XBradTC

You do know the Army still operates a fleet of about 38 LCM-8 class medium landing craft? Well, they do. And they’ve been in service almost as long as I’ve been alive. They were intended to have a service life of 25 years, and retire in 1992. Yet they’re still plugging along. They’ve only marginally improved over the LCMs of World War II.

DoDBuzz tells us the Army is looking to buy a replacement for them as the Maneuver Support Vessel (Light).

As it rethinks its global posture for a possible shift to the Asia-Pacific region, the U.S. Army wants to buy a new fleet of small boats and upgrade existing watercraft, an official said.

The land force and largest branch of the U.S. military has more than 100 vessels in its inventory — including the Cold War-era Landing Craft Mechanized-8 “Mike” boat, as well as the larger Logistics Support Vessel, LSV, and Landing Craft Utility, or LCU-2000 — to support combat and humanitarian missions.

The Army is gearing up to solicit proposals to replace the so-called Mike boats as part of a new acquisition program to buy three dozen craft called the Maneuver Support Vessel (Light), or MSV(L), according to Scott Davis, who heads the service’s Combat Support and Combat Service Support office in Warren, Michigan.

I took a look at the RFI, and it’s pretty damn ambitious. MushDogs? You’re our small craft expert. What say you?

What’s interesting is that, while the Army has almost exclusively used its landing craft in a lighterage and intratheater transport role, the RFI envisions using the MSV(L) additionally as a maneuver asset for Brigade Combat Teams in the littoral or inland waterways. That’s not quite poaching on the Marines forcible entry/over the shore assault role, but I’m pretty sure it is something a BCT staff hasn’t planned for a while.