The Marine Personnel Carrier (MPC) or amphibious armored personnel carrier made its first 12 day tests with BAE Systems saying that the vehicle has surpassed all expectations and more.
The vehicle has been created in mind for the United States Marine Corps and will serve as a medium weight personnel carrier. The 12 day tests reviewed the vehicles ability to function in high tides, survivability, and reviewing the vehicles stowage capacity, as well as other related human factors. It performed well with exit drills, allowing personnel to exit the vehicle in under 17 seconds.
Tests done by Iveco, the main contractor for this vehicle, have concluded similar results when the Marine Personnel Carrier has been tested by Iveco on the vehicle’s ability to be launched and recovered from ships and transition onto land. In the summer, BAE Systems and Iveco will prepare the vehicles next stage of testing that will demonstrate its survivability.
The Marine Corps hopes to have approximately 630 in service and the vehicle will start operational stages in 2018.
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MPC specification
Weight: 24,000 kg
Crew: 2
Weapons: 40mm cannon/grenade launcher, 12.7 mm machine gun etc.
Range: 372 miles
Speed: 65 mp/h on road; 3 mp/h on water
Personnel: 8-9
Due in-service: 2015 or 2018
Variants: (Anti-)Personnel Carrier; Mortar Carrier; Anti-Tank; Command Post; Engineering, Ambulance.