which the service is thinking will be largely off-the-shelf, based on an existing vehicle with slight tweaks. The MPC “will be effective across the range of military operations during sustained operations ashore and rein- force the assault echelon during forcible-entry operations,” according to Moore’s office. It and the ACV are intended together to serve as replacements for the legacy AAVs. Four companies--BAE, General Dynamics Land Systems, SAIC [SAI], and Lockheed Martin [LMT]--have been under contract since January to provide the Marine Corps market-research data on the MPC. Each firm will provide an existing vehicle that is run through a government test program that looks at factors such as its capability for tra- versing water. “We wanted to see what’s out there and available in that area,” Moore said. He said testers need to ensure U.S. Marines can fit in the potential MPCs, some of which are built in parts of the world for people of smaller statures. Moore also said he is looking forward to putting the vehicles through ▶ Continued on page 4 www.defensedaily.com September 25, 2012 Defense Daily ® Page 4 ▶ Continued from page 2 live-fire testing to ensure they are as survivable as their builders claim. And he wants to learn where potential MPC contractors would build the vehicles in the United States, because they may not have manufacturing facilities here. Moore, meanwhile, is saying goodbye to the remnants of the EFV program. The final contract with General Dynamics finishes out at the end of September. “Most of the effort over the last month, month and a half, has really been dispositioning all of the various equipment and materiel that accreted over the course of the program,” he said earlier this month. As Washington is abuzz with talks about the Pentagon budget, Moore said he does not know how potential sequestration budget cuts would impact his portfolio of vehicle programs. The sequestration cuts are the $1.2 trillion in longterm government spending reductions--$500 billion of which would come from previously-projected defense funding--brought about by the Budget Control Act of 2011. The budget law already cut $487 billion from decade-long defense spending plans. President Barack Obama does not support sequestration and wants Congress to agree on an alternate budget- cutting plan before the cuts would start in January. Pentagon officials insist they are not planning for the sequestra- tion cuts. “I have no guidance on what sequestration might mean for me and my programs,” Moore said. “Nobody’s come down and said, ‘Hey, if this happens you’re going to go from a budget of this to a budget of this, so figure out how to live with it.’ So sort of in the absence of that, it’s the whole range of uncertainty.” “At my level,” he added, “it’s sort of impossible to do anything other than just be aware that you’re likely to have to make changes to whatever your plan is.” ! Lockheed Martin Moves Ahead On JLTV By Ann Roosevelt Parts are arriving and work has begun on the Lockheed Martin [LMT] offering for the Army-Marine Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV), and a model is on display at the Modern Day Marine Exhibition. “The great accomplishment that the Army and Marine Corps were able to achieve…last year was to reconcile the differences in their requirements, and come together on a common set of requirements that formed the basis for the solicitation,” Kathryn Hasse, director, Joint Light Tactical Vehicle Program for Lockheed Martin, told Defense Daily.