U.S. Marines Conduct Night Amphibious Assaults Using Sea-Launched Armored Vehicles.

Newly released imagery shows U.S. Marines staging Amphibious Combat Vehicles inside the well deck of USS Makin Island during night training off California. The exercise highlights how the Marine Corps is modernizing ship-to-shore assault tactics to operate under low visibility and missile-era threats.

Fresh imagery released by the U.S. Marine Corps on February 04, 2026, shows Marines from 3rd Assault Amphibian Battalion, 1st Marine Division, staging Amphibious Combat Vehicles for night operations inside the well deck of the Wasp-class amphibious assault ship USS Makin Island (LHD 8) during Quarterly Underway Amphibious Readiness Training 26.2 off the California coast. In the low-light sequence, ACVs sit tight along the slick deck as the stern gate area glows blue-white and safety lighting throws red reflections across pooled seawater, underscoring a hard amphibious truth: the most dangerous moments often come at the seam between ship and sea, not on the objective.
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USMC Amphibious Combat Vehicle-Personnel (ACV-P) 8x8 is an armored, fully amphibious troop carrier launching from assault ships. It carries 3 crew + 13 Marines, swims in open-water surf, then continues high-speed cross-country. Remote weapon station (.50 cal or 40 mm Mk19) provides protected suppressive fire for ship-to-shore assault and inland security (Picture source: U.S. Marines).

The vehicle pictured is the Amphibious Combat Vehicle Personnel variant, or ACV-P, the Marine Corps’ new ship-to-shore armored connector intended to replace the legacy AAV fleet in assault amphibian battalions. In its baseline personnel configuration, ACV-P carries three crewmembers and a 13-Marine squad, while also hauling enough combat equipment and sustainment for the first push inland, reducing the immediate logistics drag after the surf line. Congressional reporting notes the vehicle is designed to move those Marines with two days of combat equipment and supplies, a seemingly mundane detail that becomes decisive when an initial landing must disperse quickly and operate under threat.

ACV-P is built around a modern 8x8 amphibious architecture optimized for open-water operations rather than the sheltered-water assumptions that constrained many earlier wheeled amphibians. Marine Corps Systems Command program material highlights a key performance driver: ship-to-shore movement from 12 nautical miles, a standoff distance aligned with today’s anti-ship missile and coastal surveillance realities. The same public brief confirms the ACV-P’s remote weapon station supports either a Mk 19 automatic grenade launcher or a .50-caliber machine gun, providing suppressive fire and point defense while keeping the gunner protected under armor during the most exposed phases of an assault.

Open-source defense reporting adds context on how the platform translates that requirement into practical mobility. The ACV family uses a protected propulsion arrangement for swimming, and the design is credited with road speeds above 65 mph and water speeds of six-plus knots, a pairing that matters because the vehicle must not only reach the beach under its own power but also exploit inland routes fast enough to keep pace with mechanized maneuver once ashore. That dual-mode performance is the difference between a connector that merely lands troops and a combat vehicle that can immediately contribute to tempo, security, and shock action beyond the beachhead.

A well deck at night compresses risk: tight spacing, wash from ballasting, reduced visibility, and the need to coordinate sailors, Marines, and vehicle crews around flooded-deck procedures. Yet the tactical payoff is substantial, training in no-light or low-light conditions forces disciplined signature control, reduces exposure to visual and infrared sensors, and rehearses the kind of confusion an adversary aims to impose with drones, loitering munitions, and coastal fires. In short, if the assault must happen under observation, the U.S. approach is to make darkness a tool rather than a handicap, then validate it with repetition at sea.

QUART 26.2, concluded January 20-30, 2026, was framed by the Navy-Marine Corps team as a deliberately practical integration event ahead of larger workups. The 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit and PHIBRON 7 emphasized that this iteration expanded training by using an LHD, and the event blended ship-to-shore movements by ACVs and LCACs with aviation deck landing qualifications across MV-22B, UH-1Y, AH-1Z, CH-53E, and MH-60R aircraft. Leaders involved described the objective as learning to operate as a single amphibious team before deployment pressure narrows options, with Peruvian naval officers embarked to observe and deepen interoperability.

The platform enabling this choreography is USS Makin Island, the final ship built in the Wasp class but a technological pivot inside that class. U.S. Navy ship information notes LHD 8 was the first Wasp-class hull built with gas turbine engines and electric drive, replacing legacy steam arrangements and adding modernized ship systems. The Navy further reports Wasp-class ships sit at the center of Amphibious Ready Groups, moving Marine landing forces ashore by both aircraft and landing craft while supporting doctrines such as ship-to-objective maneuver. For Makin Island specifically, the Navy has tied the hybrid approach to lifecycle savings exceeding $250 million, an operational advantage that translates into more time underway and more repetitions of exactly the kind of night well deck training seen here.

Taken together, the images from QUART 26.2 capture the Marine Corps’ modernization in its most tangible form: armored vehicles, sailors, ballast water, and the disciplined routine that turns a complex amphibious ship into a combat launch platform. The ACV-P is not just replacing an aging vehicle; it is anchoring a new rhythm of ship-to-shore maneuver built around standoff, survivability, and speed, rehearsed in darkness because the next fight will not offer ideal conditions.