Marines weigh redesign of expeditionary fighting vehicle

At the urging of key lawmakers, the Marine Corps is weighing whether to redesign its Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle to give troops better protection against the types of roadside bombs that have plagued U.S. forces in Iraq.

The Marine Corps will soon wrap up an extensive, 90-day study of the issue, and plans to brief House Armed Services Seapower and Expeditionary Forces Subcommittee Chairman Gene Taylor, D-Miss., on its findings, a Marine Corps spokesman said Wednesday.

Taylor and Subcommittee ranking member Roscoe Bartlett, R-Md., urged the Marine Corps in June to explore redesigning the bottom of the EFV, an amphibious troop carrier, to include the type of v-shaped hull on the Mine Resistant Ambush-Protected vehicle being fielded to Iraq.

The EFV has a flat bottom similar to the military's Humvees, which have been vulnerable to improvised explosive devices, despite efforts to add armor to the vehicles.

During a June 26 hearing, Marine Corps officials argued that incorporating a v-shaped hull, which deflects blasts from the vehicle's passengers, would mean sacrificing speed when the vehicle skids across the water.

The EFV is designed to race across open water at more than 25 miles per hour and drive across land at 45 mph.

Taylor and Bartlett persisted in a letter sent days later to Marine Corps Commandant James Conway, followed by a breakfast meeting on the matter between Conway and Taylor.

Officials in the EFV program office in Woodbridge, Va., have led the study, with input from the Army Research Laboratory in Aberdeen, Md., the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Bethesda, Md., and Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, N.J. The Marine Corps spokesman said the study is ongoing, and would not comment on any preliminary conclusions.

Taylor said he spoke Tuesday night with Navy Secretary Donald Winter and got the impression that the secretary was "of a like mind" on the issue.

Winter did not reveal any of the study's findings, Taylor said.

The EFV is expected to be one of several platforms designed to improve the Corps' speed and maneuverability in expeditionary or amphibious operations. But the price per platform has grown to nearly $17 million apiece -- nearly three times the cost projected several years ago.

And the prototypes averaged only 4.5 hours between breakdowns during operational tests in 2005 and 2006, far below the requirement for production vehicles, which must last 43 hours between repairs.

In response, the Marine Corps has changed its payments to prime contractor General Dynamics Corp., and has imposed greater supervision.

The Corps also plans to delay operational availability for at least four years.