Water-to-land: second opinions sought for Marines troubled amphibious vehicle.

• Author: Magnuson, Stew
• Position: Amphibious Warfare - On the 'The Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle: Over Budget, Behind Schedule, and Unreliable' report

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

* After ordering a major redesign of its troubled expeditionary fighting vehicle, the Marine Corps has hired an engineering firm to take a fresh look at the bow flap that transforms the 38-ton troop carrier from a truck to a boat.

The bow flap enables the box-shaped EFV to cut through water, and then retracts as it reaches shore and changes itself back into a combat vehicle.

"The EFV is basically a tank that gets tossed into the ocean, works its way towards shore, and turns itself back into a tank," said Bob Morazes, EFV program manager at Alion Science and Technology.

"The challenge is to try to take this tank, which is typically not designed to operate in the water, and make it a boat for about 25 miles," he said.

The EFV is designed to carry up to 18 Marines. After reaching shore, it should continue in the tank mode and move at speeds of up to 45 miles per hour.

Morazes likened the EFV to a Transformer toy. With the push of a button, the boat becomes a troop carrier.

One of the issues the Marines would like Alion to look at is weight, Morazes said.

That has been a problem in the much maligned program from the start, according to a House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform report titled, "The Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle: Over Budget, Behind Schedule, and Unreliable."

Marine Corps Systems Command and its lead contractor General Dynamics Land Systems worked for five years to develop and demonstrate a working EFV. The $1.2 billion that was spent resulted in a vehicle that failed several major tests during a 2006 operational assessment.

The test revealed that the vehicle could only operate 4.5 miles between breakdowns, that the weapons system jammed, the hydraulic system leaked and that the vehicle was so loud that Marines had to wear earplugs.

Excess weight emerged as another deal breaker

Requirements call for high speed and mobility in water. The EFV achieves fast speeds by going up on a "plane," or accelerating until the vehicle moves along the top of the water, the House report explained.

"The vehicles could get 'on plane' during high-speed water travel only if armor was removed from the vehicles and the Marines on board left vital equipment behind," said the committee report.

The Marines went back to the drawing board, again with General Dynamics as the lead contractor. The new efforts will take an estimated four-and-a-half years and cost an additional $1 billion.

The second version of the EFV will...