U.S. Marine Corps ARV-30mm Validates Sea-to-Shore Combat with 30mm Turret.

General Dynamics Land Systems has completed an expanded Marine Corps test campaign for its ARV-30mm prototype, validating sea-to-shore mobility, cold-weather performance, and a stabilized 30mm remote turret across multiple U.S. test sites. The results inform a competitive downselect as the Corps reshapes reconnaissance forces under Force Design 2030 to operate in contested Indo-Pacific littorals.

General Dynamics Land Systems has completed an expanded U.S. Marine Corps test campaign for its ARV-30mm prototype, advancing a reconnaissance platform engineered to transition from open water to land and still deliver stabilized medium-caliber firepower in a contested littoral battlespace. GDLS says the 30mm-armed variant is intended to increase lethality, survivability, and digital battle management for the Marine Corps’ future Mobile Reconnaissance Battalions, a force element designed to operate forward, survive first contact, and generate timely targeting data for joint kill webs rather than function as a lightly armed screening force.
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Amphibious ARV-30mm prototype demonstrating sea-to-shore mobility and a remotely operated 30mm medium-caliber turret, combining protected crew lethality with networked reconnaissance to detect, track, and engage threats while feeding targeting data to the Marine Corps and joint fires in contested littorals (Picture source: General Dynamics). 

The latest demonstration period ran from March 2025 through January 2026, using multiple proving venues to stress different mission profiles: the U.S. Army’s Ground Vehicle Systems Center at Detroit Arsenal, Camp Grayling’s maneuver areas, and Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, where the prototype conducted ocean swim events. GDLS also highlighted cold-weather and cold-water testing conducted in late 2025, signaling the program is attempting to validate mobility and reliability beyond temperate test conditions, a recurring weakness of earlier expeditionary vehicle efforts. Both the ARV-30mm and the companion ARV C4-UAS prototype are slated to remain under government evaluation through 2026.

While GDLS has not publicly detailed the exact turret model in this release, the Marine Corps has been explicit about the intended weapons architecture: the ARV-30 aims to combine the turret and weapon system found on the ACV-30 in order to preserve commonality across small fleets and simplify sustainment. That points directly at the Kongsberg Medium Calibre Turret 30 family already in U.S. Marine Corps production for ACV-30, a stabilized, remotely operated turret that keeps the crew under armor and is designed to accept armor growth and additional effectors, including anti-tank guided missiles. In capability terms, a modernized 30mm autocannon in this class typically means a 30×173mm dual-feed chain gun such as the Mk44 Bushmaster II or its U.S. Army XM813 derivative, allowing rapid switching between high-explosive and armor-piercing ammunition without breaking contact.

That armament choice matters because it reshapes what a reconnaissance vehicle can safely do once contact is made. A 30mm chain gun provides a credible fight-for-information capability against light armored vehicles, fortified firing points, small surface threats in the littorals, and dismounted teams using cover, while programmable and airburst-capable 30mm ammunition options are increasingly relevant against small unmanned aircraft and targets in defilade. Just as important, a remote turret configuration reduces turret intrusion and crew exposure, preserving internal volume for mission systems, extra radios, loitering munitions control kits, and UAS support equipment that modern reconnaissance formations now treat as baseline rather than add-ons.

Operationally, the ARV concept is built around the idea that reconnaissance is no longer a standalone see-first function. GDLS describes the ARV as a node that connects onboard and off-board sensors with unmanned aerial systems, and eventually with ground and water robotic systems, using growth margins and a modular open architecture to insert new payloads as they mature. The company also emphasizes its Next Generation Electronic Architecture to enable artificial intelligence-enabled functions and robotic control, language that aligns with Marine Corps intent to push data fusion and rapid sensor-to-shooter timelines down to tactical echelons. In practical terms, the 30mm cannon is the escort weapon that keeps the sensor package alive long enough to complete the find-fix function and either disengage or hold an enemy element in place for long-range fires.

The strategic driver is the Marine Corps’ Force Design 2030 shift toward naval expeditionary warfare and distributed operations in the Indo-Pacific, where dispersed units must generate targeting data while surviving persistent surveillance and precision fires. The ARV is intended to replace the LAV family whose service life is projected to expire in the mid-2030s, but it is also a hedge against the vulnerability of lightly armed scouts in an era of ubiquitous drones and precision munitions. Marine Corps leadership previously questioned whether expanding manned wheeled armored reconnaissance was the right answer in the Indo-Pacific, pushing the program toward multi-domain mobile reconnaissance concepts that prioritize sensing, networking, and counter-recon. The ARV-30mm variant is therefore best understood as an attempt to restore organic overmatch at the point of contact without reverting to heavy formations that are difficult to move and sustain across archipelagic geography.

The ARV effort has moved through iterative prototyping rather than a single leap to production. Prototype deliveries by Textron and GDLS began in late 2022, followed by evaluations beginning in early 2023, and the Marine Corps’ March 2024 selection of GDLS and Textron to build ARV-30 prototypes for delivery in FY2025, with procurement planned to begin in FY2028. The Corps intends to transition into engineering and manufacturing development with significant FY2026 research and development funding and a competitive build of production-representative test vehicles across C4-UAS, 30mm, and logistics variants before downselecting to a single vendor. The current GDLS test activity is therefore less a product launch than a data-gathering campaign intended to de-risk that downselect.

The closest fielded analogue is the Stryker ICV-Dragoon and the broader Stryker 30mm lethality path, which pairs an 8×8 chassis with a medium-caliber remote turret to improve overmatch against peer reconnaissance and light armor threats. The Marine Corps requirement diverges in two decisive ways: first, ARV is being built around shore-to-shore water mobility and surf-zone relevance, validated in ocean swim testing, whereas the Army’s Stryker fleet is not designed to self-deploy across littoral gaps. Second, ARV is being architected from inception as a sensor-and-network carrier for Mobile Reconnaissance Battalions, not simply an infantry carrier with more firepower. At the high end, the Army’s tracked formations will continue to outmatch a wheeled ARV in protection and growth potential, and the Army’s next-generation infantry fighting vehicle path is trending toward larger-caliber solutions, but those advantages come with a deployment and signature penalty the Marine Corps is deliberately trying to avoid.

The outlook now hinges on whether the ARV-30mm can demonstrate enough amphibious mobility, lethality, and network resilience to justify procurement in a force that has already traded away traditional mass for distributed survivability. If the Corps can standardize a 30mm remote-turret ecosystem across ARV and ACV-30, it could reduce training and sustainment burdens while giving Marine reconnaissance formations the firepower to survive first contact long enough to complete the mission: find, fix, and enable the deep fight.