Wednesday, June 20, 2018

The Marine Corps' announcement of the ACV winner was strange...




Maybe the ground side does things differently.

Maybe the USMC is gun shy after all the flash and sizzle that occurred with the announcements of the CH-53K and the F-35B...perhaps they decided that it was beyond time to tone things down.

But something is a bit off with this announcement.

First it was like this news was percolating since last Friday.  No details but the "hold close" was broken like crazy.  No details were given but whispers were out there...whispers that turned out to be true.

Then the actual announcement itself.

To a pet news organization?

That's un-Marine Corps like....or should be.

This is the biggest thing to hit the groundside in quite awhile.  The buy of the HK M16 variant?  Sole source buy that they did on a whim.  The announcement of the change to the Marine Rifle Squad?  Timid as fuck.  With the caveat that they could return to the status quo if this thing goes tits up (as I expect it will on first contact with the enemy).

But the main thing is that this wasn't a formal announcement.  Just a late afternoon press release to a favored news organization and then this morning a bullshit as image release with accompanying TINY blurb.

They kept the testing of the vehicles in house.  No one was on site to the testing in Mississippi to see how they performed in marsh/swamp type terrain. No one on site to see how these vehicles performed in the desert. No one to see how they performed in urban environments.

In essence do we have confidence that they picked the right rig?

Can we have confidence that they're really a step ahead of an upgraded AAV?

Oh and let's talk about the STK contender.  Do you think that's a bad vehicle?  You're full of shit if you do!  Then simply picked the wrong partner.  SAIC has been performing badly and has failed to execute.  They have a niche and trying to expand beyond it it has proven difficult.  Beyond difficult because SAIC has a jacked up management style on the vehicle production side of the house (I fully expect the AAV upgrade they won to be mangled before its all said and done).

Note to the Marine Corps.

Next time do this shit right.  The secret squirrel shit ain't doing you favors. To STK, next time team up with a partner that can deliver.  If you had gone with General Dynamics after the downselect you would have had a better chance at success.

To BAE/Iveco?  You guys know how to do this.  Ms. Mitchell needs to crawl from under the rock and start shouting about how this vehicle will carry the day and is the next gen rockstar for carrying Marine Forces from ship to shore...for all our allies, not just the US Marines.

This thing is done.  They selected the vehicle.

Winning the future and getting them into service has just begun.

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