Marine tanks are now on the prowl in Afghanistan
February 8th, 2011 | Afghanistan Infantry Vehicles Weapons | Posted by Dan Lamothe
Marines with 1st Tank Battalion travel through northern Helmand province, Afghanistan, on Feb. 1. (Photo by Staff Sgt. Brian A. Lautenslager)
So, how’s your day going? Good? Glad to hear it.
Perhaps it will be improved knowing that Marines in the violent northern section of Helmand province, Afghanistan, now have tank support. The Marine Corps just released this Feb. 1 photograph of Marines in an M1A1 Abrams rolling north through the desert on the way to Forward Operating Base Edinburg, an outpost manned by 1st Battalion, 8th Marines, out of Camp Lejeune, N.C.
The tanks are manned by Delta Company, 1st Tank Battalion, out of Twentynine Palms, Calif., the first American unit to operate tanks in Afghanistan. Lejeune’s Combat Logistics Battalion 8 provided security and maintenance for the tank convoy, Marine officials said. A full gallery of photographs is posted here.
EFV: At what cost to the Corps?
February 4th, 2011 | budget Capitol Hill Vehicles | Posted by Gidget Fuentes
Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle goes for a swim at Camp Pendleton, Calif., last summer.//Lance Cpl. John Robbart III
With ringing endorsements from the Pentagon’s top leader and Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Jim Amos to kill the program, the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle’s fate is close to being sealed. But the EFV remains a contentious issue as big defense contractor General Dynamics continues with its push to save the program, with some help from congressional members who say nixing the EFV is akin to killing the Marine Corps itself.
Beating the drum is Rep. Duncan D. Hunter, R-Calif., an Iraq veteran who now represents California’s 52nd district. In recent weeks, Hunter has taken his pro-EFV argument to various newspaper op-ed pieces, saying the Marine Corps would “lose its core competency” without it, and he noted that other top leaders – he didn’t identify but would include retired commandant and Gen. Jim Conway – had enthusiastically supported the EFV as a “top priority.”
So why the change in tune? It’s all about money, specifically what getting the EFV would cost in real terms to the Marine Corps, says a senior Department of the Navy official. “The Expeditionary Fighting vehicle is doing pretty well. It’s had a very troubled history,” Navy Undersecretary Robert “Bob” Work told a mostly-defense contractor crowd during the West 2011 conference on Jan. 26, noting the $3.3 billion investment in the program so far.
But the decision to cancel the EFV is not about its capability, Work insisted, but about the drain on the bank needed to support other requirements, notably ground combat vehicles, if the Marine Corps went forward with the program. From 2018 to 2025, he said, the EFV would consume from the Marine Corps’ budget 100 percent of the average of all ground combat vehicles, 50 percent of all Marine Corps procurement, and 90 percent of historical operations & maintenance dollars for ground combat vehicles.
Navy Undersecretary Robert Work//Navy photo
“It would not make a difference if that vehicle could do everything it said it can do. We simply cannot afford it,” said Work, a retired Marine Corps artillery officer and seasoned budget analyst before he took the bureaucratic post in 2009. “The opportunity costs…are too high.” The decision to cancel the program was made by the commandant, Gen. Jim Amos, he said, “and the secretary concurred.”
The $2.8 billion saved in canceling the program will help fund ground tactical vehicles. That’s $500 million toward the new amphibious vehicle – he expects the initial solicitation will be made by 2013 – $1 billion to extend the life of the current fleet of AAVs, $400 million to accelerate by three years the initial operating capability of the Marine Personnel Carrier, $200 million to recapitalize Humvees, and $700 million to recap light-armored vehicles and other vehicles.
“The EFV is an exquisite, wonderful capability,” he said, but the cost is too high. The smarter thing, he insisted in speaking with reporters, is to focus on funding vehicles that would fill the Corps’ requirement for 12 battalions of lift, which is either a 8-4 or 6-6 split between the next amtrac and wheeled MPC. “It’s going to be decided on the Marine Corps’ own terms. The secretary of defense has said, you’ve convinced me on the need for amphibious assault capability – a two MEB capability – you’ve convinced me that an armored tractor is a good thing to have in the Marine ground mobility portfolio, but you can’t afford to spend on the EFV,” he said.
Marine Personnel Carrier moves up on Corps’ priority list
January 12th, 2011 | Vehicles | Posted by Dan Lamothe
Somewhat lost in the death of the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle program is another thread: The Marine Corps is building a case to move up development of a new vehicle known as the Marine Personnel Carrier.
In the wake of the multibillion dollar program’s cancellation last week, the service plans to push three separate projects along with new requests to industry by the end of the month, said Lt. Gen. George Flynn, deputy commandant for combat development and integration.
Intuitively, two of them make sense following the death of the EFV, which had been viewed as a high-tech replacement for the Amphibious Assault Vehicle. The Corps wants to pursue upgrades to decades-old AAVs and find a replacement for the EFV, which ballooned in cost to the point that each vehicle would have cost about $18 million.
The third request for information the Corps will issue to industry seeks details that can be applied to the development of the Marine Personnel Carrier, Flynn said during a roundtable phone conference with reporters this morning.
Bearing at least a passing resemblance to the Army’s Stryker vehicle, the MPC has been planned as an armored, high-speed land vehicle capable of carrying nine or 10 combat-ready Marines. It likely wouldn’t be capable of bringing Marines ashore during an amphibious assault, but it would be able to ford rivers and maneuver over land.
The MPC was once expected to reach “milestone A” testing in 2008, meaning the program would have been reviewed to see if it was ready for full-fledged development. With the EFV sucking a substantial portion of the budget, however, the MPC was delayed two years until 2010, and then pushed back again last year. Instead, a single “demonstrator” vehicle was built by the Nevada Automotive Test Center, a contractor facility in Carson City, Nev.
Marine officials once envisioned the MPC joining the EFV and Joint Light Tactical Vehicle as main pieces in the Corps’ strategy for future vehicles (check out page 10 here). With the EFV dead and the JLTV under scrutiny by the Corps for failing to make weight, it’ll be interesting to see how much that changes.
Marine LAVs gets an upgrade
August 19th, 2010 | Vehicles | Posted by James Sanborn
The Marine Corps received its first upgraded command and control variant Light Armored Vehicle on Aug. 10.
The upgraded version is capable of, “providing advanced communication capabilities to Marines in the field, improving their battlefield knowledge and situational awareness,” according to Lockheed Martin.
The Marine Corps provided the company with the outmoded LAV C2s for upgrade as part of a 2009 contract. Over the next two years, 50 more are slated for deliver.
The Corps’ entire LAV fleet, not just C2 variants, is undergoing an overhaul. The vehicles, which have been in service since the 1980s, are being made lighter and safer, but they will likely be replaced in the years to come.
Video: IED strike wrecks M-ATV in Afghanistan
May 20th, 2010 | Afghanistan Embedded journalism Marjah Vehicles | Posted by Dan Lamothe
MARJAH, Afghanistan — It has been a busy day or three here in Afghanistan, but I wanted to take a minute to share Tom Brown’s video footage of the aftermath of an improvised explosive device attack Saturday on a Mine-Resistant Ambush-Protected All-Terrain Vehicle in our convoy.
As you can see, the vehicle sustained significant damage. We were trailing the hit vehicle by about the length of a city block, but could see smoke, dust and small pieces of metal rocket into the air:
Important footnote: All five Marines in this vehicle survived, and only one experienced concussion symptoms.
Now reporting live from the Yellow School of hard knocks
May 16th, 2010 | Afghanistan Embedded journalism Infantry Marjah Vehicles | Posted by Dan Lamothe
Marines and other deployed personnel relax during a quiet minute at the Yellow Schoolhouse in Marjah, Afghanistan. (Dan Lamothe/Staff)
MARJAH, AFGHANISTAN — Hello from the ‘stan, friends. Tom and I have made another move, leaving Patrol Base Yazzie yesterday to spend some time with the Marines of the Yellow Schoolhouse, a deserted Afghan school for which Marine Corps leadership has high hopes. Third Platoon from India Company, 3rd Battalion, 6th Marines rotates squads through here on a revolving basis.
As you can see, the school is rather, uh, rustic. There are no windows, numerous holes in the roof and a variety of birds and insects sharing the building with the Marines deployed there. I’ll have substantially more to a report in a forthcoming Marine Corps Times story once I get outside the wire here more (we already went on one patrol today).
In case it wasn’t already painfully obvious, we got a reminder during our trip here yesterday with a mail convoy that Marjah can turn from interesting, rustic farming community to hazard area very quickly. The front vehicle in our convoy — a new Mine Resistant Ambush Protected All-Terrain Vehicle, or M-ATV, was destroyed after hitting a substantial improvised explosive device. All Marines inside survived and were joking about the incident a few minutes later. Tom shot some video moments after the blast occurred, and will have more in a blog post soon.