Since World War 2, when AAV's were first developed, what have they all had in common spec wise?
A top speed of about 8 mph in the water.
Remember all those war movies where amphibs had to make dashes into the shore to off load Marines? Its because the water speed for tracked landing craft was so low.
Only the EFV sought to bring a game change to that. Because it went over budget and because we're now reverting to basically an upgraded AAV, we're probably looking at limited water performance improvement.
Is it time to dump the swim requirement and to simply buy the best IFV available and depend on LCAC/LCU to get our vehicles ashore?
If we believe that we fight as complete combat arms teams then we'll need our logistics tail...we'll need to get our MTVR's on the beach and they don't swim or fly...we'll need to get our artillery ashore and although they can fly its not the optimum solution...in other words over half the MEU/MEB/MEF can't swim so do we need our IFV's to?
I think the answer is yes. We must maintain amphibious assault as one of the three legs of forcible entry. That means that our AAV's need to swim.
What do you think?