Some pub is referring to it as the "first" prototype, but they've had EFV prototypes for many years now... A USMC release says its the "first of seven new prototypes currently being manufactured at the Joint Services Manufacturing Center in Lima, Ohio.." I think its the first newly, redesigned prototype, or first LRIP prototype (or both).
www.aviationweek.com/a...0Prototype
U.S. Marines Praise EFV, Roll Out Prototype
Aviation Week
May 5, 2010
By Michael Fabey
QUANTICO, Va. — The Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (EFV) is the linchpin of the U.S. Marine Corps expeditionary warfare strategy and the program is on track for development, delivery and deployment, service program officials said May 4 at what turned into a mini pep rally for the vehicle and its supporters.
Taking direct aim at some of the concerns raised recently by Defense Secretary Robert Gates that Marines may not need the EFV or that the vehicle could prove too costly, program and Marine Corps officials said the vehicle is exactly what they need to conduct operations from the sea.
The EFV is meant to serve as a vehicle bridge for Marines, carrying them from Navy ships through the surf and sand and miles deep into enemy terrain.
Program officials extolled the vehicle’s prowess and promise at a ceremony at the National Museum of the Marine Corps here, with the museum’s unique skyline sculpture in the background and a newly minted prototype EFV in the foreground.
Program Manager Col. Keith Moore called the EFV the “world’s most capable combat vehicle.” As for costs, Moore acknowledged that in the current economic climate, everything must be done to cut the vehicle’s price. Current production unit costs run about $16 million per EFV, with program acquisition costs reaching about $22 million per vehicle.
The service wants to buy about 573 EFVs to carry Marines and another 67 to be used as communications-and-control vehicles.
Program procurement costs will be about $9.5 billion, Moore said. The total program costs, he acknowledged, could be as high as $13 billion. He hopes to shave the unit costs by millions of dollars per copy.
For now, though, the main Marine thrust will be to put the EFV though additional rigorous testing. One of the main issues, Moore said, will be to make the vehicle more reliable. He said it is quite common for prototypes to have low percentage rates for hours between failures — in the 20% range.
The focus of the test program for the next 18-24 months will be to increase those percentages.
“We need it in the 50s [percent range] by the time we field the vehicle,” he said.
Current plans call for the Marines to field the EFV in 2015, with a low-rate-initial-production date of January or February 2012.
As with any prototype testing, Moore expects hiccups. For example, in March the Marines found that coding errors and configuration issues with the software developed for the EFV by the Air Force made the vehicle respond sluggishly. Program officials identified the problems and had a fix in hand within 17 days, he said.
Moore doubts all issues will be resolved so quickly. But he said the Marines will not treat its prototype with kid gloves. The service will test the 40-ton behemoth — fully loaded — as rigorously as it would deploy it. The testing begins this spring at Camp Pendleton in San Diego, Calif.
www.dodbuzz.com/2010/0...takes-aim/
Marines Unveil EFV; Gates Takes Aim
DoDBuzz
By Greg Grant Tuesday, May 4th, 2010 8:46 pm
Under sunny skies at Quantico, with a crowd of several hundred well wishers and the Marine Corps museum as a backdrop, the Marines displayed the latest prototype of their swimming armored personnel carrier, the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (EFV). They unveiled it not quite 24 hours after Defense Secretary Robert Gates publicly questioned the very need for the costly new vehicle.
In one of his now trademark policy shifting speeches, this one at the Navy League’s annual conference, Gates pointed to the tracked amphibian as one of two examples, the other being carriers, of weapons that fall into a yawning gap “between the capabilities we are pursuing and those that are actually needed in the real world of tomorrow.” His view is that real world is unlikely to see the need for the very niche capability provided by the EFV: transporting Marines at high speed from over the horizon onto heavily defended beaches.
It’s difficult to overstate how important the EFV is to the Marine’s traditional mission and self image as an amphibious assault force, rather than as a second land army, as it’s been operating over the past eight years. It is designed to enable maneuver from the sea, a key concept in Marine operations. “The EFV] creates places where it’s simply impossible for an enemy to defend against, so you can find those gaps and exploit those gaps, so that we don’t relive an Iwo Jima, a Tarawa, a Normandy,” said Marine Col. Keith Moore, EFV program manager.
The prototype displayed today at Quantico is one of seven the Marines have bought from builder General Dynamics that will be shipped out to the service’s amphibious test center at Camp Pendleton, outside San Diego, Ca., where they will be evaluated over the next two years. The plan is to field the first operational EFVs beginning in 2015, Moore said. When asked to respond to Gates’ comments about the EFV, Moore said the Marines are doing everything they can to drive down the vehicle’s costs, which currently stand at just over $16 million a copy. The planned buy is 573 vehicles.
There is little question that the EFV is a technological marvel. It is a massive armored vehicle weighing 40 tons that can reach water speeds in excess of 25 knots and 45 mph on land, all while carrying 17 Marines, oh and it has a 30mm auto-cannon as well. It’s also probably the Marine’s most controversial program, says Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments’ Dakota Wood, which, given the development history of the V-22 Osprey, is saying a lot.
The EFV was designed to meet the requirements of a very different era, when an armored amphibian was needed to land the assault echelons of a Marine division and hold that beachhead and beat back the Soviet motorized counterattack. It’s difficult to envision the scenario where that same niche capability is needed. “We have to take a hard look at where it would be necessary or sensible to launch another major amphibious landing again – especially as advances in anti-ship systems keep pushing the potential launch point further from shore,” Gates said.
If the Marine’s amphibious ships get pushed too far out to shore, then the EFV wouldn’t even launch, as it would run out of gas soon after landing on the beach. Yet, that’s exactly what today’s ever more capable anti-ship missiles are doing, says Wood. He points to the Chinese made C-802 anti-ship missile that Hezbollah used to hit an Israeli corvette; the C-802 has a range of nearly 75 miles. Anti-ship missiles are “now reaching a level of performance that will push Navy ships away from the coastline three to four times the distance the EFV was originally intended to traverse,” Wood writes in a white paper on the future Marine force.
Col. Moore said that if the EFV is launched from 25 nautical miles out to sea, it can move about 120 miles inland before it must refuel. But push that launch point too much further out and the EFV’s onshore mobility drops pretty quickly.
Yet, the EFV’s vulnerability once on land, not water, may prove its undoing. The vehicle’s flat bottom (necessary to reach high cross water speeds), low ground clearance (16 inches), and very flat sides, are precisely the design features armored vehicle builders have sought to avoid, says CSBA’s Wood. In recent years, the land forces, including the Marines, have spent billions of dollars buying up MRAP vehicles with hull’s designed specifically to withstand IED blasts.
Moore confirmed what sources had told us already, that recent tests showed the EFV was vulnerable to large underbelly IEDs that penetrated the hull of older prototypes. The plan is to fit the EFV’s flat bottom with modular appliqué armor kits, “when the vehicle is operating for extended periods inland in the type of threat environment where you would see a proliferation of IEDs.” The standard armor kit provides protection against 155mm high explosive fragments and up to 14.5mm direct fire; the vehicle’s armor held up well against IED hits from the side, Moore said.
But the EFV may well fall to Gates’ axe for the same reason the Army’s FCS vehicles did: he wasn’t convinced they would provide sufficient protection to the troops inside. The current wars show that the character of war is evolving, as it continually does; new enemies are searching for novel and unconventional means to best the American military’s high-tech arsenal. Today’s enemies have developed inexpensive yet very lethal IEDs and EFPs designed specifically to destroy American armored vehicles.
In many respects, the EFV makes the enemy’s job easier, says a leading national security analyst who has served as a key consultant to OSD officials and Marine leadership, and who requested anonymity because he still works closely with the military. “The adversary doesn’t have an unlimited number of EFPs, IEDs, precision rockets or modern ATGMs. He seeks a good chance for a first shot kill in an ambush to get the most for his buck. As the Marines deploy ashore in a smaller number of high value targets, with 20 Marines apiece inside, they dramatically abet the enemy’s targeting problem. For a $1,000 round, he gets a $20 million vehicle and possibly 20 KIAs. This equation needs to be rethought,” he said.
Read more:
www.dodbuzz.com/2010/0...z0nACsKcAW
Corps shows off long-delayed EFV
By Amy McCullough - Staff writer
Posted : Wednesday May 5, 2010 18:20:43 EDT
MARINE CORPS BASE QUANTICO, Va. — The Marine Corps celebrated the rollout of the first Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle on Tuesday, one day after Defense Secretary Robert Gates once again raised doubts about the need for the multi-million dollar vehicle.
Despite the renewed criticism, the hundreds of Marines and civilian contractors who showed up to the rollout ceremony at the National Museum of the Marine Corps had high hopes for the EFV, saying it is a “quantum leap forward in technology,” and the start of a new chapter in the Corps’ long and storied expeditionary history.
The EFV, which can travel 23 to 29 miles per hour in high water and just over 40 miles per hour on land, is expected to replace the Corps’ aging amphibious assault vehicles.
Commandant Gen. James Conway has said the EFV, with its 30mm day and night weapons system, and increased survivability against rocket-propelled grenades and improvised explosive devices, is “absolutely and vitally important.” Marines who have operated both vehicles say the EFV, which features an air-conditioned interior, comfortable seats, and plenty of room for grunts and their gear, is a “welcome change.”
The Corps, which hopes to purchase 573 vehicles, will test seven different prototypes. The first was on display at Quantico; the second rolled off the assembly line at the General Dynamics facility in Lima, Ohio, earlier Tuesday; and the third is expected to roll out next week, said Col. Keith Moore, the program manager for advanced amphibious assault.
The prototypes will head to the amphibious vehicle test branch at Camp Pendleton, Calif., for additional testing. The Corps is expected to take possession of the first vehicle in June, and the remaining prototypes will be turned over to the Corps between July and October, officials said.
The EFV has overcome numerous challenges. Widespread technical failures caused the Corps to scrap plans for the vehicle in 2007 and restart the program’s entire development and demonstration phase, a move that cost nearly $1 billion and resulted in hundreds of design changes.
The Corps will put the vehicle and those design changes through 500 hours of rigorous testing beginning this summer and ending in December, and Marine officials are anxiously standing by to see how it performs.
But as the Corps moves forward with its testing, Gates has questioned the military’s need to carry out an amphibious insertion under enemy fire and said it’s time to “take a hard look” at the kind of platform needed for ship-to-shore maneuvers.
William E. Taylor, program executive officer with PEO Land Systems, said program officials need to continue pushing forward despite those concerns.
“This debate is not for the individual to engage in. We need to keep our eye on the ball and focus on that which we can control,” Taylor said. “In the meantime, let’s take a step back and acknowledge, maybe even boast, that collectively we have steadily and incrementally advanced the ball forward.”
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