Case Study 28: From Amphibious Combat Vehicle, GAO-16-22, October 28, 2015

Since 1972, the primary platform for transporting Marines from ship to shore under hostile and hazardous conditions has been the Assault Amphibious Vehicle (AAV). In 2011, acquisition of a proposed replacement vehicle—the United States Marine Corps’ (USMC) Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (EFV)—was canceled following the expenditure of $3.7 billion from fiscal year 1995 through 2011 due to concerns regarding the program’s affordability. Also in 2011, USMC subsequently began the acquisition process for the Amphibious Combat Vehicle (ACV), a potential replacement vehicle for all or a portion of the AAV fleet. The ACV is intended to transport Marines from ship to shore and provide armored protection once on land. The ACV acquisition approach called for ACV development in three increments with increasing amphibious capability, ACV 1.1, 1.2 and 2.0., with ACV 1.1 scheduled to start development in November 2015.

The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2014 included a provision for GAO to annually review and report to the congressional defense committees on the ACV program until 2018. Previous reports in 2014 and 2015 described the efforts to initiate the ACV program and how its incremental acquisition approach compared to acquisition management best practices. This report included updates to the analysis of alternatives (AOA) best practices identified in prior GAO work.

GAO’s assessment of the 2014 AOA found that overall it met best practices for AOAs and was, therefore, considered reliable. The USMC completed an AOA update for ACV 1.1 in late 2014 to support the release of the ACV 1.1 request for proposal. Over the years, other AOAs had been completed for related acquisitions, including the EFV, the Marine Personnel Carrier and the previous version of the ACV considered in 2012. These previous AOAs and other supporting studies comprised a body of work that informed the most recent ACV AOA update as well as the ACV 1.1 acquisition as a whole.

Considered in the context of the related body of work, the Amphibious Combat Vehicle (ACV) met 15 of the 22 AOA best practices, including ensuring that the AOA process was impartial and developing an AOA process plan, among others. Further, four of the remaining best practices were substantially met, two were partially met, and one was minimally met. For example, best practices call for the documentation of all assumptions and constraints used in the analysis. We found that the 2014 AOA did not include a full list of assumptions and constraints and any assumptions or constraints from previous analysis, if relevant, were not updated or referenced in the new analysis. As a result, it could have been difficult for decision-makers to make comparisons and trade-offs between alternatives. DOD’s Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation staff also reviewed the 2014 AOA and found that it was sufficient. However, they identified a few areas of caution, including recommending additional testing of land mobility to further verify USMC assertions that the wheeled ACV 1.1 would have the same mobility in soft soil as tracked vehicles.

GAO reported these findings on October 28, 2015 in Amphibious Combat Vehicle: Some Acquisition Activities Demonstrate Best Practices; Attainment of Amphibious Capability to be Determined, GAO-16-22.