Friday, October 23, 2020

I told you LAR was the walking dead and just didn't know! I told you the ACV did not fit with Berger's one region, one opponent vision!

 via National Defense

A draft request for prototype proposals for the platform’s base variant was slated to be released in the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2020 with the final RFPP scheduled for spring 2021, the press release said.

“PM LAV will focus efforts targeted on industry RFIs and strategic small group engagements,” John Myers, program manager for Marine Corps Systems Command’s light armored vehicle portfolio, said in the release.

However, these timelines are now being questioned as the Marine Corps and Navy have gone silent on the ARV.

Over the summer, the program was transferred from Marine Corps Systems Command to the service’s Program Executive Office for Land Systems. Since then, public affairs officers have declined to answer follow-up questions about the program, with MCSC spokespersons referring questions to PEO Land Systems, and its spokesperson referring questions to the Office of Naval Research, since it is classified as a science-and-technology program, not a “program of record.”

An ONR spokesperson declined to answer questions about the program, citing “national security” reasons.

Read the entire article but its easy to read between the lines.  LAR might survive in name but it won't look like anything most of us would recognize. From the same article a bit about the ACV.

 “With the shift in our primary focus to great power competition and a renewed focus on the Indo-Pacific region, the current force has shortfalls in capabilities needed to support emerging joint, naval and Marine Corps operating concepts,” Berger said in the report.

Mark Cancian, senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, noted that the service is not only divesting its tanks, but also scaling back on other ground platforms such as the Amphibious Combat Vehicle.

“That vision is for small, highly agile teams that will use long-range precision fires,” Cancian said. “Combat vehicles don’t fit very well into this concept. … Ground combat vehicles are most useful if you are conducting operations against the conventional ground forces of another power. The Marine Corps looks to be fighting at long range.”

And a little about Berger's concept in general...

 Cancian said he has reservations about the service’s vision for its vehicles, noting that the Force 2030 document is heavily focused on island warfare in the Western Pacific.

However, adopting a new reconnaissance vehicle would help ensure that the service is able to conduct operations in a variety of environments, he said. The Marine Corps should remain versatile in its warfighting abilities, he added.

“A reconnaissance vehicle would be extremely useful if you have a conflict in Korea, if you have a conflict in the Middle East, if you had a conflict in Europe,” he said. “My personal belief is the Marine Corps should hedge more against an uncertain future instead of building its forces and its concepts exclusively for a single kind of conflict.”

Story here 

They just restated the point I've been making.  I've yelled this shit from the rooftops.

Berger is building a Marine Corps that is viable in only one region against one opponent.

He is ensuring the death of the Marine Corps when the big fight happens where he didn't expect.


 

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