Marine vehicle upgrades reflect combat demands.

• Author: Tiron, Roxana
• Position: Cover Story

Immediate needs for equipment repairs and upgrades--rather than long-term plans for transformation--are the dominant forces in Marine Corps vehicle programs today, officials said. The focus is on fixing war-torn equipment and accelerating programs that had been funded in recent years.

The success of Army transformation is important to the Marine Corps, because "we are always going to go places with the Army," Catto said at the National Defense Industrial Association's combat vehicles conference, in Fort Knox, Ky.

Tactics, techniques and procedures come first, while technology comes in second, he emphasized. The Marine Corps believes in technology "where it makes sense and where it is affordable."

Most of the technology-focused efforts underway today am in command-and-control and logistics, he said.

As far as vehicles are concerned, the Light Armored Vehicle is going to stay in the force until 2015, the Abrams M1A1 tank is staying until 2020, while the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle is going to start replacing the Amphibious Assault Vehicle--which now is undergoing some upgrades--in 2008.

Meanwhile, the Maine Corps plans to continue to work with the Army's FCS program office, to see whether any useful technologies can be shared.

"We are paying attention to the technology," said Catto. "We are trying to make sure that we do not spend duplicative dollars for R&D [research and development] efforts that maybe have use across both services."

For instance, the first version of the FCS armored vehicle could be "our LAV replacement," he said. Future upgrades could be "our tank replacement."

It would not make sense for the Marines to be "full partners" in FCS, because "we are not going the way the Army is going," Catto insisted.

The main area where the two services must collaborate is a global command-and-control architecture. "The architecture is what we have to fix," he said.

Communication also is key. The Marine Corps views the Joint Tactical Radio System as a replacement program for its current radios.

But the Marines will not adhere to the "cluster" approach to JTRS radios, where each duster is developed for different platforms, such as trucks, aircraft or dismounted infantry. Instead, the plan is to develop a universal interface communications module that would "negate having to have a cluster," Catto said.

That would ensure that the same radio would be used whether it is infantry, Humvees or an armored vehicle. "With the interface module, you won't need to have clusters.... We are trying to save money that way, ,as opposed to three or four clusters."

The Naval Research Laboratory is developing the module for the Marine Corps.

Light Armored Vehicle

Communications, command-and-control systems caused many headaches for the operators of Marine Light Armored Vehicles during Operation Iraqi Freedom, said Lt. Col. John Manza, the assistant program manager.

"We threw a bunch of crop on the vehicle, especially the command-and-control variant and the commander LAV 25," said Manza. The LAV 25 is the newer model of the LAV The older vehicles were built in the early 1980s.

The Marine Corps "slapped" different radios, the blue force tracking system and satellite communications on the vehicles, "without a lot of thought about the interference that it caused to antennas and the draw it caused to the batteries," he told the NDIA conference.

The command-and-control variant had to run 24 hours a day, because it did not have the battery power to shut down for more than two minutes, making it doubtful that did vehicle was going to start up again, according to Manza.

The program office is working on upgrades for the command-and-control variant. "Our C2 variant was pretty damn good in 1985 and now is severely outdated.... It has virtually no digital capability," he said. "It has a SINCGARS radio and that is pretty much it. What we are looking for is a modern system that is going to allow us to have the intelligence guy, the operations gray, the fire support guy, sharing information among different screens without actually having to move."

The goal is to have satellite communications on the move and the ability to interoperate with various types of radios, he said.

"Long-range communications are very weak right now in the LAV," Manza said. "Frequently, we operate forward, and we can't talk back with confidence."

Ideally, the LAV 25 units should be able to talk to the higher echelons of command directly, without having to go through the command-and-control variant, said Manza.

Another item awaiting funding is a new turret for the anti-tank version of the LAV. With the LAV-AT, "problems are numerous," said Manza. The maintenance is a "nightmare," and the vehicle "is tactically a horrendous weapon for a crew going into combat against tanks." The LAV cannot be driven around the battlefield with its turret in an erect position. It has to be maneuvered in a stalled position, explained Manza.

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