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Defense News - United States |
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Thursday,
January 6, 2011, 10:00 AM |
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| United
States could cancel the EFV Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle
program for budgetary reason. |
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Defense
Secretary Robert Gates was "poised to cancel"
the EFV Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle program early Jan.
6, when defense officials said he would announce new budget
cuts amid heavy political pressure to reduce the Pentagon's
budget, The New York Times reported.
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Officials with the EFV program and Marine Corps headquarters
declined to comment on the reports, referring comment
to Gates' staff. Col. David Lapan, a Pentagon spokesman,
declined to comment on budget cut rumors Jan. 5.
After widespread technical failures, though, the Corps
scrapped its existing plans for the project in 2007 and
restarted the program's entire development and demonstration
phase, a move that cost nearly $1 billion. The complete
cost of the program has jumped from about $8.4 billion
in 2000 to more than $13 billion, even though the number
of vehicles to be purchased was slashed almost in half,
from 1,013 to 573.
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{youtube}EKfHRdu18mA{/youtube}
Video EFV Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle Amphibious tracked
armoured vehicle
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Marine Corps officials defended the EFV frequently after
it passed a critical design review in December 2008 that
allowed its development to continue. More recently, however,
they said it wasn't necessarily the EFV itself that was
critical, but the ability to storm beaches at high speeds
quickly.
Cancellation rumors come as the EFV program makes progress
on the testing of seven new prototype vehicles it received
last year to replace aged vehicles that had been in testing
for years. Reliability testing has been ongoing at the Amphibious
Vehicle Test Branch at Camp Pendleton, Calif., and was expected
to wrap up late this month, said Manny Pacheco, a program
spokesman.
The testing plan calls for the program to conduct a combined
500 hours of testing on four EFV prototypes, and demonstrate
that the vehicles last an average of at least 16.4 hours
between breakdowns to meet "Knowledge Point 2"
and progress to the next level of testing.
Early unofficial test results show that the prototypes
at Pendleton have lasted more than 20 hours between system
failures, Pacheco said. The ultimate goal was for each EFV
to last at least 43.5 hours per breakdown before initial
fielding in 2013.
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