New Thermal Sights for the USMC AAVP7

[Suhiir]

Couple new things on the USMC AAVP7.

1) Seems the AAV's are getting thermal sights
http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/...ts-02639/#more

2) A mine clearing version (tho it's pretty much always been available) has been "officially" adopted.

"The mission of Mine Countermeasure (MCM) platoon is to provide breaching capability to the breach commander. The AA MCM platoon is composed of 24 AAVP7A1/RAM RSs with crews, with 12 MK154 LMC Mod O Kits organized into four sections. The MCM platoon is lead by the platoon commander who supports the breach commander."

[thatguy96]

Good to know. I had added AAVP7s with MICLICs to my OOB, feeling that it wasn't seriously inaccurate in terms of game function, since the charge generally isn't used for anything other than mine clearing, and in game mineclear vehicles can sit "50 meters" away in another hex while clearing mines.

[Suhiir]

While you're at it rename them AAVE7's.
AAVP7 = Armored Amphibious Vehicle Personnel
AAVE7 = Armored Amphibious Vehicle Engineer
AAVC7 = Armored Amphibious Vehicle Command

[thatguy96]

Is the AAVE7 designation actually used? From the info I've been getting at Amtrac.org, the LVTP7/AAVP7 series never had an official engineering vehicle, with the only subvariants being the Command and Recovery vehicles. The Mk 154 Mod 0 MICLICs I had been led to believe were mounted on standard LVTP/AAVP7s.

A good related question is when did the LVTE1s actually get retired and in terms of actual engineering work (versus just mine clearing with the MICLIC) was there anything that replaced them? I'm not familiar with a specific engineering variant of the EFV either, which makes me think the simple mounting of the Mk 154 "pallet" would be the plan in that case too.

[DRG]

Does anybody have any info on the EFV that doesn't come from Wikipedia ? I've seen http://www.efv.usmc.mil/ and "PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS " end around 2006. This thing seems stuck in the D&D stage so the 1/2008 start date we have would appear to be overly optimistic and perhaps 5 more years might be about right ?

Don

[thatguy96]

The globalsecurity.org page now incorporates relevant program history from the 2007 and 2008 GAO assessments. I can attest to them being verbatim from the reports since I copied, edited, and integrated them into the page myself.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/milita...round/aaav.htm

[DRG]

Yes, I saw that page as well. Note it says in the first paragraph .."Until the new vehicle is fielded, planned for 2008,"

Later it says "The EFV was scheduled to have a second design review in September 2008, and projected initial capability was delayed by almost 5 years, to 2015"

So 2015 until it's delayed again.

Don

[thatguy96]

That was my job heh. To put everything in the past tense essentially. My uncle also works on the thing and has talked vaguely about a number of issues remaining on it, mostly centering on the reliability issues cited in the GAO report.

[Marek_Tucan]

2015? Why do I suspect we'll see Starship Troopers sooner than EFV?

[thatguy96]

Heh, Don, at this rate would a WinSPMBT-Future with a timeline from 2020-? not be more appropriate