The history of the use of amphibious armored vehicles by the US military can be traced back to World War II. At that time, its main function was to safely transport naval forces from dock landing ships to the coast. Therefore, the most important function of amphibious armored vehicles is to resist the attack of machine guns and shells.
At present, the model used by the Marine Corps is AAV7A 1 amphibious assault vehicle, and 1979 began to serve. The chariot is driven by three people and can carry 25 marines. It is also equipped with a 50 caliber machine gun and a 40 mm semi-automatic Grenade launcher. Its maximum speed on land is 72 kilometers per hour, and its speed in water is 13 kilometers per hour.
Today, in order to meet the needs of the current war, the US military has spent about 2.5 million US dollars to refit AAV7A 1 amphibious assault vehicles with relatively light armor. This is because the most important task of amphibious assault vehicles now is to transport marines, and extra heavy armor may make the vehicles overweight and sink to the bottom of the sea.
Recently, the US Marine Corps began to use another new type of armored fighting vehicle-amphibious expeditionary fighting vehicle. The chariot is also driven by three people and can carry 17 fully armed marines.
The maximum speed of amphibious expedition vehicles on land is 72 kilometers per hour, and the maximum speed in water can reach 46 kilometers, which is three times that of amphibious assault vehicles in the past. It is also equipped with a more powerful 30 mm caliber cannon and a coaxial 7.62 mm caliber machine gun. With the mass production of this chariot, it will completely replace the current AAV7A 1 amphibious assault chariot in the near future.