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Marine Corps Retires AAV, Formalizing Shift to Amphibious Combat Vehicle

The move advances the Corps’ Force Design push to field lighter, more survivable forces for contested Indo-Pacific operations.

A United States Assault Amphibious Vehicle performs its last official request to depart for the lines during a decommissioning ceremony at Camp Pendleton in California on September 26, 2025.
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Overview

  • The Assault Amphibious Vehicle was officially decommissioned on September 26 at the Assault Amphibian School at Camp Pendleton after more than 50 years of service in missions from Grenada to Iraq.
  • The AAV’s replacement, the Amphibious Combat Vehicle, is an eight-wheeled armored platform fielded in personnel, command-and-control, recovery and fire-support variants.
  • Operational employment has progressed with the ACV debuting in a Philippine war game in May 2024 and entering service with the Japan-based III Marine Expeditionary Force the following month.
  • Investigations into a 2020 AAV sinking that killed eight Marines and a sailor cited training failures and poor vehicle condition, leading to accountability actions and codified safety reforms.
  • The ACV program weathered pauses for safety issues including a tow-rope fault and a 2022 rollover, and reporting indicates the Corps plans roughly 400 personnel-carrier variants within a larger fleet.