I've been sitting on the latest news about the AAV Upgrade for a few days...almost a week now. I needed to chew on it for a bit. I've reached my conclusions but check this out from Defense Industry Daily (read the entire article..well worth your time).
The USMC needs to keep its 40+ year old AAV Amtracs in service, after destroying the EFV amphibious armored personnel carrier replacement program in 2011 with over-ambitious requirements. Iraq taught the USMC that the Amtracs didn’t offer enough protection, and so the latest refurbishment effort plans to improve the AAVP-7A1 personnel carrier’s protection levels. Deliveries are expected to take place between 2018 – 2023…The Marine Corps is going full speed ahead with an F-35 that is not ready for combat, yet will slow walk UPGRADES to the AAV?
Deliveries of this supposed upgrade is to take place between 2018 and 2023?
Totally unsat.
General Amos has totally screwed up the AAV/MPC/ACV programs. While he focused on the F-35 like a laser, he neglected the Ground Combat Element and has made the MTVR the vehicle of choice for Marines acting in an expeditionary environment.
This will rank high as a serious failure of his tenure in office....one of many.
For those that believe that the F-35 hasn't wrecked the USMC's budget I present this as item #1. That airplane has gobbled up the USMC and if it doesn't deliver as promised the pain will be enduring. Again from the DID article....
Phase 1.2′s timing will coincide with the beginning of a demographic fiscal crunch, in parallel with increased operations and maintenance costs for the high-maintenance platforms (esp. MV-22 and F-35B) the USMC has been buying lately. That doesn’t augur well, and implies that the AAV7 fleet will remain important for a long time.Leadership inside the Marine Corps remained silent while the air wing consumed an ever larger portion of the budget.
That is now set in stone.
We will be lucky to even get upgrades to the AAV, and I now doubt whether we will even be able to afford the Marine Personnel Carrier if that program is allowed to continue.
The air power zealots have won.
Our only hope is that a REAL Marine will be appointed as Commandant in 5 months. Additionally we'll have to hope that he has the fortitude to buck the SecDef and reverse direction on several of Amos' initiatives.
We'll see.
But tell me solomon, arent industrial groups also lobbying really hard for a AAV/MPC/EFV vehicle contract ? I mean, this project is huge and will justify running their existing factories for another 20 years atleast. Call Big Defence the devil but in this case, your service people will have to team up with defence companies specializing in ground platforms and get more of that f-35 money diverted to stuff that actually works now, provides employment now, sets up factories/expansions in politico constituencies now......................and off course, gives you a kickass vehicle as a mere side effect (LoL).
ReplyDeleteEvery now and then comes a time when the merits of a weapon arent enough to carry the argument for it. This is unfortunatly one of those times.
ReplyDeleteBtw, Defense Industry Daily is a pretty good site. All the weapon design and procurement and political history in one site made by a guy with an eye for small details.
DeleteHere we go--
ReplyDeleteInitial Operational Capability (IOC)
F-35B USMC Jul 2015 - Dec 2015 with 10 to 16 F-35Bs
Now why would the MC schedule its IOC before AF & N, a full four years before the scheduled F-35 production decision (2019), with ten faulty prototype planes not fully combat capable?
Senator McCain: “It’s a disgrace,” he said, adding that the F-35 “still isn’t fully operationally capable.” He added that he is “glad” [not many] other countries are buying the plane. But he ended his remarks about the F-35 by saying Lockheed and its F-35 brethren “should be ashamed and embarrassed” about their management of the program.
The F-35 brethren, in this sense, include HQ-MC. Especially HQ-MC with its early IOC.
So why did they do it?
Simply to make the F-35 program unstoppable? Or something more?
Amos allegedly spoke of wanting to crush Marines, is "crushing" potential 35 opponents part of the pattern?
The STOVL version is the genesis of the 35 variants. So is there AF pressure on Amos to support the B at all costs? And why did it work so well?
The Navy doesn't give a rat's ass for the 35, so why is it Job One for the Marines, at the cost of everything else, an airplane without a true Marine mission except to be a computerized eye in the sky, at a great expense?
ARE THERE ANY TRUE MARINES LEFT AT HQ?
Okay that's my rant, I'm done.
--My Dad was a Marine (reserve). I recall his photo in a Sam Browne belt.
spot on! i was slow to the uptake, but its beyond obvious that the F-35 is NOT the plane the USMC needs OR can afford.
Deletewhich leads me to the question...why aren't more Marine centric blogs speaking out against it? everyone can see what this thing is doing but few are saying it.
even worse is the idea of declaring IOC before a plane is fully tested! how is that shit even legal? i know what the idea is. they're pulling a page from the harrier past and going to put test pilots in a special squadron so that no nuggets lawn dart the damn thing but still.
All I know is I rode those LPTV-5's at the tender age of seventeen, it's still in use and now I'm sixty plus years old.
ReplyDeleteEither find another vehicle or start remaking these but don't modernize a vehicle designed to fight World War three when the next war will be four.