SAIC’s Got No Regrets On Armored Vehicle Losses

SAIC’s Got No Regrets On Armored Vehicle Losses
SAIC’s Got No Regrets On Armored Vehicle Losses

SAIC not a traditional heavy-metal manufacturer and it shouldn’t be judged like one, CEO Tony Moraco and COO Nazzic Keene told me.

Marines Furiously Cutting Programs As Tighter Budgets Loom

Marines Furiously Cutting Programs As Tighter Budgets Loom
Marines Furiously Cutting Programs As Tighter Budgets Loom

As old programs go, the Corps is looking at new cyber capabilities and getting back into the air defense game.

Marines Need Speed From Ship To Shore

Marines Need Speed From Ship To Shore
Marines Need Speed From Ship To Shore

  ANNAPOLIS: Small, fast missile boats clear a path through coastal waters for Marine landing forces. Robot jet skis, surfboards, and mini-subs scout out landing sites ahead of the human force. High-speed landing craft carry troops, their gear, and vehicles to the beach. Those are some of the ideas the Marines are experimenting with as…

GAO Nitpicks Marine Amphibious Combat Vehicle: A 4-Month Delay?

GAO Nitpicks Marine Amphibious Combat Vehicle: A 4-Month Delay?
GAO Nitpicks Marine Amphibious Combat Vehicle: A 4-Month Delay?

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…

Marines Test Killer Hovercraft, Wooden Glider & 3D Printers For The Battlefield

Marines Test Killer Hovercraft, Wooden Glider & 3D Printers For The Battlefield
Marines Test Killer Hovercraft, Wooden Glider & 3D Printers For The Battlefield

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…

Marines Rush 50 Technologies To Field Test In 9 Months

Marines Rush 50 Technologies To Field Test In 9 Months
Marines Rush 50 Technologies To Field Test In 9 Months

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…

SAIC, Singaporeans Challenge BAE For Marine Corps ACV: Tests To Begin

SAIC, Singaporeans Challenge BAE For Marine Corps ACV: Tests To Begin
SAIC, Singaporeans Challenge BAE For Marine Corps ACV: Tests To Begin

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…

BAE Unveils 1st Amphibious Combat Vehicle For Marines

BAE Unveils 1st Amphibious Combat Vehicle For Marines
BAE Unveils 1st Amphibious Combat Vehicle For Marines

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…

Japan, Australia Ramp Up Amphib Forces: Countering China

Japan, Australia Ramp Up Amphib Forces: Countering China
Japan, Australia Ramp Up Amphib Forces: Countering China

WASHINGTON: America’s most powerful allies in the Pacific, Australia and Japan, are building up their amphibious forces, buying amphibious vehicles, V-22 aircraft and big new warships. While far smaller than the Marine Corps, the Australian and Japanese units could assist America in stabilizing the region and deterring China — if they can overcome their self-imposed…

BAE & SAIC Win Amphibious Combat Vehicle: It Swims!

BAE & SAIC Win Amphibious Combat Vehicle: It Swims!
BAE & SAIC Win Amphibious Combat Vehicle: It Swims!

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.…

Marines Seek New Tech To Get Ashore Vs. Missiles; Reinventing Amphib Assault

Marines Seek New Tech To Get Ashore Vs. Missiles; Reinventing Amphib Assault
Marines Seek New Tech To Get Ashore Vs. Missiles; Reinventing Amphib Assault

NATIONAL HARBOR: Cheap grey-market missiles and commercially available radar kits are forcing the Marines to reinvent amphibious warfare for the 21st century. The new Corps concept, Expeditionary Force 21, predicts long-range threats will force the fleet to stay at least 65 nautical miles offshore, a dozen times the distance that existing Marine amphibious vehicles are…

A Sneak Peek At Marines’ New Amphibious Combat Vehicle

A Sneak Peek At Marines’ New Amphibious Combat Vehicle
A Sneak Peek At Marines’ New Amphibious Combat Vehicle

UPDATED 1:35 pm Wednesday with more details from Lt. Gen. Glueck WASHINGTON: The Marines are about to move out sharply with their once-stalled Amphibious Combat Vehicle, the smallest service’s biggest program. After years of uncertainty and a last-minute change of course that came too late to make it into the administration’s budget request for 2015,…

Marines Budget Scramble: Commandant Resurrects MPC, ACV In Limbo

Marines Budget Scramble: Commandant Resurrects MPC, ACV In Limbo
Marines Budget Scramble: Commandant Resurrects MPC, ACV In Limbo

Imagine you’re a military supply officer, weary but proud as you watch the train you’ve laboriously loaded with gear roll out of the depot towards the front. And then you realize: You packed the wrong tank. Now you need to get that vehicle off and the right vehicle on — while the train’s already leaving…

Amos Says Marines To Drop High Speed ACV, For Now; Phased Approach Likely

Amos Says Marines To Drop High Speed ACV, For Now; Phased Approach Likely
Amos Says Marines To Drop High Speed ACV, For Now; Phased Approach Likely

CRYSTAL CITY, Va: For years the Marines have argued they need a new amphibious combat vehicle that can cut through water at high speeds so Marines can get to the beach safely and then fight their way inland. But Marine Commandant James Amos signaled yesterday there just isn’t enough money to buy a “planing” vehicle…