U.S. Marine Corps orders 32 ACV-R armored recovery vehicles

The U.S. Marine Corps has ordered 32 recovery versions of its Amphibious Combat Vehicle from BAE Systems, the armored repair-and-tow vehicles that will haul broken-down or damaged ACVs off the battlefield and fix them in the field.

Marine Corps Systems Command awarded BAE Systems a $230.1 million firm-fixed-price modification on Oct. 1 to exercise options for the 32 full-rate production vehicles, along with production, fielding and support costs and spare parts. That works out to about $7.2 million per vehicle, though the figure includes support and spares as well as the vehicles themselves. The work is due to finish in November 2028.

The recovery variant, known as ACV-R, is the fourth and final member of the ACV family, which is replacing the U.S. Marine Corps’ decades-old Assault Amphibious Vehicles. It is designed to give field-level maintenance and towing support to other ACVs, and it replaces the AAV recovery variant, the AAVR7A1, which Marines have kept using while the new vehicle was developed.

The U.S. Marine Corps started paying for the recovery variant in March 2022 with a $34.9 million contract for its design and development, and BAE Systems was due to deliver production-representative test vehicles in 2025. The service said in 2023 that the ACV-R would not reach initial operational capability until early fiscal 2028, Defense News reported, meaning the first units could field it about a year before this order is due to be completed.

The rest of the ACV family is already in service or production. The basic personnel carrier, ACV-P, carries three crew and 13 Marines and has been in full-rate production since December 2020, followed by the ACV-C command and control version. A third variant, the ACV-30, carries a remotely operated 30 mm cannon. BAE Systems builds the eight-wheeled vehicle with Italian partner Iveco Defence Vehicles, whose design it is based on.

Most of the new work, 60%, will take place at BAE Systems’ plant in York, Pennsylvania, with 15% each in Aiken, South Carolina, and San Jose, California, and 5% each in Sterling Heights, Michigan, and Stafford, Virginia. The full order is paid for with fiscal 2026 U.S. Marine Corps procurement funds.

The underlying ACV contract is worth up to $4.1 billion if all options are exercised.