Everyone knows my feelings about the current Commandant of the Marine Corps.
If you're unfamiliar, suffice to say that I believe that he is a habitual liar, focused exclusively on the Air Wing to the detriment of the rest of the Marine Corps, has used his power and authority to punish Marines undeservedly, is a political opportunist, is bought and paid for by certain corporations and is totally unsat to hold the position of an Officer of Marines much less the leadership of the world's best fighting organization.
With that being said.
Where is the experimentation with regards to the Marine Personnel Carrier or the Program offices re-branding of it into the ACV 1.1?
Making a move from a vehicle that holds 17 Marines to one that holds 9 is a major undertaking.
How will that work exactly? How will you disperse the squad among these vehicles? The company? How will the manning charts change because you have more vehicles in the AAV section aboard ship? How will more vehicles in the AAV section affect cube space aboard ship? How will they deploy? Since we're going to have mixed vehicles for at least a while will they swim to shore from ships along with AAVs? Will AAVs swim while the MPC is carried ashore? Pure battle taxi or because they're supposedly more robust will we employ them in a quasi IFV fashion?
Making procurement decisions without proper planning is common in this current edition of HQMC.
We should have borrowed Strykers from the US Army, done proper experimentation with Wheeled Armored Personnel Carriers with Marine Corps Infantry/Amphibious Assault Vehicle Battalions and determined whether it was a fit or not.
The problem is stark though.
We have little time before sequestration hits full force. If the Republicans regain Congress as many expect then you better believe that cost cutting will be big on the list of things to do.
Second, we're already spending money, reprogramming funds etc...to follow a plan that apparently has been pulled out of someone's fat ass...and the fault of that isn't entirely Amos'. The MPC concept arose from the fact that the EFV's cost ballooned out of control. A mixed fleet was acceptable when the plan was for the assault force to arrive by EFV and the assault follow on echelon to come in on LCAC and ride into combat in MPCs.
Now they're talking of the MPC/ACV 1.1 hitting the beach in LCACs in the assault wave!
As late as this program is, everything needs to stop till Dunford comes into office. We've waited the entire term of this Commandant. We can wait 3 months till a new one arrives and cleans up this mess.
