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2022-05-01

Textron’s Cottonmouth ARV is set to be a Force-multiplier

The Light Armoured Vehicle (LAV) has supported the U.S. Marine Air-Ground Task Force missions on the battlefield right since 1980s. While the LAV remains operationally effective, the life cycle of this system is set to expire in the mid-2030s.

The U.S. Marine Corps (USMC) has chosen Textron Systems and General Dynamics Land Systems to begin contract negotiations to build Advanced Reconnaissance Vehicle (ARV) prototypes for LAV replacement. Through the 22-month period of performance, Textron Systems will produce a Cottonmouth vehicle for the Marine Corps that will go through rigorous testing and evaluation.

The new Cottonmouth ARV is a recon vehicle to be feared. A force-multiplier armed to the fangs with advanced full-spectrum reconnaissance and surveillance sensors, it’s designed to defeat threats beyond line of sight and comes complete with cutting-edge technologies that will keep adversaries up at night.

The ARV will be highly mobile, networked, transportable, protected, and lethal. The capability will provide sensors, communication systems and lethality options to overmatch threats that have historically been addressed with more heavily armoured systems. It will be capable of fighting for information that balances competing capability demands to sense, shoot, move, communicate and remain transportable as part of the naval expeditionary force.

Design Initiative

In March 2020, the U.S. Marines undertook a major force design initiative planned to occur over the next decade. The Marine Corps intends to redesign the force for naval expeditionary warfare and to better align itself with the National Defense Strategy, in particular, its focus on strategically competing with China and Russia. In February 2021, the Marines updated the Secretary of Defense on the progress on force design initiatives.

The Marines plan for a number of ARV variants—referred to as a “family of vehicles.” The first described variant is to be the Command, Control, Communications and Computers/Unmanned Aircraft Systems (C4/UAS) version.

Reportedly, on July 16, 2021 the Marines selected Textron Systems and General Dynamics Land Systems to build ARV prototypes with the prototype delivery expected in the first quarter of 2023 with evaluation of the prototypes concluding in the third quarter of 2023.

If prototype testing proves successful, the Marines Corps could initiate a production effort potentially worth an estimated US$1.8 billion to US$6.8 billion over five years.

Currently around 700 LAVs of all variants are in service with the USMC. The requirement is to replace a total of 600 LAV-25 armoured reconnaissance vehicles with around 500 new ARVs from 2024. The new ARV will be fielded alongside the new Amphibious Combat Vehicle (ACV) and the ageing Amphibious Assault Vehicle (AAV7).

The Cottonmouth armoured reconnaissance vehicle was developed by Textron as a private venture to meet this USMC requirement. Textron started developing a prototype about a year ahead of the formal programme. The design of the new vehicle was based on the signals Textron was getting from the USMC. The prototype was unveiled in 2021.

Clean-sheet Design

Textron took a clean-sheet design approach to developing Cottonmouth to ensure that it had the right combination of land and amphibious mobility and a fully open architecture design so that any sensors, software or weapons could be integrated into the vehicle, based on the Marines’ needs.

Cottonmouth has a 6x6 compact build that allows four vehicles to fit on a single Ship to Shore Connector, or SSC, enhancing the Marine Corps’ ability to support Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations. Designed to swim in the open ocean and navigate through surf zones, this vehicle possesses the advanced manoeuvrability critical to enhanced reconnaissance operations. The armour of the Cottonmouth is of welded steel construction. The vehicle has a V-shaped hull. Crew can survive blasts of small anti-tank mines and improvised explosive devices.

Textron has built one prototype vehicle so far. The company would build a second vehicle too for the Marines, so it can keep one prototype to continue internal development in parallel to the Marines’ work.

Elbit’s IronVision

Cottonmouth is a next-generation Naval Sensor Node as an amphibious scout vehicle that offers cutting-edge sensor technology. Leveraging Textron Systems’ history and range of specialty military vehicle experience, Cottonmouth has the ability to strengthen communication to operate and employ a mix of reconnaissance, surveillance, target acquisition and C4 systems.

It is equipped with multi-spectrum sensors, providing seamless communication between the Navy and Marine Corps to employ unmanned systems and joint-warfighting weapons systems. This provides the next-generation decision dominance needed to defeat threats beyond line of sight. Among the integrated sensors is teammate Elbit Systems of America’s IronVision.

By introducing Elbit Systems’ aerospace Helmet-Mounted Display (HMD) technology into the armoured vehicle, IronVision generates an image that enables the crew to ‘see through’ the vehicle’s armour. This advancement provides 360° situational awareness, day and night, helping the crew overcome inherent visibility limitations, while improving mission efficiency and safety.

The system transmits real-time, Zero-Latency, high-resolution video to the commander and/or driver display, providing a natural, bi-ocular, coloured HD conformal view of the vehicle’s surroundings, together with relevant symbology and C4 I data. At the click of a button, the video feed can be switched to display weapon sights, UAS video, embedded mission simulator or any other video source.

IronVision is able to utilise pre-loaded terrain and obstacle information, combined with smart, intuitive symbology and data anchoring, to display all the information required, simultaneously to the various crewmembers.

Leading HMD technology and an advanced distortion-correction algorithm eliminate visual distortions and prevent motion sickness that is often caused by the moving armoured vehicle. By presenting the crew with a single, unified, intuitive image of the world outside the vehicle, IronVision relieves the crew of the mental load of having to interpret data from multiple sources.

Weapon Station

The Cottonmouth was designed to accommodate a turret. The prototype was fitted with a remotely-controlled weapon station, armed with a 12.7 mm heavy machine gun and Javelin anti-tank guided missile launcher. The missiles can strike hostile tanks and armoured vehicles beyond the line of sight.

The armoured vehicle will also have unmanned aircraft system with automatic launch and retrieval capability.

The main role of the Cottonmouth is to observe the surroundings and find targets. It can even engage some of the targets, though offensive capabilities are rather humble.

This new armoured vehicle is fully amphibious. On water it is propelled by two waterjets. It can be launched from amphibious assault ships and operate in the open sea.

Other Variants

Textron is developing six variants.. The first prototype is called the quarterback. The communications and control variant, the C4ISR sensor node, will be the quarterback of future reconnaissance platoon construct. There will be five other variants in the future. The different variants would allow the platoon to sense, find targets and strike enemies all with the platoon’s own assets.

It’s a family of vehicles that will look alike in terms of commonality.

The first variant, the C4/UAS variant, would seat two vehicle operators and a mission crew of five. The Marine Corps will provide several types of radios, workstations and mission software, and a group 2 UAS to integrate into the vehicle.

The ARV C4/UAS will employ an effective mix of reconnaissance, surveillance, target acquisition, and C4 systems to sense and communicate. These systems will enable ARV to serve as the manned hub of a manned/unmanned team and deliver next-generation, multi-domain, mobile reconnaissance capabilities.

The Marine Corps is working to validate the ARV requirement to serve as a mobile protected hub of manned capability with the C4 to effectively operate robotic autonomous systems-enabled teams through a competitive prototyping effort with multiple industry partners.

In parallel to competitive prototyping, the Marine Corps is also pursuing an effort to define the trade space of a government off-the-shelf solution using the Amphibious Combat Vehicle. The data from the ARV competitive prototyping efforts and the ACV study will jointly inform a Marine Corps decision point next year.

Reference Text/Pic: www.army.mil, www.textronsystems.com

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