Army sets out to replace Vietnam War era watercraft.

• Author: Magnuson, Stew

While many Army modernization programs remain in a state of limbo because of tight budgets, the service is proceeding with a program to replace a fleet of aging logistics boats.

"Watercraft, because of the fiscal challenges, and where the priorities were, have been neglected," said Zina Kozak-Zachary, the Army's product director of watercraft.

The service in July is expected to release a request for proposals for the maneuver support vessel-light, a 100-foot boat designed for intra-theater lift.

"Prior to taking this job, I was one of those people who said, 'The Army has boats? Really?' You still hear that. But you don't hear that as often," Kozak-Zachary said at the National Defense Industrial Association's Tactical Wheeled Vehicles conference in Reston, Virginia.

The National Commission on the Future of the Army in its report released in March singled out watercraft as one of several categories that were suffering "unacceptable modernization shortfalls."

"Those shortfalls cause major concerns across a wide range of potential contingencies, particularly for the homeland, in Europe and on the Korean peninsula," the report said, while leaving details for its classified version.

The strategic shift to the Asia-Pacific and the anti-access/area denial scenarios the Army may find itself in have rendered the Landing Craft Mechanized-8 logistics watercraft all but obsolete, Kozak-Zachary and other Army officials said.

Kozak-Zachary, in explaining how the Army's watercraft became so outdated, noted that 71 percent of the Earth's surface is covered by water. The remaining 29 percent is land. Of that, one-third is desert. "Where has the conflict been for the past two decades? It has been on that 10 percent of the land's surface," she said.

The old landing craft have simply become neglected, she said. The Army has 36 LCM-8s, which are 70 feet long, travel at 9 knots and have a range of 271 miles. They were first fielded in 1967 and have an average age of 44 years.

James MacStravic, principal deputy assistant secretary of defense for acquisition, said the new boats must be more survivable.

"As we think about the fact that we are planning on going places where people don't want us to be--antiaccess/area denial environments--we are going to need a different mix of capabilities for those watercraft if we are going to make them relevant in the war fight," he said.

The maneuver support vessel-light, along with being 30 feet longer and nine feet wider than...