End of the USMC AMTRACs

[TGS]

The venerable AAV-7 is finally getting replaced, being in service since 1972. The first 18 vehicles were delivered last month, just in time for the USMC birthday.

The replacement is a wheeled vehicle named the Amphibious Combat Vehicle, which from what I can tell is a rip-off of the Patria AMV. You can read about it at that link, and the failure of the EFV program which necessitated a COTS solution. Anyone who has been in the Marines since 9/11 can vouch that the AAV badly needed replacing...it was old and past due 20 years ago. It's so old that the junior enlisted Marines of today are riding around in the same AMTRACs that their grandfathers did. (so I guess that means they're Eskimo brothers?)

I don't know if we have any "trackers" on the forum, but wanted to mention it anyway.

@LittleLebowski @rcbusmc24 @breakingtime91 @TOTS @Dan Lehr @03RN

[TOTS]

@rcbusmc24 would be hipper to this than I but it sounds like a win to me. I never liked any of the time I spent in the back of “coffins” as we called the tracks. As far as I’m concerned, helos are the only way to ship-to-shore Marines! I guess LCACs too, but they are Navy, so....

[03RN]

I was in the helo company in the MEU and glad of it.

I never liked sitting in tracks. Id rather walk. Everytime I was in one in iraq i thought about the scene in blackhawk down at the end. Fucking bullet magnets

[Hambo]

No personal experience with them, but I want to buy one surplus for a riot/hurricane vehicle. Bring on your frozen water bottles, bitches.

[Mark D]

I hated amtracks. It was like riding in a smallish steel box with uncomfortable benches, in the dark, with a pervading stink of diesel Worst of all was getting shaken and bounced around like ice-cubes in a martini mixer as the damn things traversed the hills and training areas of Camp Pendleton. I was always on the verge of throwing up.

Fortunately we did a lot more work in helos than tracks. I hated helos too, after a few close calls, but at least they weren't amtracks.

[LittleLebowski]

I hated amtracks. It was like riding in a smallish steel box with uncomfortable benches, in the dark, with a pervading stink of diesel Worst of all was getting shaken and bounced around like ice-cubes in a martini mixer as the damn things traversed the hills and training areas of Camp Pendleton. I was always on the verge of throwing up.

Fortunately we did a lot more work in helos than tracks. I hated helos too, after a few close calls, but at least they weren't amtracks.

Yeah, I’ve had more close calls in helos than tracks, but that moment when the track goes under for a few seconds and water’s coming in...nope.

[majbgd]

Having spent many hours in amtracs, my two favorite quotes about them are : "Dogs have fleas and amtracs have grunts." And "Well they catch fire more than they sink."

[Hambo]

Yeah, I’ve had more close calls in helos than tracks, but that moment when the track goes under for a few seconds and water’s coming in...nope.

And that is when I would freak the fuck out. I think I saw too many sinking sub or ship movies.

[TGS]

Yeah, I’ve had more close calls in helos than tracks, but that moment when the track goes under for a few seconds and water’s coming in...nope.

How wet on the inside did your LAV-25 get compared to the tracks?

[LittleLebowski]

How wet on the inside did your LAV-25 get compared to the tracks?

Well, LAVs don’t “splash” off the well deck of a ship, they’re not designed for that. They’re more of a “gentle insertion”, so two different beasts. I wouldn’t splash into surf or deep water that came over the top of an LAV, period. Getting back to your question, in practical experience; I think a prepped LAV (you always prep an LAV for amphibious ops) does indeed leak less than a track from the bottoms and the sides, even the with big rear hatches on the LAV. I’ve done true amphibious ops in an LAV off of Pendleton and in a lake on Hunter Liggett, completely drama free with trim vane, steering, and propellers working as expected.

LAVs can’t handle rough surf like a track and they don’t have the same off road capability (I’ve seen a track yank out a really stuck LAV from the mud like it was nothing), but LAVs have proved their worth as the Army admitted when they bought LAV IIIs and called them Strykers.