The United States Marine Corps (USMC) has begun to say goodbye to its tanks and will operate none by the end of the decade, but that doesn’t mean it won’t continue to have armored vehicles in its arsenal. Instead of the tracked behemoths—which aren’t as ideally suited to the USMC’s amphibious role—the service has looked to the Amphibious Combat Vehicle (AVC), a ship-to-shore solution that will provide greater “expeditionary mobility.”
The 8x8 wheeled vehicles were developed to supplement and replace the aging Assault Amphibious Vehicle (AAV), which first entered service in 1972. Production of the ACV personal carrier (ACV-P) began in 2020. The USMC has called for multiple variants including one with a medium caliber cannon, the ACV-30, and a maintenance/recovery (ACV-R) model. In addition, a command and control (ACV-C) variant was developed to replace a similar platform in the AAV family of vehicles.
According to military........