Advanced Reconnaissance Vehicle (ARV)
The current Light Armored Vehicle (LAV) supports Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalions that perform all-weather, sustained-reconnaissance, counter-reconnaissance and security missions. It has been in service since the early 1980s, and the Marine Corps plans to start replacing it at the end of the next decade. The Office of Naval Research (ONR) is sponsoring research to develop the next-generation Armored Reconnaissance Vehicle (ARV), in preparation to replace the Marine Corps’ current Light Armored Vehicle.
Armored Reconnaissance was the subject of a Capability Based Assessment, the results of which were summarized in a 2019 Joint Requirements Oversight Council-validated Initial Capabilities Document produced by the Marine Corps’ Combat Development and Integration. The CBA pitted Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalions against a peer threat, and identified shortfalls and gaps in capability. CD&I emphasized the need for a modern purpose-built ARV. As the core manned, next-generation system, ARV must possess transformational capabilities to enable LAR Battalions to gain contact with and collect on peer-threat forces. It must accomplish this goal without becoming decisively engaged, while also successfully waging the counter-reconnaissance fight.
After the analysis and various other supporting activities, the ARV concept emerged as a transformational required capability. The characteristics differentiating the ARV from current systems include a battle management system, enhanced vision technologies for increased situational awareness, and target tracking and engagement capabilities. The Program Manager for Light Armored Vehicles is pursuing this capability to support LAR Battalions, provide them with additional capabilities and set the conditions to transform the way they fight.
“Any ARV path forward will continue to be informed by the ongoing [Office of Naval Research] Technology Demonstrator effort, the ARV Analysis of Alternatives, Phase III Force Design outputs, additional Government [Requests for Information], senior leadership direction and industry feedback,” said John “Steve” Myers, Program Manager for MCSC’s LAV portfolio.
In the early planning stages, the Marine Corps envisioned the ARV as a replacement combat vehicle for the LAV. Over time, officials began to view the ARV as a vehicle platform equipped with a suite of advanced reconnaissance capabilities, with an open system architecture that can sense, shoot, move, communicate and remain transportable as part of the Naval Expeditionary Force.
PM LAV is leading the acquisition planning effort to help realize this next-generation reconnaissance vehicle. The portfolio is collaborating with ONR and the Capabilities Development Directorate of Headquarters Marine Corps, CD&I. Capitalizing on their Detroit Arsenal location, PM LAV is working with Combat Capabilities Development Command Ground Vehicle Systems Center to update the ARV concept as a tool to analyze impacts of capability changes. Recognizing commonalities exist among the ARV and the Optionally Manned Fighting Vehicle, the Army, Navy and Marine Corps are working together to ensure collaboration for those capability gaps.
PM LAV has taken several steps to ensure the success of the ARV. In 2019, PM LAV released a Request for Information to industry comprising a set of attributes for a transformational vehicle. Based on responses to the RFI, the program office met with several vendors interested in becoming a prime vendor for ARV. PM LAV originally planned to hold an industry day in May 2020 for the Competitive Prototyping Phase. However, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic caused the event to be rescheduled to the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2020.
ONR is conducting research on advanced technologies to inform requirements, technology readiness assessments and competitive prototyping efforts for the ARV. In 2019, ONR selected two vendors — General Dynamics and SAIC — to design, fabricate, and test full-scale technology demonstration platforms. The General Dynamics Land Systems demonstrator vehicle incorporated advanced technologies designed around a notional unit price point. The other demonstrator, by SAIC, considers alternative advanced technologies and design approaches to further push the state of the art. Both technology demonstrator platforms erre expected to be ready for government evaluation near the end of 2020. Through ONR’s efforts, the Ground Combat Element Division of CDD has been refining a set of requirements for the ARV to meet the future reconnaissance mission of the Marine Corps. PM LAV will leverage this information in a performance specification to be released to industry partners to build the ARV.
By 2023, SAIC will create the first model of a combat vehicle for the US Army. It will cost about $ 19 million, and its key functions are the collection and transmission of data from the battlefield. Such a machine will be equipped with a medium-caliber cannon, a missile system, kamikaze drones, and it will also be possible to transport troops on it.
The Marine Corps plans to use the Ground Vehicle Systems Other Transaction Agreement with the National Advanced Mobility Consortium to release a draft request for prototype proposal, or RPP, for the ARV base variant in the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2020. The government is interested in industry feedback and collaboration to shape the requirement and statement of work for the final RPP release in spring 2021.
Purpose-built for the United States Marine Corps Advanced Reconnaissance Vehicle (ARV) program, Textron's new Cottonmouth ARV is a recon vehicle to be feared. With advanced reconnaissance and surveillance sensors, it is designed to be the Naval Sensor Node needed for mission success. A force-multiplier armed to the fangs with advanced full-spectrum reconnaissance and surveillance sensors, it’s expertly designed to defeat threats beyond line of sight and comes complete with cutting-edge technologies that will keep adversaries up at night. Amphibious mobility, unrivaled versatility and electronic warfare capabilities define a vehicle that is adaptable, stealthy and thrives wherever enemies hide.
The Pit Viper, called the Cottonmouth, Black Moccasin or Water Moccasin (Aghistrodon piscivorus Lacépède), is a real poisonous snake not to be confounded with what the farmers and fishermen call Water Moccasin, which is the common Watersnake (Natrix sipedon Linnaeus), a non-poisonous snake, but which, in old specimens, has a very close resemblance to the true Cottonmouth, so that it takes a person already very familiar with the habits of either of them to distinguisb one kind from the other. It may be seen on hot days basking in the sun on water plants. When disturbed it opens its mouth, which is mostly white on the inside. This has given riso to the popular name “Cotton Mouth.” It vibrates its tail like a rattlesnake, but in a slower rhythm, and retreats to the water for safety. When upon a higher log, they tumble headlong into the water when alarmed. The Cotton Mouth lives on fish, frogs, birds, smaller mammals, and other snakes, but it is said not to devour its own kind. Dogs and cattle bitten by this snake become very sick, but recover in a very short time. Notwithstanding the fact that the poison of the Moccasin has been found proportionately less virulent than that of the Rattle Snake and Copper Head, the fear it inspires is well founded for it is much larger and heavier snake than the Copperhead.
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