The 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit used its Amphibious Combat Vehicles to transit from ship to shore for the first time in an overseas operational deployment, according to a Marine Corps announcement.
During the June 24 exercise at White Beach Naval Facility in Okinawa, Japan, the ACV platoon embarked from amphibious dock landing ship Harpers Ferry (LSD-49) and transited to shore. The exercise also involved waterborne egress training, in which Marines exited the ACVs and boarded safety boats while the vessels were in the water.
“This was fairly standard training for us, but I'm proud it also represented the first overseas ship-to-shore employment of ACVs," said Lt. Col. Nick Freeman, the commanding officer of Battalion Landing Team 1/5, which conducted the operations.
“We'll continue to train at other locations in the months ahead, using a deliberate approach, capturing useful data and lessons learned, and ultimately sharpening our understanding of how to best employ the ACV in its intended environment -- embarked with our forward-deployed ARG/MEUs," Freeman continued in a statement included in the release.
The Marine Corps tallied its first overseas ACV use last month, when the 15th MEU participated in waterborne, live-fire training off the coast of the Philippines during Exercise Balikatan. Harpers Ferry and the embarked ACV platoon departed from Southern California on March 19, marking the first ACV operational deployment.
The ACV is a critical platform for Indo-Pacific operations, providing ship-to-shore mobility, firepower and a variety of other capabilities. The Marine Corps is procuring four ACV mission role variants: a personnel carrier (ACV-P), command and control vehicle (ACV-C), 30mm cannon variant (ACV-30), and eventually, a maintenance and recovery vehicle (ACV-R).
Although almost 200 ACVs have been delivered to the Marine Corps to date, readiness issues -- including vehicle rollovers during waterborne operations -- have slowed fielding. But now, after instituting efforts to retrain vehicle operators and improve proficiency, the service is moving ahead with deployment plans.