War experience shapes future vehicle design: marines revisit plans for the expeditionary family of fighting vehicles.

• Author: Erwin, Sandra I.
• Position: Ground Combat

The Marine Corps' combat experience in Iraq could prompt significant changes to the design and performance requirements of its future combat vehicles. Current plans for next-generation Marine expeditionary fighting vehicles may be revisited, in light of growing concerns that they may be too vulnerable and not lethal enough.

Under a program called the Marine Expeditionary Family of Fighting Vehicles, or MEFFV, the Corps intends to replace the M1 Abrams tank and the Light Armored Vehicle with much nimbler and technologically advanced platforms.

According to preliminary concepts, the new family of vehicles would include a 10-ton wheeled variant (the LAV replacement) and a 30-ton tracked version that would replace the tank. Like the Army's Future Combat Systems, the MEFFV would rely on stealth, speed and digital communications links to overcome the smaller size and lack of protective armor.

The Defense Department's Joint Requirements Oversight Council endorsed the MEFFV program in November 2001.

Senior Marine officials, however, may be reevaluating the rationale for the MEFFV, as feedback from operations in Iraq indicates that heavy armor still rules the battlefield.

"The Iraq conflict will change the MEFFV program," said Col. Dennis W. Beal, Marine Corps program manager for tanks.

During an April meeting of Marine general officers, the consensus was that if the Corps had been fighting in Iraq with a MEFFV-like force, "we probably would not have won," Beal said at a Washington, D.C. conference, sponsored by the Institute for Defense and Government Advancement.

Survival based on "overwhelming net-fires and a lot of indirect stuff" is an iffy proposition, Beal said. Lighter vehicles simply don't have the firepower needed to take over cities, for example.

Any tank replacement would have to be at least as survivable as the M1, Beal suggested. Reports from the field indicated that many of the Marine M1 tanks came back with lots of pockmarks from rocket-propelled grenade shots and some friendly-fire hits, but the crews survived.

"We may have to rethink stone of the things we are thinking about," said Beal. "We are still trying to continue to make this [MEFFV] happen. But survivability is going to be a real key factor."

An obvious conclusion, Beal said, is that "we need a new gun" to supplant the current 120 mm tank weapon. "We don't want a vehicle that only has 40 rounds when it crosses the line of departure. We don't want a vehicle that only gets 8...