page_title: Assault Amphibious Vehicle
section_title: Combat history
hierarchical_section_title: Assault Amphibious Vehicle / History / Combat history
caption_attribution_description: English: Marines with Combat Assault Battalion, Ground Combat Element, 3rd Marine Expeditionary Brigade Forward, III Marine Expeditionary Force, in amphibious assault vehicles train with smoke grenades here Feb. 11, 2011. The training evolution also included courses of fire with the M2 .50 caliber heavy machine gun and the Mk19 automatic grenade launcher at a newly-constructed range built for multinational training by Marines from 4th Marine Regiment, 3rd Marine Division, III MEF, and Combat Assault Battalion, 3rd MarDiv, both assigned to GCE during Exercise Cobra Gold 2011.Cobra Gold 2011 is a yearly multinational, joint training exercise designed to improve partner nation interoperability.
context_page_description: The Assault Amphibious Vehicle —official designation AAVP-7A1 —is a fully tracked amphibious landing vehicle manufactured by U.S. Combat Systems.
  The AAV-P7/A1 is the current amphibious troop transport of the United States Marine Corps. It is used by U.S. Marine Corps Assault Amphibian Battalions to land the surface assault elements of the landing force and their equipment in a single lift from assault shipping during amphibious operations to inland objectives and to conduct mechanized operations and related combat support in subsequent mechanized operations ashore. It is also operated by other forces. Marines call them "amtracs", a shortening of their original designation, "amphibious tractor".
  In June 2018, the Marine Corps announced they had selected the BAE Systems/Iveco wheeled SuperAV for the Amphibious Combat Vehicle program to supplement and ultimately replace the AAV.
context_section_description: Twenty U.S.-built LVTP-7s were used by Argentina during the 1982 invasion of the Falkland Islands with all of them returning to the Argentine mainland before the war ended. From 1982 to 1984, LVTP-7s were deployed with U.S. Marines as part of the multi-national peacekeeping force in Beirut, Lebanon. As Marines became increasingly involved in hostilities, several vehicles sustained minor damage from shrapnel and small arms fire. On October 25, 1983 U.S. Marine LVTP-7s conducted a highly successful amphibious landing on the island of Grenada as part of Operation Urgent Fury. It was heavily used in the 1991 Gulf War and Operation Restore Hope. 
  After the 2003 invasion of Iraq, AAV-7A1s were criticized for providing poor protection for the crew and passengers compared with other vehicles, such as the M2 Bradley. Eight were disabled or destroyed during the Battle of Nasiriyah, where they faced RPG, mortar, tank and artillery fire. At least one vehicle was destroyed by fire from friendly A-10 Warthog Close Air Support (CAS) aircraft. 
  On 3 August 2005, 14 U.S. Marines and their Iraqi interpreter were killed when their AAV struck a roadside bomb in the city of Haditha in the Euphrates river valley in western Iraq..
  Eight U.S. Marines and one U.S. Navy sailor died on 30 July 2020, when their AAV sank in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Clemente Island, California, during a training exercise, ahead of an upcoming deployment.
caption: AAVs firing smoke grenades in training
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