MARINE CORPS LOGISTICS BASE BARSTOW, Calif. -- Sweat, sparks, strip downs and armoring up. The Light Armored Vehicle up-armor project is making progress by leaps and bounds at the maintenance center.
According to Headquarters Marine Corps Fact Files, the LAV family of vehicles are quite diverse and versatile, from the LAV-25 which provides strategic mobility to reach and engage the threat, to the LAV-R which reaches and recovers/supports other disabled vehicles.
LAVs are all-terrain, all-weather vehicles with night capabilities. They are air transportable via C-130 Hercules aircraft, and the CH-53 E Super Stallion helicopter. When combat loaded, there are 200 ready rounds and 800 stowed rounds of 7.62mm ammunition. The LAVs have eight ready rounds and eight stowed rounds of smoke grenades. The vehicle can be made fully amphibious within three minutes.
Also based on the HQMC Fact Files, the vehicles average life expectancy is 30 years in a non-combat environment and five years in combat. Marines in the field soon found the LAVs had little protection from today’s warfare.
“We were supposed to get a shipment in August and finally got the LAVs in October,” said Tom Pitard, 743 welding shop supervisor.
Of the 16 vehicles MCB was originally slated to receive, 11 were sent and of those, seven are ready to be shipped back, said Pitard.
After the vehicles are received they go through the craneway to be stripped and prepared for the armor to come ahead, said Pitard. The vehicles go through steam and blast to prepare the vehicle for additional armor and repairs.
The next step in the process is the first set of non-destructive testing. NDT tests the hull of the vehicle for cracks or imperfections that would make the vehicle inefficient in combat.
“We feel we are moving along real well. There have been reports of other places having a cracking issue around the shock mounts, but we haven’t had one yet,” said Pitard.
After NDT the LAVs begin the up-armor process courtesy of the Welding Shop, said Pitard. “Bosses” are put on the inside and out to set the framework for the additional armor to come.
After the work is done at the welding shop the vehicles move to the new weld shop and are fitted with quarter-inch aluminum and steel mount brackets. The LAVs are also fitted with “E glass”, a phony armor template to ensure that the real armor will provide maximum protection for the troops inside.
“They’re over there getting shot at and we’re building the stuff here to keep them safe,” said Pitard.
Safety and quality checks don’t end after the NDT. After welding, the vehicles go through another NDT.
The vehicles are then painted and spall liners are installed. Spalling is a destructive action that happens when a projectile pierces a vehicle’s armor and splinters it, which in turn makes the vehicle as dangerous as a fragmentation grenade. Spall liners protect the vehicle’s crew from the devastating effects of anti-tank munitions. The spall lining systems weigh 380 lbs. each.
Pitard said MCB employees are the best at what they do, “we make sure that when Marines get an LAV from Barstow they know they’re getting a good product, because Barstow does it better,” said Pitard.
After the spall liners are installed the vehicles are reassembled and sent back to the units they belong too.
At the end of the day Pitard says he is glad that his shop could, “provide a little more protection for the Marines in Iraq.”