After more than a year of restricted use, the Marine Corps’ new armored combat vehicle, or ACV, will deploy from the coast of California with a Marine expeditionary unit, the acting commandant of the service said Thursday.
The ACV replaced the aging and troubled amphibious assault vehicle after decades of use and a 2020 mishap that killed eight Marines and a Navy corpsman on the West Coast.
The replacement vehicle has had its own issues. In October 2022, an ACV rolled over, though no Marines or sailors were killed. In response, the Corps restricted operations of the vehicle. In July of that same year, two ACVs became disabled off of Camp Pendleton, California — again, no one was hurt.
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Now, after revamping the vehicle’s training program, the Corps is looking to push it into the Pacific with the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit, or MEU — a unit that experienced a deadly rollover with the ACV that killed one Marine last month, but that mishap occurred on land and not in the surf.
The vehicle deployment announcement was made by the assistant commandant of the Marine Corps, Gen. Chris Mahoney, during an event at the Hudson Institute, a think tank based in Washington, D.C.
“The ACV will deploy with the 15th MEU, and we’ve started protected waterborne [operations]. We have very detailed checklist criteria to get that…
