BAE Systems to expand ACV family with recovery variant

BAE Systems has obtained a $34.9 million contract from the USMC to design and develop a recovery vehicle variant of the Amphibious Combat Vehicle (ACV).

The ACV-R will replace the legacy Assault Amphibious Vehicle recovery variant (AAVR7A1) ‘and will provide direct field support, maintenance, and recovery to the ACV family of vehicles’, BAE Systems announced on 22 March.

This contract is for the first phase of the programme, which focuses on the design and development of the ACV-R during a 20-month period.

A second phase will include the delivery of production test vehicles for user evaluation.

‘The recovery variant will provide crucial recovery capability in the amphibious fleet,’ said John Swift, VP of amphibious programmes at BAE Systems.

The ACV programme is already in full-rate production with BAE Systems, and the company is also under contract to deliver the ACV personnel variant (ACV-P) and the ACV command variant (ACV-C).

BAE Systems is under contract by the USMC to design and develop the ACV-30 cannon-armed variant and it is conducting a study on incorporating an advanced reconnaissance, C4 and UAS mission payload into the ACV platform.