Modest proposal...revamp the Marine Personnel Carrier scheme.

The Marine Corps wanted a vehicle that was amphibious across streams and lakes...could transport around 7 to  9 Marines and had a remotely operated weapons station.  It began settling on wheeled transports (out of a desire to reduce logistics costs I assume).

But what happens when we marry the idea of a Marine Personnel Carrier with the idea of distributed operations.

We come up with a whole different set of requirements...

1.  A vehicle that is air transportable by CH-53 or even the MV-22.
2.  A vehicle that is amphibious ... across rivers and lakes is awesome but in sea state 1 or 2 from a ship would be fantastic (even if its in an adhoc situation).
3.  A RWS is still desirable.

So where does that lead us?  It leads to the BVS-10 or a modified Marine Corps version of it anyway.  Why the BVS-10?  Because its in production....because it has already been tested with numerous weapons/mounts...because its amphibious and lastly because BAE has production facilities rolling in the US which would mean that we could get the vehicle to our forces now, not 10 years from now.

Pic is courtesy of THINK DEFENCE.