Amphibious Combat Vehicle The Amphibious Combat Vehicle ( ACV ) is a program initiated by Marine Corps Systems Command to procure an amphibious assault vehicle for the United States Marine Corps to replace the Assault Amphibious Vehicle . The program replaces the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle program canceled in 2011 . Design requirements . The ACV should have countermeasures able to contend with a full range of direct fire , indirect fire , and land mine threats . Visible and thermal signature reduction technologies will also be utilized . Modular protection can be applied as necessary . The vehicle must have the capability to transition from water to ground operations without tactical pause . It must be able to maneuver with the M1A1 Abrams in a mechanized task force . It must have the capability to destroy combat vehicles similar to itself . Weapons must have sufficient range to engage targets from a standoff distance . Weapons will apply precision fire from a stabilized system . It must provide direct fire support for dismounted infantry in an attack . The Marine Corps has identified speed on water as a top requirement , even at the cost of troop carrying capacity . The ACV must be able to self - deploy from an amphibious assault ship at least 12 miles from shore with 17 Marines aboard . It has to be able to travel 8 knots or faster through seas with waves up to three feet . The vehicle is to be operational between 2020 and 2022 , with 573 vehicles planned to be procured . History . A request for information ( RFI ) was issued to industry on 17 February 2011 . The document outlined expected requirements and asked industry for informal design proposals and program methodology feedback . Responses were due by 22 April 2011 . An industry day was held on 6 April 2011 . In August 2012 , General Dynamics was awarded an ACV Hull Survivability Demonstrator contract for the design , fabrication , and test support of a full - scale hull to demonstrate crew - protection technologies . In November 2012 , they conducted simulated mine - blast tests on their ACV ballistic hull design , successfully meeting mine - blast survivability requirements . Work concluded by May 2013 and will be used to refine requirements for effective protection against under - vehicle threats . In April 2013 , DARPA awarded a $ 1 million prize to a team in the Fast Adaptable Next - Generation Ground Vehicle ( FANG ) contest . The team beat out 1 , 000 other competitors to submit their design for a drivetrain for the Amphibious Combat Vehicle . The FANG initiative is to demonstrate a way to procure working systems better than the current defense acquisition process , which frequently leads to delays and cost overruns . The Marines are in charge of the ACV program , so there is no guarantee that the Darpa - crowdsourced mobility drivetrain will result in a vehicle bought by the Corps . At a roundtable discussion on 26 June 2013 , Marine Corps General Jim Amos told the media that the program was still being pursued , and that a request for proposals ( RFP ) would be issued in early 2014 . The Corps has secured and saved a “ moderate amount ” of money for early development . With the previous Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle cancelled from cost overruns , the Marines are being cautious to identify trade - offs between requirements and cost for the platform . Amos noted that they were working with contractors to see which type of vehicle would meet requirements without proving too costly . In January 2013 , the ACV team was created and tasked to evaluate the feasibility of building an affordable , survivable amphibious high water speed vehicle . The team includes representatives from over six Department of Defense commands . Their initial requirements and engineering analysis evaluated 198 requirements for the platform . From July 9 – 11 , 2013 , 25 Marines gathered at Marine Corps Base Quantico , Virginia for a Warfighter Requirements Workshop to review the team ' s capabilities analysis and determine the value of various capabilities . 30 requirements with cost and weight implications were considered " tradable , " including armament and armor protection . Safety and design - specific capabilities , like transportability ( fitting on an amphibious ship ) were considered non - tradable . The point of the workshop was to get input from fleet Marines about what capabilities they wanted to prioritize with current financial pressures . Over the next month , the team ordered the preferences and applied actual cost and weight data to determine feasibility recommendations for Marine Corps leaders by the fall . The Marine Corps feels they have only one opportunity to get the ACV program right , partly from the previous EFV program being cancelled in 2011 after using $ 3 billion in development and also from severely reduced budgets for the rest of the decade compared to the previous one . They may even not know exactly what they want and can afford from the vehicle . Trade studies were begun in January 2013 and were to be conducted for six months , but they have been extended another six months . With the service ' s normally tight budget combined with sequester cuts , giving priority to the ACV may take funding and resources from other programs . The plan to begin buying 5 , 500 Joint Light Tactical Vehicle s around 2019 could be replaced with retaining and modernizing up - armored Humvee s and keeping the large numbers of relatively young Oshkosh M - ATV s . The Corps ' preference of the ACV over the JLTV and willingness to sacrifice it is partly to maintain their amphibious assault culture . The amphibious - capable Marine Personnel Carrier is a program to create a better vehicle to transport Marines after they come ashore . In June 2013 , budgetary pressures forced the MPC program to be suspended for up to a decade to focus funding on other priorities . Variants . The three basic variants include the Squad Maneuver / Fighting Vehicle , the Command and Control Vehicle , and the Recovery and Maintenance Vehicle .