Unique fighting vehicle is an essential part of Marines’ ship-to-shore express

By Glenn W. Goodman Jr., Special Correspondent

After 10 years of development, the U.S. Marine Corps’ next-generation amphibious assault vehicle appears ready for prime time. The Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (EFV) is in the middle of a Marine Corps independent operational assessment that is expected to lead to low-rate initial production approval by the Pentagon’s Defense Acquisition Board in December.

The 78,000-pound EFV, developed by General Dynamics Amphibious Systems, is an armored, fully tracked, infantry fighting vehicle with what is perhaps the world’s largest jet ski, enabling it to transition rapidly between water and land operations. The EFV now meets or exceeds virtually all of its demanding performance requirements, said Marine Corps Col. Mike Brogan, the EFV program manager.

“We, frankly, have no more technical challenges to overcome before we begin delivering the vehicle,” he said.

The EFV, which has a crew of three — vehicle commander, gunner and driver — will be the primary means of tactical mobility for a rifle squad of 17 Marines during an amphibious landing and subsequent ground combat operations ashore. Launched from the well deck of an amphibious ship stationed safely 20-25 nautical miles out to sea, beyond the visual horizon, the EFV can hydroplane across ocean waves at a speed of 25 knots while still providing a smooth ride for the Marines inside. It then moves ashore without stopping, achieving land speeds up to 45 miles per hour.

Along with the Marine Corps’ new MV-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft, which entered full-rate production last September, and the Navy’s over-the-beach Landing Craft Air Cushion hovercraft, the EFV will complete the triad of mobility systems the Corps has long awaited to give life to its Expeditionary Maneuver Warfare doctrine. That doctrine is built on the Marine warfighting concepts of Operational Maneuver from the Sea and Ship-to-Objective Maneuver, which envision the use of strategically agile and tactically flexible forces to threaten wide coastlines and move rapidly ashore at points of their own choosing from their sea base and head straight for their inland objective with uninterrupted momentum. They will no longer have to pause to secure a beachhead.

The vehicle’s high water speed is made possible by its powerful 12-cylinder, 2,700-horsepower diesel engine from Germany’s MTU and twin 23-inch-diameter water jets from Honeywell, which move a total of 100,000 gallons per minute.

The EFV has significant firepower and can shoot on the move with its new and fully stabilized 30mm automatic chain gun and 7.62mm coaxial machine gun in a rotating 360-degree turret. The dual-feed 30mm gun fires high-explosive or armor-piercing rounds accurately in five-shot bursts out to a range of 2,000 meters and 2,500 meters, respectively.

The crew is protected from 14.5mm armor-piercing rounds and 155mm artillery shrapnel by armor panels made of composite materials instead of metal, which helped keep the vehicle light enough to float.

The first lot of low-rate production vehicles will undergo a nine-month Initial Operational Test & Evaluation in fiscal years 2009-2010. Initial deployment is planned in late fiscal year 2010 to early fiscal 2011. A full-rate production go-ahead currently is scheduled for 2011. The Marine Corps plans to buy 1,013 EFVs — 935 personnel variants and 78 command variants — through fiscal year 2018, with final deliveries in 2020. The command variant, which has a crew of three and no 30mm gun, will house an infantry battalion staff or regimental staff of nine and features seven workstations.

Brogan told Seapower, “They tell you at the Defense Acquisition course at Fort Belvoir, Va., that a program manager should not count on more than one miracle in a development program. I’ve had four on this program: the armor, the engine, the water jets and the state-of-the-art command, control and communications software in the EFV command variant.”