I am constantly amazed that the critics of the EFV constantly point to anti-ship missiles as a vulnerability of amphibious assaults.Conway: New Stand-Off Doctrine Could Change EFV Requirements
PANAMA CITY, FL -- If the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle is canceled, the Marines will likely start over, according to Gen. James Conway, commandant of the Marine Corps, but a change in the required stand-off distance from shore could alter the vehicle's requirements.
Both Conway and incoming commandant Gen. James Amos have said that an EFV-like capability is necessary to enable the Marines to carry out amphibious assaults from over the horizon. The service now has the Assault Amphibious Vehicle, which was fielded in the 1970s and can only travel a few miles from a ship to the beach. The EFV, under development with General Dynamics, is designed to travel about 25 nautical miles.
Speaking to reporters at the Expeditionary Warfare Conference here on Oct. 6, Conway said that a new program would be necessary if the EFV fails to meet the next knowledge point in its development. The Marines have vowed to do away with the controversial program themselves if it fails to show adequate improvement in reliability testing, which should take place in February.
"I think we would wind up having to go back to the drawing board," Conway said.
However, he disputed an argument Defense Secretary Robert Gates made in May, when he said that adversaries' anti-ship missiles would likely continue to push ships ever further out to sea, making an amphibious assault near impossible. Existing Navy and Marine Corps doctrine calls for ships to be 25 nautical miles away from shore for an amphibious invasion.
"There's some discussion at this point with the Navy that they might be able to get in closer than the 25 miles," Conway said. "We've got to understand that better and we've got to validate, I think, on our own end that that's viable. That's a kind of capability that could potentially change the requirement, and we'd have to look to see if other elements of industry would be interested in a vehicle that could perhaps be launched closer in."
The commandant declined to say what kinds of anti-ship missile countermeasures the Navy is working on.
"If there are programs like that, they're probably black [classified] programs," he said, "but my view is there have been anti-missile this or that ever since there have been missiles. You've got anti-tank missiles, anti-air missiles, anti-ship missiles, and yet we still build ships and tanks and satellites . . . so I don't think that you simply shut down a capability because another nation or power is advertising an anti- capability that they think will be effective."
Navy Undersecretary Robert Work told reporters here on Oct. 5 that there are other options on the table for providing the Marine Corps' amphibious assault capability, possibly including a modified EFV or an entirely new system.
"No decision has been made except for one: Within the Department of the Navy, the commandant and the secretary of the Navy agree that we should have a tractor as part of the family of ship-to-shore connectors," Work said. "Whether the EFV is the final answer hasn't been decided, so I wouldn't count the EFV out yet.
"The EFV in a slightly modified fashion might be the answer," he continued. "We might be looking at a different system, but it will all depend on a myriad number of issues." -- Cid Standifer
On Oct, 4, the best load crews at Edwards held their first Weapons Load Crew of the Quarter competition; proving which load crew was the best on base. Not only was this the first loading competition in over a year, but it was the first competition in which two 5th generation fighters, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and the F-22 Raptor, competed head-to-head.
