Next Phase Starting for USMC Advanced Recon Vehicle

The U.S. Marine Corps issued separate, $450-million awards to General Dynamics Land Systems and Textron Systems to proceed with pre-production development of the Advanced Reconnaissance Vehicle (ARV) competition. The PPD phase will include validation of final designs and building of multiple vehicles in consideration for different ARV variants. That will be followed by government testing and evaluation of the vehicles.

“In the future fight, the Marine Air-Ground Task Force [MAGTF C2] must out-cycle the fight for information to shape the battlespace and deliver precision fires,” stated Col. Chris Stephenson, program manager for Light Armored Vehicles. “This highly contested environment is drastically more complex, and Mobile Reconnaissance Battalions must have a purpose-built capability such as the ARV that can sense, communicate, and fight by incorporating manned and unmanned systems and sustaining effective sensor webs tied to kill chains.”

In 2021 the USMC selected General Dynamics and Textron to develop a replacement for the Marine’s long-serving Light Armored Vehicle. The ARV is expected to be highly mobile, networked, transportable, armored, and lethal.

Each of the competitors has developed 16 pre-production vehicles, which are set for delivery by 2028.

A final production decision is scheduled for Q1 FY2031, to be followed by full-rate production.

Specifically, the USMC expects the ARV to include an automatic medium-caliber cannon; anti-armor capability to defeat close-in heavy armor threats; precision-guided munitions, to defeat threats beyond the engagement range of threat systems; unmanned systems swarm capability to provide persistent, multifunction munitions; advanced, networked, multifunctional electronic warfare capabilities; a command-and-control suite and a full range of sensors; ability to deploy unmanned aerial and ground systems; active and passive vehicle protection; and strong cross-country/on-road mobility performance, with shore-to-shore water mobility.

Working according to those USMC requirements, General Dynamics and Textron are each developing three ARV variants for consideration. First will be the Command, Control, Communications and Computers/Unmanned Aircraft Systems (C4/UAS) version. Textron’s proposed C4/UAS variant is described as a “purpose-built vehicle system (that) will serve as the crewed platform base for robotic and autonomous systems integration, enabling advanced situational awareness.”

The second version, called the 30-mm auto-cannon variant (ARV-30), will offer direct fire support and anti-armor capability. Both General Dynamics and Textron have completed their ARV-30 prototypes.

The third ARV Logistics variant will be optimized for field supply and support.