A first for the Marines and Camp Pendleton as ACVs return from Indo-Pacific deployment

Early Wednesday, under a heavy marine layer, a platoon of Amphibious Combat Vehicles splashed off the USS Harpers Ferry and swam nearly three miles to shore, landing inside the protected waters of the Del Mar Basin at Camp Pendleton.

As the first of the dozen, 36-ton, eight-wheeled armored troop transports triumphantly climbed up the ramp on shore, flying the Marine Corps colors, waiting families, friends and commanders from the 3rd AA Battalion and elements of the platoon's Battalion Landing Team 1/5 cheered their homecoming.

Erica Eudaily waited with 2-year-old Gage and 2-month-old Zoe at the beach to see her husband, Gunnery Sgt. Brandon Eudaily, who has been deployed three times, but this was the first since they married.

"It was a challenge to get into the routine, it took two months for Gage to settle in," she said, adding that she got him a daddy doll he went to sleep with every night. She credited having her family close by in San Marcos.

Gage has been counting down the days, she said. "Today, he said it's Dada day." When the Marines arrived, Gage spotted his father in the group. "He saw him walking off," she said, "dodged around people and found him and hasn't let go."

The platoon had been on deployment with the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit since late March.

The deployment was the first for the amphibious vehicles, which the Marines are rolling out to replace an aging troop transport. Their crews participated in large international training events in multiple countries while also testing the ACVs to understand where challenges remain in putting them into action.

Now, those lessons will be used for an extensive after-action report, from which Marine officials said they hope to learn what changes need to be made in future operations and deployments with the new vehicles and in which scenarios the ACV will be the most useful.

"We got to operate in the vehicle's intended environment," said 1st Lt. Kenon Morgan, the platoon's commander, whose job was to oversee the Marines using the vehicles while making sure they adhered to strict protocols and safety guidelines. "The Marine Corps wanted to test the vehicle in the Indo-Pacific theater and we got to operate in multiple countries. That's the biggest excitement piece for me."

Camp Pendleton has been a testing ground for the ACVs, as they are rolled out to replace the Amphibious Assault Vehicle.

In 2020, one of the Vietnam-era legacy transports sank during pre-deployment training off San Clemente Island. Eight Marines and a sailor were killed, including three Marines from Southern California: Pfc. Bryan Baltierra, 18, of Corona; Lance Cpl. Marco A. Barranco, 21, of Montebello; and Cpl. Cesar A. Villanueva, 21, of Riverside.

Military leaders say the ACV is the best and most lethal weapon in the amphibious fight. It will be especially effective with smaller, agile fighting forces that might need to move quickly between island chains. The vehicles carry infantry troops and their gear from ships waiting offshore to the beach, swimming onto the sand and driving a couple hundred miles inland on one fueling.

At Camp Pendleton, some ACV crews had early difficulty navigating the surf zone, flipping over four times over several months of training as they approached the shore. Because of those issues, the ACV launch was delayed, and the vehicle was kept off a previously planned 2022 deployment while the c rews and troops were re-trained to operate and drive the vehicles .

That retraining was put into place during this deployment and new protocols were strictly observed, Marine officials said.

Morgan, who was among the first hybrid class to be trained and licensed on the AAV and the ACV, said his platoon was among the most experienced and didn't have the earlier issues in the surf zone during pre-deployment training.

He said driving the ACV is nuanced and requires a unique skill set to pull the steering wheel and the prop levers simultaneously while moving to the surf zone. Because the vehicles were kept away from the surf during this deployment, the steering issue was not a problem they encountered.

"Learning the vehicle's capabilities and limitations as we progressed through pre-deployment and then onto deployment was a challenge," Morgan said. "Pushing the limits of what (commanders) thought the platform could or couldn't do and proving its limits was a challenge the entire time because the Marine Corps isn't sure how it wants to employ the ACV just yet.

"So, being able to showcase what it brings to the Marine Corps and the Navy, was an incredible challenge and an incredible opportunity," he added.

Morgan said his takeaway from this deployment is that while the ACV proved well-suited for the Indo-Pacific, he expects it would also perform well in other parts of the world where Marine operations are needed, including in the Middle East.

"The Indo-Pacific theater is the most challenging area we could have deployed to first and that is very promising for other theaters we know this platform can perform well in," he said.

He said the condition of the beaches and getting from ship to shore made that area more challenging. This included simple things like fishing nets floating in the water and maneuvering off the beach inland by finding workable roads and bridges.

"Whether its policy or the actual composition of beaches we're trying to land on, those two things made it more challenging," he said, adding that the limitations the Marine Corps has set to keep the ACVs in protected water and out of the surf zones also made it more difficult.

"Finding beaches that fit that criteria was an ongoing challenge," he said.

To help with that, though, the Marines had a team that went out ahead of the training exercises to scope out appropriate locations for the ACV use.

Gunnery Sgt. Eudaily was on that team. "Because they couldn't go through the surf zone, we had to find protected water," he said. "We've never had to deal with that before."

He added, though, that the success of the deployment was a "big deal."

"I was proud to see them out there," he said.

Now, he said he looks forward to getting to know his daughter, Zoe, and having "lazy mornings with his family."

Another returning Marine, who also had previous experience on AAVs, was Sgt. Isaiah Williams, a platoon vehicle commander.

His wife, Kaitlin, held their 6-month-old daughter, Marceline, who smiled broadly at her father even though this was their first meeting.

"It's surreal to be back," Williams said. "It's stressful, and you have to have faith that you'll make it home."

He said he had the utmost confidence in his crew and was proud to be part of the first platoon testing the ACVs.

The tropical conditions, he said, made it extra hard. When troops were inside the vehicle – it has room for 13 – it could sometimes be more than 110 degrees, he said.

"Heat can play a big role," he said.

Other challenges he saw were seawater and corrosion issues. He said an ACV simulator brought onboard the Harpers Ferry to help the ACV drivers better learn surf conditions dangers wasn't as useful on a moving platform.

"The simulator was good for students in the school house (on land), but on ship, we had people get sick," he said.

When comparing the ACVs performance to the legacy AAV , Williams said the AAV was more fun to drive.

"It was like driving a beat-up truck on a dirt road," he said. "The ACV is more like a minivan."

He also said fitting the ACV aboard the ship in the well deck was a bit tight.

"But, if I'm taking it to fight," he said, "I'll take the ACV."