Project 2025 Tracker / What’s done, what’s next

4. Department of Defense · Minor

Increase upgraded Light Armored Vehicle companies

Not started

116 4. Department of Defense

“Increase the number of upgraded Light Armored Vehicle (LAV) companies.”

What has happened

  1. Not started

    Nothing found, and the Marine Corps is moving in a different direction. Rather than increasing the number of upgraded Light Armored Vehicle companies, CRS reports that the Corps plans to transition its light armored reconnaissance battalions into mobile reconnaissance battalions built around small boats, aerial vehicles and ultra-light ground vehicles as well as light armored companies, and that the design was still not finalized as of November 2025. The Advanced Reconnaissance Vehicle intended to replace the LAV remains in development. Congress added nothing: the only Light Armored Vehicle mention in the enacted FY2026 defense appropriation is a single account reference, and no NDAA provision addresses LAV company counts.

Research log

What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence

Research notes

Instrument: a service force-structure decision, found in CRS R47614 v7 (2025-11-24) and confirmed on the Commandant’s October 2025 Force Design Update, which is Evidence here rather than a lead — www.marines.mil opens to a normal browser request (the bare hostname does not resolve, which is what the earlier note recorded as a refusal).

  • Recorded as not started with the mobile-reconnaissance-battalion transition attached because it is action on the named object that does not deliver the ask (progress is measured on this ask, not on an adjacent one).
  • Confirmed on the Commandant’s own record, 2026-09-03. marines.mil answers a normal browser request; the October 2025 Force Design Update was downloaded and read in full. It confirms the direction CRS reports and states it in the Corps’s own voice: the LAV is being replaced, not upgraded in greater numbers — “Compared to its LAV predecessor, the ARV will be capable of operating in the littorals with greater mobility and will be outfitted with advanced sensing and communications equipment” — and a new Maritime Reconnaissance Company operating the MMRC boat is being stood up inside the transition. No LAV company count increases anywhere in the document. The contrary reading that had rested on CRS alone now has its Primary.
Action
expand
Object
USMC Light Armored Vehicle companies
ID
224