Amos' latest on the ACV. Dazzling us with bullshit.

via Breaking Defense.

“We were talking to some [congressional] staffers last week and things were changing just as we were talking,” Pacheco told me in a Tuesday evening phone call, “but I’d venture to say we’re pretty close to making some announcement.”
What Pacheco laid out was the most refined and detailed form I’ve seen so far of the Marines’ new multi-phase, multi-vehicle approach.
The first step has to be making the existing AAV-7 more robust, Pacheco said. That means those “limited survivability upgrades,” such as blast-resistant seats and additional armor, which may require a new transmission to handle the extra weight. But only about 390 of the more than 1,000 AAV-7s in service will get the upgrades. There is no current plan for a fleet-wide overhaul or a service-life extension program (SLEP) for the aging vehicles.
The next step is what the Marines are calling “ACV 1.1.” This will not be an all-new vehicle but rather a “non-developmental item,” that is a modification of an existing US or foreign design. It also probably won’t be able to swim from ship to shore under its own power, instead requiring some kind of landing craft.
“It won’t go from the ship to the shore on its own — at least at this point right now,” Pacheco told me. “I know at least one vendor who claims they’ve deployed their vehicle from the back of an amphib, [but] we have not tested that.”  (Editors Note from SNAFU!...the vehicle talked about is the BAE/Iveco SuperAV)
A “fully developed acquisition strategy” for ACV 1.1 will take a little longer, Pacheco said. But the Marines’ deputy commandant for “combat development & integration,” Lt. Gen. Kenneth Glueck, is currently finalizing the detailed requirements that will allow the Marines to write a Request For Proposals and start a formal competition. (Glueck happens to be testifying before Congress on Wednesday morning, when we may hear more).
That ACV 1.1 competition would be for about 200 basic troop transports. If that goes well, the Marines will expand the program to an ACV 1.2, buying up to an additional 400 vehicles in multiple variants: not just personnel carriers but also, say, a mobile command post or a fire support vehicle that trades passenger capacity for bigger weapons.

You read the above and you think, "well Sol they're hitting all your buttons" so why ain't you happy?

Because its all bullshit.

They're getting READY to write a request for proposal.

It won't hit till after the current Commandant is long gone from office. The fact of the matter is that the F-35 has gobbled up all available funds and the Marine Corps is doing its best to stagger purchases.....but that one airplane keeps coming back like a Walker from the "Walking Dead" TV show.

Have you noticed it?  Talk of the JLTV is done.  Not even the Army is talking about it.  Additionally the Marine Corps has the CH-53K in the que, is still buying MV-22's and is somehow going to buy ACVs?

It happy talk.

It designed to keep the masses quiet.  I'd be pissed but its just more of the same.

Indecision.  Equivocation.  The innate inability to be decisive.

That is our Marine Corps leadership with every issue except the F-35.  Marines will die in a ditch to get it because they won't have proper armored transport.