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By Hunter Keeter
The Marine Corps' General Dynamics (GD)-built Advanced Amphibious Assault Vehicle (AAAV) program is moving closer to its December engineering and manufacturing development (EMD) decision, following a 1,000-hour test run of its DaimlerChrysler (DCX)-built engine, according to a GD executive and a statement.
"The next progress point for AAAV is to do complete evaluation of our key performance parameters ? such as land and water speeds, sustained speed and armor validation ? essentially all of these are at or near completion," John Wosina, the vice-president of amphibious systems for GD's Land Systems division, told Defense Daily last week during a telephone interview. "The next significant step is to prepare for the milestone II review in December to take us into engineering and manufacturing development."
Last week, DaimlerChrysler and GD concluded a seven-month test cycle for the AAAV's MTU 883 12-cyclinder, 2,700 horsepower diesel engine.
The...