Marine Personnel Carrier

Marine Personnel Carrier
Technology Demonstrator of the Marine Personnel Carrier
Type	Wheeled armored personnel carrier
Place of origin	United States
Production history
Designer	U.S. Marines
Specifications
Crew	2
Passengers	MPC-Personnel:8-9

The Marine Personnel Carrier (MPC) is a wheeled armored personnel carrier under development for acquisition by the United States Marine Corps.

Role

The United States Marine Corps is preparing to acquire a new fleet of wheeled armored vehicles to meet the attributes and metrics of the Marine Personnel Carrier (MPC) requirement. The MPC will serve as a medium weight personnel carrier and complements the capabilities offered by the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV – light weight personnel carrier category) and the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (EFV – heavy weight personnel carrier category). This triad of capabilities EFV – MPC – JLTV comprises the USMC ground mobility portfolio and the means by which expeditionary, scalable, and networked armored protected seats will be provided to the Marine Air-Ground Task Force in the future.

The Marine Personnel Carrier (MPC) will serve as a medium lift personnel carrier and complements the capabilities offered by the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) for light lift purposes and the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (EFV) for heavy lift purposes. The MPC will provide landward lift to Infantry battalions. One Infantry battalion can be lifted by one MPC company along with the Infantry battalion's organic wheeled assets. Two MPC-Personnel Carriers can lift a reinforced Infantry squad. An Initial Capabilities Document (ICD) has already been approved and the Capability Development Document (CDD) is in development.

The MPC is a new capability that will be a multi-wheeled, armored personnel carrier designed to operate across the range of military operations but focused on an irregular warfare operating environment characterized by operations in constrained and urban terrain. Required to carry 8-9 combat loaded marines and 2-man crew, the MPC will enable high-speed land maneuver as well as substantial ballistic protection to embarked marines.

Design

The MPC will possess a balance between the performance, protection and payload attributes and shall be designed to accomplish a broad array of missions across the range of military operations in a variety of operating environments in which expeditionary operations take place.

Variants

The MPC family of vehicles will consist of a basic vehicle and two role-specific variants.

MPC-Personnel

The MPC-Personnel will be the basic vehicle, two of which carry and support a reinforced rifle squad of 17 marines. Each vehicle would carry 9-10 combat-equipped marines and a two-man crew. This meets the need to transport more marine infantrymen than the existing Light Armored Vehicle (LAV) or Humvee platforms while providing greater protection.

MPC-Command

The MPC-Command will be equipped to serve as a mobile command-echelon/ fire-support coordination center for the infantry battalion headquarters.

MPC-Recovery

The MPC-Recovery will be the maintenance and recovery variant of the MPC.

Development

Rear hatch, with V-hull highlighted in green

The Marine Corps deferred Milestone A (MS A) for the Marine Personnel Carrier (MPC) program by two years to FY10. The two-year investment period will allow for the maturation of Government Furnished Equipment and armoring technologies the Marine Corps plans to integrate onto the vehicles once produced.

In addition, an MPC Technology Demonstrator vehicle effort will be initiated to inform CDD development on achievable capabilities and integration risks at the Nevada Automotive Test Center. This is the location that hosted the Combat Tactical Vehicle (CTV) test bed for the JLTV program. The MPC-Technology Demonstrator (MPC-TD) vehicle will address all major functional areas and specifically the following:

• Mobility (Powerpack, drivetrain, suspension system)
• Survivability (Weight affects mobility)
• Electrical power generation, management and distribution
• C4ISR
• Vehicle Health Monitoring

The initial Analysis of Alternatives (AoA) included "legacy" Stryker and the MPC AOA identified a medium armored personnel carrier as the solution to the MPC requirement. The MPC Program Office is pursuing jointness with the Army and including Stryker MOD in the revised MPC AoA. It is scheduled to begin Engineering, Manufacturing and Development in 2012, with initial operational capability in 2018. The acquisition objective is approximately 630 vehicles.

Competitors

IVECO Defence Vehicles teamed with BAE Systems Global Combat Systems, offering its SUPERAV 8x8 amphibious armored personnel carrier.

In 2007, Lockheed Martin teamed up with Patria to offer the Patria AMV^[1]

See also

• Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle a heavier tracked Infantry Fighting Vehicle that was being developed for the U.S. Marine Corps but has been cancelled
• Future Combat Systems manned ground vehicles, a canceled American family of tracked vehicles
• Stryker, a recent American family of wheeled vehicles
• Joint Light Tactical Vehicle, a future American family of light vehicles
• Combat Vehicle Reconnaissance (Tracked), an earlier but similar British family of vehicles
• Combat Vehicle Reconnaissance (Wheeled), an earlier but similar British family of vehicles

References

1. ^ Lockheed Martin and Patria join forces

 This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the United States Marine Corps.

• "Marine Personnel Carrier (MPC)". Marine Corps Systems Command. http://www.marcorsyscom.usmc.mil/peolandsystems/MPC.aspx. Retrieved 27 March 2010. 
• "Marine Personnel Carrier - Program Synopsis". United States Army TACOM Life Cycle Management Command. November 18, 2009. http://contracting.tacom.army.mil/majorsys/mpc/mpc.htm. Retrieved 27 March 2010. 

External links