UPDATED: Adds GAO rebuttal WASHINGTON: The latest GAO report on the Amphibious Combat Vehicle may reveal more problems with GAO’s approach than with the Marine Corps program. While the Government Accountability Office does its usual solid work on the numbers, when it recommends delaying production by four months to do additional testing, it’s acting from an excess… Keep reading →

QUANTICO: A hovercraft that shoots salvoes of rockets. A speedboat that turns into a submarine. A mobile 3D printing factory. A big wooden box with wings (yes, really). And, of course, more drones than you can shake a stick at (because they swarm). These are just a few of the roughly 100 technologies the Marine… Keep reading →

QUANTICO:  Marines at Camp Pendleton will get to field-test more than 50 different new technologies next month ranging from palmtop mini-drones to self-driving amtracs, from wireless networks to precision-guided mortar shells. Plus there will be plenty of classified systems the Marines can’t talk about, including cyber and electronic warfare gear. Technologies that do well may graduate to… Keep reading →

An upstart odd couple has challenged armored vehicle giant BAE for the right to build the Marine Corps’ swimming tank. One is Singapore’s ST Kinetics, maker of the Singapore Armed Forces‘ amphibious Terrex vehicle. The other is McLean, Va.-based SAIC, best known as a service contractor, which is working with the Singaporeans to build a… Keep reading →

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOl_JOesU54 The first Marines to hit the beach in future wars may well be robots. Flying, swimming, rolling and swarming, the unmanned advance guard will scout out enemy positions, neutralize mines and send out decoy transmissions to deceive the enemy. Then the humans will start to come ashore. First handfuls of SEALs and Marine Force… Keep reading →

After a generation spent fighting guerrillas, the Marines have just rolled out a new concept for high-tech combat against a nation-state — a concept they’re developing in unusually close concert with the Army and Navy. “There’s a lot of Navy in it,” said Marine Corps Commandant Robert Neller, introducing the new Marine Corps Operating Concept… Keep reading →

After years of prototype testing, canceled programs, and rewritten requirements, contractor BAE Systems has unveiled the first production model of its 34-ton, eight-wheel-drive Amphibious Combat Vehicle at the Modern Day Marine show. BAE and SAIC are competing to replace the Marine Corps’ aging, ungainly, and thinly armored Amphibious Assault Vehicles. The AAVs are huge tracked machines… Keep reading →

The Marine Corps chose BAE and SAIC from a field of five competitors to build competing prototypes for the long-awaited Amphibious Combat Vehicle. BAE, a dominant player in tracked armored vehicles, had teamed with Italian armsmaker Iveco to offer a variant of the Italians’ wheeled SuperAV. SAIC, best known as a consulting firm, offered a variant of the Singaporean Terrex.… Keep reading →

ABOARD THE USS ARLINGTON: 17 warships and two submarines. Thousands of personnel from 19 countries. Billions of dollars of high-tech hardware. Months of planning. But sometimes you still have to improvise. When US and Dutch warships and marines united in an international task force for the 2014 Bold Alligator wargames off Virginia, the two countries could… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: Even as the Navy pursues cheaper ships such as LCS and JHSV, the Marines’ message is: Amphibious Warships; Accept No Substitutes. There’s real interest and opportunity in non-traditional ways to deploy Marines, assistant commandant Gen. John Paxton said today, but a purpose-built amphibious ship remains the Marine’s top choice to go to war with. The Navy’s two… Keep reading →