USMC details fielding plans for Amphibious Combat Vehicle

The US Marine Corps (USMC) intends to continue purchasing two Amphibious Combat Vehicle (ACV) variants next year and has detailed plans to field two additional variants to the force later this decade.

Service leaders have been testifying before Congressional committees in recent weeks about their fiscal year (FY) 2022 budget request, which includes USD532 million to purchase 92 additional ACVs as part of the second full-rate prosecution lot. If approved, the buy would cover 78 ACV personnel carrier (ACV-P) vehicles and 14 ACV command (ACV-C) vehicles, according to budget documents.

This ramped-up purchasing plan comes after the service cut procurement funds in its FY 2021 budget request, in part because of new start production line challenges. Ultimately, lawmakers provided the service with USD437 million for the purchase of 72 vehicles this year. The USMC has now told lawmakers that they need to support next year's increased buy or warned that it will have to renegotiate the contract with BAE Systems.

“If the programme is not appropriated to the requested level for FY 2022 the programme will be unable to procure 92 vehicles, resulting in the programme [having] to reopen negotiations with the prime contractor, resulting in reduced quantities and loss of economies of scale,” the service wrote in budget documents. “Vehicles that are not procured in FY 2022 will have to be added to the last year of production, resulting in delays in fielding this critical capability to replace the legacy amphibious assault vehicles (AAVs) … for the operational forces.”