President Barack Obama is vaguely promising $40 billion in savings in defense spending, perhaps beginning this year. The consensus is that big programs will be cut.
Now the military services are racing to defend their pet projects. Yesterday Colonel Keith Moore, program manager for the Marine Corps’ General Dynamics-built Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle, hosted a teleconference with bloggers to expound on the vehicle’s virtues.
EFV, a heavily-armed, swimming armored vehicle meant to carry Marines from ship to shore, and provide protection and fire support on land, is billions of dollars over-budget and more than a decade late. Three years ago, a batch of early prototypes proved so unreliable that the Marines totally redesigned the vehicle, restructured the program and cut the planned production run from 1,000 to just 600. The projected total cost is still around $30 billion.
EFV is exactly the kind of program Obama was referring to when he lamented “cost overruns of 30, 40, 50 percent and [weapons that] still don’t perform the way they’re supposed to.” Congress has pointed out the flat-sided EFV’s vulnerability to roadside bombs.
“We just need time,” Moore said, insisting that the restructuring in 2006 has yielded a far more reliable vehicle. Asked if helicopters and hovercraft might do EFV’s job, better, Moore said that multiple studies have shown the need for a vehicle that can “own … intervening terrain.” Besides, he added, the Navy doesn’t have enough deck space for all the choppers it would take to haul all the Marines required for an assault force.
If it survives the budget crunch, EFV will deliver a new batch of prototypes next year and operational vehicles might enter service in 2015, around 35 years after EFV was conceived.
(Photo: General Dynamics)
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$30 Billion / 600 EFVs = $50 million per EFV
The only reason the USMC “needs” an EFV with the EFV’s configuration (as opposed to its price tag) is because they need something that can swim 25+ nm (over the horizon standoff distance from shore) in less than 4 hours, and preferably in less than one hour. So what a big surprise that the EFV is rated for 25 knots when swimming.
Problem is, the thing weighs in at 35 tons for carrying only 17 marines from ship to shore, which is for all intents and purposes spending 2 tons of IFV per infantryman. The AAV-7A1, for all its age, weighs in at 23 tons and carries 25 marines from ship to shore, resulting in less than 1 ton of IFV per infantryman. The problem with the AAV-7A1 of course is that it’s a slow swimmer (oh and it’s getting a little long in the tooth by now).
The thing is, you really don’t want to be tasking an amphibious IFV with the task of “owning” the littorals from shore to 25nm out. That’s a job best left up to brown and green water forces that are designed to be fast attack craft. You know, boats … things that are intended to live their whole lives in the water, not “gators” that only want to find land.
If there was a fast craft capable of hauling 23 tons of amphibious IFV in a 9m x 3.5m x 3.5m cargo space with a cruising speed of 40-50 knots and a shallow draft (say, 1m or less) in the water, you’d have a brown/green water boat that could carry an AAV-7A1 (or evolved/modernized successor) that could “do the swimming” for an AAV-7A1 by carrying it from fleet (at 25+nm offshore) into the breakers near the shoreline (ie. 100-200m out) in less than an hour once the order to hit the beaches is given. Yeah, the AAV-7A1 may be a slow swimmer, at 7 knots, but if it only needs to swim 100-200 meters through breakers in order to reach landfall, that can be done in a minute or two at 7 knots.
The M80 Stiletto is almost but not quite exactly up to performing the task of carrying an AAV-7A1 from ship (“parked” 25+nm off the coast) to shore … but that’s only because it wasn’t built with that specific mission in mind. The thing is, I have a hard time imagining that it would difficult to evolve an M80 into a mass production design that could not only perform this mission, but also serve as a brown and green water fast attack craft when it’s not hauling amphibious IFVs from ship to shore (or even from shore to ship, depending on how it’s designed). Heck, when you haven’t got a “gator” parked in the cargo bay, you’ll have all kinds of room for mission modules for unmanned drones or special forces (with rigid inflatable boat) or whatever else you need depending on where you’re going (and what you plan to do once you get there).
Anyone want to bet that an evolution of the AAV-7A1 into a V-hulled tracked amphibious IFV and a companion evolution of the M80 would, combined to carry it, would cost far less than an EFV (program) buy? Heck, we’d get far more military capability out of an evolved AAV-7A1+M80 combo than the EFV, and perhaps at half the price even, since we’d be getting IFVs and shallow draft fast attack craft at the same time, both of which can be optimized for their preferred environment (land and water) … rather than compromised in both environments at a price we simply can’t afford.
M80 Stiletto
AAV-7A1
EFV
Since the U.S. under-invests in naval mine clearing…. this defect-by-design POS will have to wade through some pretty serious threats. The USMC has to understand that if they want to refight Tarawa, to expect Tarawa like casualties.
Heretic,
Why bother with Stiletto when you can already load three AAVs on an LCAC today?! Stiletto and LCAC are roughly the same size and will take up the same number of well deck spots, so you’re not gaining anything.
Plus, as the OPEVAL showed, in rough seas the Stiletto is a very bad ride.
Tons per infantryman doesn’t matter as much in this context as the overall vehicle square needed to put the vehicle ashore (including whatever vessel carries it), and the number of vehicles you can surge ashore at once.
An LPD-17 will be able to surge 14 EFVs plus whatever you put on its two LCACs in one lift from 25+nm.
An LPD-17 with AAVs can surge 6 AAVs using its LCACs from that distance.
Replacing the LCACS with two Stilettos and EFVs with AAVs means the LPD-17 can surge a whopping two AAVs per sortie from 25+nm. That’s not a good trade, IMHO.
The EFV needs to go. its utterly useless. There are not going to be anymore island hopping campaigns. The American people dont want wars where thousands die in a day.
Plus its a huge gigantic target carrying lots of marines.
Matt,
If you believe that, then EFVs are just the tip of the iceberg. We might as well junk the entire Marine Corps and all Navy amphibious ships.
I didnt say there shouldnt be any USMC armored vehicles but having these huge expensive boxy targets doesnt seem to be the way to go.
If you doing believe we will ever need to perform an amphibious assaults, then we don’t need the USMC.
The US Army can perform administrative landings just fine.
the EFV is not for island-hopping campaigns. it’s for COIN along the coastline. with a range of “just over the horizon”, the EFV threatens miles of coastline with boots on the ground in response to insurgent activity in e.g. harbor towns.
By “doing” I meant “don’t”. Sorry for the typo.
While the US continues to bash up third world nations these vehicles will be fine, but sooner or later they will go up against a real enemy, then we will see how good all this modern kit is
[...] The biggest surprise is how well the Marine Corps fares. None of the Marines’ programs was even mentioned in Gates’ announcement. Presumably that means that the controversial Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle, the V-22 tilt-rotor and the new versions of the AH-1 (pictured) and UH-1 helicopters will all proceed as planned. [...]
I am a Military Insignia Collector, and I would like to know if LCAC drivers have a unique badge,
or wear the Surface Warfare Badge?
Thanks for the info. au561@hotmail.com
[...] Conway’s claim is true, it’s good new for the Marines, who have struggled for a decade to get the EFV design ready for production, currently slated for 2015. It’s also good news to [...]