This report documents an analytical model to assist in the planning of the Operational Test and Evaluation (OT&E) of the Marine Corps' prospective Advanced Amphibious Assault Vehicle (AAAV). The model's emphasis is on suitability issues such as Operational Availability in an on-land (after ocean transit) mission region. The model predicts strong sensitivity to the form of an assumed distribution of times to vehicle breakdown, and hence recommends that appropriate test data be obtained to reveal that form (the mean alone is inadequate). Removal of design faults likely to cause early failures is encouraged. The AAAV design is for a relatively lightweight but technologically advanced (mobile and lethal) amphibious vehicle that operates in platoons. If individual vehicles break down they must often be transported for repair, for example, to their point of origin, a ship. One option is to allow another platoon member to tow; another is to assign an auxiliary vehicle to transport. Such duties may seriously diminish the platoon productive mission availability (the towing/transport agents may themselves fail). OT&E should be designed to fully test for the system-wide effect of force (platoon, and beyond) sustainability requirements.
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