According to USMC officials, the AAV has become increasingly difficult to operate, maintain, and sustain. As weapons technology and threat capabilities have evolved over the past four decades, the AAV is viewed as having capability limitations in the areas of water speed and land mobility, lethality, protection, and network capability. The AAV is a self- deployed tracked (non-wheeled) vehicle with three variants, each describing its intended function—Personnel, Command, and Recovery. The AAV has a water speed of approximately six knots, and needs to be deployed from within 7.4 nautical miles of the shore. This factor may represent a significant survivability issue not only for the vehicle’s occupants, but also for naval amphibious forces that must move closer to potential threats on shore to support the vehicle. Over time, emerging threats—such as next generation improvised explosive devices—have changed the performance requirements for a vehicle that moves from ship to shore. According to DOD, the need to modernize USMC’s capability of transitioning from ship to shore is essential. In response to the need for new and better capabilities, the USMC began development of the EFV in 2000. We reported on the EFV program in 2006 and 2010. The EFV was to travel at higher water speeds—around 20 knots—which would have allowed transporting ships to launch the EFV further from shore than the AAVs it was to replace. However, following the expenditure of $3.7 billion between fiscal years 1995 and 2011 and a 2007 breach of a statutory cost thresholdcanceled by DOD due to affordability concerns. DOD authorized the USMC to seek a new solution, emphasizing the need for cost- effectiveness and requiring the establishment of cost targets. The USMC was granted flexibility in tailoring its acquisition approach to achieve those goals. that program was restructured and subsequently, in 2011, In 2011, the USMC completed initial acquisition documentation providing the performance requirements of a new replacement amphibious vehicle called the ACV. The ACV would be self-deploying with a water speed of 8 to 12 knots—permitting deployment beyond visual range of the shore— and would provide for sustained operations on shore with improved troop protection. The ACV would not, however, be required to achieve high water speed. An analysis of alternatives was completed for the ACV in the summer of 2012. This analysis identified two potential solutions for the ACV performance requirements. However, USMC leadership then requested that an affordability analysis be completed to explore the technical feasibility of integrating high water speed into the development of the ACV. According to DOD officials, the analysis indicated that achieving high water speed was technically possible but required unacceptable tradeoffs as the program attempted to balance vehicle weight, capabilities, and cost. Meanwhile, the USMC retained a requirement to provide protected land mobility in response to the threat of improvised explosive devices—a requirement the AAV could not meet due to its underbody design. In 2014 we reported that, according to program officials, the program office was in the process of revising its ACV acquisition approach based on this affordability analysis. In addition, DOD officials reported that the 2012 ACV analysis of alternatives might need to be updated or replaced based on potential changes to required capabilities. Since we reported on the ACV acquisition in 2014, the USMC has adopted a new ACV acquisition approach consisting of three concurrent efforts that emphasize the requirement for protected land mobility in the near term and seek improved amphibious capabilities over time. This approach is a significant change from the more advanced amphibious capabilities sought for the ACV in 2011. According to USMC officials, the first effort is the AAV Survivability Upgrade Program that plans to upgrade legacy AAV protection and mobility. The second effort subdivides into two increments, ACV 1.1 and 1.2. The third effort, referred to as ACV 2.0, focuses on technology exploration to attain high water speed capability. According to USMC officials, this acquisition approach was selected based on several factors, including (1) recognition that the ACV would spend much of its operating time on land, (2) shortfalls in the AAV’s ability to meet protected land mobility requirements once on shore, and (3) technical and affordability challenges that preclude the development of a high water speed vehicle in the near term. Figure 1 provides information on these three concurrent efforts. The AAV Survivability Upgrade Program expects to upgrade survivability and mobility capabilities for a portion of the existing AAV fleet, thereby providing increased protection against threats such as improvised explosive devices. The AAV is expected to remain in operation until 2035. According to DOD officials, planned upgrades include the addition of underbelly armor, blast resistant seats, external fuel tanks and other modifications, such as suspension upgrades, intended to maintain mobility given the weight of extra armor. The upgraded AAVs expect to retain the six knot water speed of the legacy AAV. The AAV Survivability Upgrade Program plans to upgrade 392 of the fleet’s 1058 AAVs. The upgrades will be made to the AAV Personnel variant—the version of the AAV used to transport infantry. The estimated average procurement unit cost for the upgrades—the total procurement cost divided by the number of units to be procured—is $1.7 million (fiscal year 2014 dollars). The program has passed Milestone B with anticipated initial operational capability—generally attained when some units in the force structure have received the upgraded vehicles and have the ability to employ and maintain it—in fiscal year 2019. The first increment of ACV development—ACV 1.1—is a wheeled vehicle that is intended to provide enhanced protected land mobility and limited amphibious capability. ACV 1.1 is a continuation of the previously suspended Marine Personnel Carrier program.speed of five knots, ACV 1.1 intends to offer swim speeds comparable to the AAV and is expected to swim from shore to shore, crossing obstacles such as rivers, rather than from ship to shore. The ACV 1.1 is not planning to have a self-deployment capability and as a result, will rely on the assistance of connectors to move from ship to shore. The vehicle expects to feature a troop-carrying capacity of 10 infantry, with the objective of expanding this capacity to 13 infantry. According to program officials, the ACV acquisition will be informed by both a 2008 analysis of alternatives done for the Marine Personnel Carrier program as well as the 2012 ACV analysis of alternatives. USMC has recently completed an At an expected water update to these two analyses—the 2014 ACV analysis of alternatives— with a focus on cost and affordability that, according to DOD officials, needed to be updated to reflect the current approach. The ACV 1.1 will likely be used concurrently with upgraded AAVs that are expected to provide amphibious capabilities that complement the enhanced protected land mobility sought by ACV 1.1. Table 1 provides a summary of selected capabilities of the legacy AAV, upgraded AAV and ACV 1.1. The 2012 analysis of alternatives done to support the ACV acquisition considered a vehicle based on the Marine Personnel Carrier, with capabilities similar to the ACV 1.1, and concluded that the vehicle was not an effective alternative to fill the identified ACV water mobility capability gaps. The analysis found that the vehicle performed well in land-based scenarios, but as a non-amphibious armored personnel carrier, did not perform as well in amphibious assault scenarios. In addition, the vehicle’s reliance on a connector craft to travel from ship to shore would extend the time necessary to complete force landings and achieve objectives in amphibious scenarios. Since a connector craft, such as the ship to shore connector currently being developed by the Navy (see figure 2), would have to transport these vehicles as well as personnel and other vehicles and equipment, it would also increase the number of connector loads and connector crew time. The analysis found that the increased use of connectors would result in a significant delay relative to self-deploying alternatives. Finally, the vehicle had less capacity than the other vehicles assessed in the analysis. The vehicle held nine infantry—similar to ACV 1.1’s threshold capacity of 10—while the other assessed vehicles held 17. According to the analysis, reduced capacity would require a higher number of vehicles to transport an infantry battalion. The larger number of vehicles would then require additional space on transportation vessels, potentially displacing other cargo and impacting logistical support and manning, as well as increasing the number of these vehicles required in the field. However, according to the analysis, the resulting vehicle dispersion would reduce infantry exposure to improvised explosive devices and increase the number of vehicles available to support a counterattack. The USMC plans to acquire 204 ACV 1.1s and anticipates achieving initial operational capability in fiscal year 2020. According to program officials, the current estimated average procurement unit cost is between $3.8 million and $7.2 million (fiscal year 2014 dollars). The ACV 1.1 effort will enter the acquisition process at Milestone B, currently scheduled for the first quarter of fiscal year 2016. According to DOD officials, the planned use of existing, non-developmental technologies in ACV 1.1 reduces acquisition risk and facilitated the decision to enter the acquisition process at Milestone B with the goal of fielding a solution more quickly. The program office issued a Request for Proposal in the second quarter of fiscal year 2015 and plans to award contracts to two vendors at Milestone B and require each vendor to provide 16 prototype vehicles. DOD officials stated that the large number of prototypes will facilitate and expedite the testing process, allowing multiple tests to take place concurrently, and allowing testing to continue in the event of a prototype breakdown.