Inside Defense
The Marine Corps is continuing to work on and fund upgrades to its Light Armored Vehicles in an attempt to keep the fleet functional through 2025, two decades past its original retirement date.
Of the four existing Light Armored Reconnaissance battalions, at least one has been deployed to either Operation Iraqi Freedom or Operation Enduring Freedom at all times in the last several years, Robert Lusardi, the deputy program manager said. That is putting a strain on the LAVs, just as the two wars have with the rest of the Marine Corps’ rolling stock.
“What we’re seeing is what everybody else is seeing in the world, and what the whole ground combat equipment fleet is seeing,” Lusardi said at an industry conference last week. “We’re getting older. We have to sustain them. At the same time we have to sustain them, we have to improve them.”
The Marines are currently in the process of updating their LAVs to the A2 variant, which Lusardi said took a rapid acquisition approach at the start of the Iraq war. The program management office procured the components necessary to carry out the upgrade, integrated the systems and began fielding them through depots.
The first A2 variants were fielded in 2007, and they include improved suspension and armor and an automatic fire-suppression system.
Lusardi said that the A2 upgrade is now in place through 65 percent of the vehicle fleet. The office has also carried out upgrades to the command and control LAV variant.
The next iteration will be an anti-tank variant, which was funded in the 2010 budget. Lusardi said that the development process has already begun, and he expects the variant to be fielded by fiscal year 2016 or FY-17.
Lusardi said that the program office will continue to look at ways to make the LAV more survivable, including adding further improved suspension systems and reconfiguring the fuel tank, although there is no funding for those initiatives yet. -- Cid Standifer
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