The Secretary of Defense in January canceled the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (EFV), the advanced amphibian assault vehicle under development by the Marine Corps. The cancellation was long overdue.1
The EFV was intended to carry 17 Marines from amphibious assault ships to the beach at water speeds up to 25 knots. The program was initiated more than 30 years ago, and after the expenditure of more than $3 billion has produced only a few prototypes. There have been calls to cancel the program for at least two decades.2
Then-Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates explained his cancellation of the EFV—in agreement with the recommendation of Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus and General James F. Amos, the Commandant of the Marine Corps:
The EFV’s aggressive requirements list has resulted in an 80,000-pound armored vehicle that skims the surface of the ocean for long distances at high speeds before transitioning to combat operations on land. Meeting these demands has, over the years, led to significant technology problems, development delays, and cost increases. The EFV, originally conceived during the Reagan administration, has already consumed more than $3 billion to develop, and will cost another $12 billion to build, all for a Fleet with the capacity to put 4,000 troops aboard—and ashore.3
Beyond costs and delays, the operational concept for employing the EFV was not clear. The vehicle would have to be launched from a distance of 25 to 50 nautical miles from the shore because of the threat of shore-launched antiship missiles to the carrying LPD/LSD amphibious ships. The threat of land-launched missiles has been demonstrated three times since the EFV program began.
In the 1982 Falklands War, the Argentines launched two French-made Exocet missiles against British destroyers bombarding their shore positions. Those were ship-launched missiles that were adapted for launching from land. The first missile, because of a wiring error, came down at sea, unseen by the British; the second struck the destroyer Glamorgan. The missile detonated in the ship’s helicopter hangar, killing 13 crewmen, destroying a helicopter, and damaging the ship.
During Operation Desert Storm in 1991, two Chinese-made HY-2 Silkworm missiles were fired from land against the battleship Missouri (BB-63), which was bombarding Iraqi positions ashore. One missile missed, coming down at sea. The second was shot down by a Sea Dart missile fired by the British destroyer Gloucester, which was “riding shotgun” for the U.S. dreadnought.
The third event occurred in 2006 during the Israeli assault on Lebanon. The missile ship Hanit (“spear”) was patrolling off the Lebanese coast when Hezbollah terrorist forces launched two Chinese-made C-802 cruise missiles, most likely from trucks. The first missile was fired high, apparently to distract the ship’s defensive systems. That missile reportedly struck a Cambodian-flagged cargo ship with an Egyptian crew, steaming about 35 miles off the coast. The second struck the stern of the Hanit, operating about ten miles off the coast. The Hanit was heavily damaged with four crewmen killed and others injured. The ship survived.
Thus, the potential threat to U.S. amphibious ships standing offshore to unload landing craft is real and prolific. Studies by the Defense Science Board and the Naval Research Advisory Committee indicate that amphibious ships must stand offshore at least 25 nautical miles, and preferably 40 to 50 nautical miles, to provide space for warning and the deployment of countermeasures (active and passive) in the face of potential missile attacks.
The Navy’s leadership addresses such a contingency with the operational concept that, during the 30 to 35 days required to assemble a major amphibious task force, the potential threat could be reduced to permit “amphibs” to “run in” to 12 to 18 nautical miles to “splash” the amphibian vehicles. They would then return to a distance of 25 to 40 nautical miles from the shore, where they could be better protected against missile threats by Aegis cruisers and destroyers, as well as airborne systems.4
Obviously, that concept denies the possibility of amphibious assaults by small forces in the period before a major force could be assembled—a valuable capability for forward-deployed Navy-Marine amphibious forces. Beyond the antiship-missile issues, there are also the time/distance factors related to troops being carried by helicopter and short-takeoff/vertical-landing aircraft to land directly on the assault objectives while also coordinating with amphibian vehicles landing troops on the beach (which could be separated by several miles).
Thus, the assault-vehicle concept suffers from distances that must be traversed as well as the missile threat to amphibious ships and the “mismatch” between air- and water-transported assault troops. Still, seemingly within hours of the EFV cancellation the Commandant of the Marine Corps announced that the Corps would seek a new amphibian assault vehicle in place of the EFV.
The proposed vehicle would have a slower speed, on the order of eight to ten knots in water, and would be required to travel a maximum of 25 nautical miles from “splash” off of an amphibious ship to the beach. These and other reductions in performance compared to the EFV would—the Marine leadership hopes—significantly reduce acquisition costs and time.
The Marine Corps issued a request for information to industry for the new amphibian assault vehicle in February, a month after Secretary Gates had canceled the EFV. The request was the first step in a Marine Corps effort to provide the new vehicle between 2015 and 2018.
Increasingly, the Marines have employed amphibian vehicles on land as well as for ship-to-shore movement. Those vehicles have a limited effectiveness as armored personnel carriers (APC) because of (1) high noise level, (2) height of the vehicles, (3) treads that are vulnerable to heavy land use, (4) slow speed over certain terrain, and (5) light armor. Although the EFV and the newly proposed vehicle could operate ashore in the role of an APC, the issues of cost and efficiency could dictate a different approach to APC requirements if such vehicles are the real rationale for a new amphibian vehicle.
Regardless of the APC role, the ship-to-shore movement is the critical issue, and for several reasons the value of a new amphibian assault vehicle must be questioned.
1. The vehicle was originally designated Advanced Assault Amphibian Vehicle (AAAV), being changed to EFV on 10 September 2003. According to the official Marine Corps website (www.usmc.mil), the change was made “in keeping with the U.S. Marine Corps cultural shift from a 20th century force defined by amphibious operations to a 21st century force focusing on a broadened range of employment concepts and possibilities across a spectrum of conflict.”
2. Norman Polmar, “Keep the Marines Off the Beach,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings (February 1992), pp. 106–107.
3. Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates, press conference, Pentagon, Washington, DC, 6 January 2011.
4. Email from Under Secretary of the Navy Bob Work to Anthony F. Milavic (MILINET), 29 January 2011.