The Defence Secretary has announced that the British Army will receive more than 500 Boxer armoured vehicles.
Defence Secretary, Ben Wallace, said in a news release:
“Our men and women of the Armed Forces deserve to have the best equipment to do their job. The Boxer vehicle is a leader in its field and I look forward to it arriving in units from 2023.”
The MoD say that the vehicles will form part of the Army’s Strike brigades, new units set up to deploy rapidly over long distances across varied terrains.
“Boxer is modular by design to meet these requirements – the same vehicle base can be rapidly reconfigured to fill different roles on the battlefield, from carrying troops across deserts to treating severely injured service personnel on the journey to hospital.
Initially the Army will buy a mixture of the troop-carrying variant, ambulances, command vehicles, and specialist designs to carry military equipment.”
The UK announced in 2018 that it would re-join the Boxer programme within the Organisation for Joint Armament Cooperation (OCCAR) and explore options to modernise its vehicle fleet and meet the Army’s Mechanised Infantry Vehicle requirement.
The UK played a central role in the original design, development and testing of the Boxer. In re-joining the programme last year, the UK reassumed the rights it had as a project partner.
The MoD are keen to stress that this contract was signed ahead of the pre-election period due to the strong value-for-money agreement reached with industry and other OCCAR nations, which expires on December 31st 2019, and announced today due to expected market implications.
It would be possible for a new Government to take a different position, they added.
Great news.
But get more variants. Fire support. ATGW. Air Defence. Mortar. There’s also an artillery variant apparently.
How can the wheeled armoured vehicle of the Strike Brigades be armed with nothing more than a machine gun?? What are they “striking”?
They are outgunned.
And get rid of those Ajax back to where they belong!
Where would you send the Ajax?
Down the sink. But seriously, finally signed! Phew, now why are they taking 3+ years for the first to be delivered?
Like the T26? Treasury slow downs??
Good to see the order placed, but I wonder if the Type 31 contract will make it under the wire? If it doesn’t the in service date is going to move a long way right.
Possibly I guess, spread it over a few fiscal years to even out the cost. I hope to see 1500 with many different modular versions as you’ve stated above. Make strike actually have some strike ability!
??. I’m not sure what the reason is for the delayed procurement, I can’t believe that the light reconnaissance units in British Army are still running round in the Scimitar….it’s 40+ years old for Christ’s sake!!
To the 2 remaining Armoured Brigades, from whence the Armoured Recc Regiments that are receiving it came. They currently have Scimitar.
Those Brigades will have their integral recc formations removed in forming the Strike Brigades, leaving the recc platoons of Warrior and Challenger units. Not great.
Even worse, what were once 5 formation Brigades are reduced to 3 with the planned changes, as 1 MBT, 2 Warrior, 1 Scimitar, 1 HPM Mastiff become 1 MBT, 2 Warrior.
Our Armoured Brigades will be neutered to form these Strike Brigades, which lack firepower and are half made up of Tracks half of wheels, lack the necessary HET vehicles, and god knows what else.
But is it not the point that these wheeled “strike” brigades are not intended to be faced up with fully armoured enemies? Its concept is to behave differently. Im sure its possible others can go more about that last sentence, and far more expertly than me.
But is this concept valid. The whole thing has changed over time. Should we persist with full on MBTs and tracked vehicles?
Yes, we should. And will continue to do so with the remaining armoured brigades. In my view the Army still needs an armoured fist, but I would not prioritise it over the RAF and RN.
But, what is often overlooked with these Strike Brigades, is that they mask cuts. After D Cameron announced them with much fanfare in 2015 the details of just what was being cut amongst the enablers emerged, to enable the Army to be “rebalanced” as Fallon put it.
Also, the previous 3 Armoured Brigades had 15 infantry and RAC units. Now, 2 Armoured and 2 Strike, 1 brigade more, will have 14! Another cut.
But a single unit. But a cut none the less.
What the Mod could have done was leave our 3 armoured Brigades alone and convert the 2 deployable brigades in the then 1 ( UK ) Division to Strike, beginning by using the existing wheeled Foxhound vehicles in the interim.
But that would not have resulted in cuts, which was their aim.
All I interesting enough. But should we commit to Europe with MBTs… Where else would we use them? Is our best help there not air power? Germany Poland France etc.. surely they are the users of heavy armour. Are not we more “expeditionary”. To try everything, we will end up doing nothing.
I don’t disagree with your comments.
I’d still like the British Army to retain some armoured capability, and lets face it, its pretty minimal already!
Our heavy formations remaining in the Armoured Brigades comprise, after the changes to Army2020 refine.
2 MBT
4 Warrior.
2 AS90.
2 Armoured Engineer.
Plus the varied support units of the RLC,RS,RAMC,REME,RA, some of which also have armour.
You just never know when they might be found necessary.
“You just never know when they might be found necessary.”
That’s the key point isn’t. Defence is a nation state’s ultimate insurance policy. You take it out to cover risk. Unlike a normal policy though just paying a bigger premium does not get you instant increased cover!
Which means after a couple of decades of ‘peace divedend if we have to respond to another crisis overseas we could well come up short on cover!
Look, you have to be prepared for everything and having a credible MBT force is extremely important. Just because recently we’ve taken part in missions where we thought the tank is unsuitable (the Americans and the Danes took MBT’s to Afghan actually), it doesn’t mean that we won’t ever need them again.
The MBT will always be relevant, it is vital that we bring the other 200 Chally 2’s out of retirement and give them the “Black Knight” upgrades which include a new turret, a more powerful engine and a smoothbore cannon, the same as the Abrams and the Leopard.
Yep at the end of the day all of our armed forces including the army do actual need to be able to deploy units that are capable of facing a peer. For the army that’s an armoured formations of a likely peer enemy. In reality that’s units from something like the 4th guards armoured division of the western military district.
Yesterdays war was a long drawn out asymmetric conflict against irregulars played out on a global scale, the mistake would be in think that’s what tomorrow’s war will look like.
What do the scouts say? “Always be prepared”?
That’s why we needs to retain a half decent sized MBT force, most of our potential adversaries have tank numbers in the thousands and what’s the best tool for fighting enemy armour???? A bloody tank of course….
Well, technically an Apache or fast jet in the CAS role, but we dont have enough of those either!
The strike Brigades in their current planned form, both equipment wise and tactically , will be outclassed even by a third rate military driving around in “technicals” who have even the old TOW missiles.
The concept of deployment being touted and trialed is a troop of Ajax, carrying a platoon of lads in Boxers. Deploying independently, as platoon plus groups supposedly dominating designated areas, with many miles between. No independent OS, no direct fire weaponary above 40mm, no ATGW other than a couple of hand held javelin, no AD/LLAD, limited attached REME support and no recovery vehicles. A Boxer cannot recover an Ajax, an Ajax struggles to recover another Ajax, no depth, no immidiate casevac, lose one or two vehicles, totally fucked!
The Strike Brigade concept is flawed, the equipment is flawed, mixing of tracks and wheels, thereby negating the advantages of both. The French, who have reasonably well equipped “Strike” type Brigades with all of the above are, and have been finding their Mali etc deployments hard and ineffective on occasion. UK Strike is all about cuts, and desperation in regard to finding already bought and paid for fleet of vehicles, namely Ajax, a role! Answer, CDS gets a spine, Ajax goes back to Armoured Recce, Boxer buy to include AD, 120mm mortar and medium armour with minimum 90mm-105mm, ATGW carrier, then, and only then will you have a real, capable, wheeled and deployable Strike Brigade.
I can go on about strike at length, but alas typing all I want to say would bore you lot to death, and I fact, Daniele is always better at explaining than me! Cheers.
I’m not disagreeing. But with all the proper tail and support we have to accept fewer brigades.
True mate, and therefore the fewer Brigades we have means they all need to be deployable, effective and survivable. Strike Brigades are none of the above I’m afraid. Sad state of affairs with the Strike concept.
You can’t have heavy armour with a strike Brigade (even though the US military does) according to the M.O.D and this, I think, is the reasoning behind the decision to cull our Chally 2 force. In my own personal opinion, I think it’s utter codswallop….
We have to be prepared for every eventually and when we think about our potential adversaries, most of them have a large MBT force. Where does this decision leave us? Up s**t creek without a paddle…
In my opinion, we should recommission the 200 Chally 2’s in storage and deploy them to Eastern Europe, with NATO picking up the bill for maintaining them. This would give the crews the opportunity to work in that environment and work alongside their NATO Allies there. There’s still a lot of NATO troops in Germany and Eastern Europe, see what I mean??
Hi Airborne
I have been reading about the Strike Brigades on here and elsewhere and share your concerns for our version of the concept, but I also think there is a serious missunderstanding of the key feature of the Strike Brigade concept amongst politicians in particular – Strategic Mobility.
This was demonstrated by the French actions in 1991 Gulf War. I actually think that the US was so impressed with the speed of the French advance that they decided to develop the concept for themselves. The point is the French advance was a flanking move, avoiding Iraqi heavy units (those that hadn’t flattened by Coalition air power) and pushed rapidly forward disrupting enemy lines of communication.
The point is that it was the speed of the move in the context of US and UK heavy divisions kicking the front door down that was so effective and I can only imagine the impact of Iraqi Command and Control (or what remained of it).
Now take a Strike Brigade and put it in a defencive position. It looses the element of surprise and confusion its rapid mobility gives it. Now the battle is about fire power. Given the nature of what the French are trying to do in Mali I suspect the mobility advantage lies with the insurgents, who if equipment with TOW, have the reach to do damage. Now if it was a peer enemy and MBT’s rather than a technicals …
I have to agree. however, the French had it relatively easy, as there was next to no opposition in that part of the Saudi, Jordanian and Iraqi border. The other benefit they had is that their route had been properly reconnoitred. What I mean by this is, the desert sands on the Jordanian border are like talcum powder. Wheeled vehicles get stuck relatively easily, so require a more solid base to run on. This was well known, so the French SF and Legion mapped the area to find the more suitable ground. Their “strike brigade” was also backed up with AMX30s which were bloody quick compared to our Chally 1s, so weren’t that far behind.
This compares to what the USMC were finding with their LAVs which kept getting stuck in the sand and required rescuing by tracked vehicles.
The problem the French are having in Mali, is pretty much what we were facing in Afghan, i.e. hit and run raids with pre-laid ambushes. There have been a number of ambushes where the insurgents have been using the latest Russian Kornet ATGWs. This is premium grade and likely to have come from Syria. They are mostly using VBLs, VABs, ECR 90s and the odd AMX10s. The majority of these do not have additional armour fitted, such as bar armour and they are paying the price for it. I hate to admit it, but the French haven’t learnt from our mistakes. At present we do not have ground forces in theatre, just the Chinooks with force protection. However, the fighting has spread to Chad, Niger and Northern Burkina Faso!
Personally, I think the Strike Brigade concept has its merits, but only as an additional force to the armoured brigade. To operate as intended, it must have the correct vehicles and support. The Boxer is probably the best vehicle suited as its so adaptable, but the current buy does not reflect it. Ajax must go back to the Armoured Brigade and a lighter wheeled reconnaissance (Boxer) vehicle take its place. I could talk about what else is required but Airbourne and others have said that part. I only hope the Army takes note of what’s been said and starts turning the brigade into a real force rather than the paper tiger it is currently!
It shocks me that we’re still running round in the bloody Scimitar, it’s over 45 years old and has some serious flaws and issues. What we really need is to get this Ajax project going ASAP, the Scimitar is just not good enough…..end of.
We should never have culled the Chally 2 force, no way, but the bean counters at the M.O.D saw things differently for some strange reason. I think we’ve got about 230 active Chally 2’s which is absolutely ridiculous in my opinion.
Filling out our armoured forces with light reconnaissance vehicles is farcical, amongst our potential adversaries, we’re a laughing stock I’m sure…..
Range targets
Indeed Daniele,makes you wonder if there would have been anything to gain staying in the Boxer Programme rather than leaving for the car crash that was FRES ?.
If we had stayed we would have had all 500 delivered by now. I’m still not sure what the purpose of Ajax is as it’s far to heavy to be a scout vehicle. It is better suited to replace warrior altogether but too much money has been wasted on the midlife update
The Ajax is the new small stealthy scout vehicle able to drive over narrow bridges, weave its way through trees and dirt tracks being the eyes and ears of the new strike brigades!
Rebuild the Scimitar!
Daniele/Steve H – 50 Scimitar’s were built new in 2012 (called unsurprisingly MK2) with the Afghanistan commitments in mind.
You’re right, I’d firgotten!
Boxer was the best of the three FRES vehicles although all were too heavy to be air portable, having pulled out of the boxer program twice before ministers would have look stupid if they chose it at that stage. Then we ended up with a converted ascod which gave birth to Ajax. The CV90 was a safer bet as already developed, BAE was out of favour due to their recent offerings not living up to expectations!
To my mind there’s a fairly simple way of granting the strike brigades some firepower and making them all-wheeled formations. Convert half the Ajax order to non-turreted versions of the same vehicle (using the latter to replace some of the FV432 in the armoured brigades). Place the turrets (with 40mm cannon) that now haven’t been used on Ajax on to a proportion of the Boxer fleet within the strike brigades. Nobody looses out on orders for vehicles or turrets.
I know nothing of the feasability of that sort of thing but seems reasonable?
Enough Ajax Scout would still be needed for 2 Regiments in the Strike Brigades and to furnish the recc platoons in the Warrior Battalions and Challenger Regiments.
Sorry, Armoured Brigades not Strike. Where’s the Edit gone George?
What’s wrong with the Ajax (other than the APC version only holding 4 people)? Surely a tracked/wheeled mix is the most flexible option?
But agree, whatever the hull, there should be ATGW (recently displayed Brimstone launcher?) and AD (Starstreak?) variants. And in terms of guns, is there any chance of merging naval and army calibres for common systems and ammo? Before sitting a suitable gun type on top of one of these (57 or 73mm Bofors variants?) if that’s even necessary? Land is not my specialist environment but I do like a streamlined procurement and supply chain.
Well, there is an Ajax or Boxer with a whopping great anti tank cannon on the market but the M.O.D, in their infinite wisdom of course, have poo pooed the idea and said a firm “NO”
With our Chally 2 force culled and still under threat, what have we got to take on a T-90 or something else like it if the time came to it? This is what’s worrying about the direction the M.O.D are taking on land warfare, it seems they have put all their eggs in one basket with the Carrier’s and their F-35’S but…….they aren’t always going to be able to play a part, like in a landlocked Country for example….
Good news. The Strike concept (which is an americanism for light mechanised role) seems to be taking steps towards realisation with both Ajax & Boxer. However there are still some glaring holes. Ajax is a recce vehicle not a light tank; where does the Strike Brigade get it’s manoeuvre anti-tank capability from? Similarly the 105 Light Gun isn’t mobile or heavy enough to support this concept. Perhaps a 90mm Boxer Gun tank variant (maybe with anti-tank guided missiles fitted) and a 155mm Howitzer variant would complete the picture. More orders are needed if these Brigade’s are going to have a full spectrum of fight ability.
A question I’ve not seen answered anywhere. Does the Boxer have an amphibious capability?
No. Its too heavy. I think the lightest version if Patria has an amphibious capability but vbrc, Phiranah 5 and boxer don’t offer it.
Hmm, not ideal for brigades that are meant to send deploy thousands of miles.
The supporting Engineer Regiment had better have enough bridging equipment?
I guess its not much use in the Middle East and they figured they have plenty of options in Eastern Europe to cross rivers.
I’m not sure how much I would enjoy swimming in a 30+ tonne armoured vehicle, it freaks me out that they can drive a Leopard underwater with nothing but a snorkle.
Unless you are actually playing Marine amphibious capability is a net negative. It reduces your armor, speed, firepower, and anything else that takes up weight and space. In the Army money is better spent on bridging equipment and engineering vehicles than amphibious vehicles.
Its almost like a token gesture, a Strike Brigade with none of the enabling forces having the same strategic mobility as the Infantry is an exercise in futility.
99% of the readers on this page will be fully conversant on what I’m about to say but humour me.
Lets look at some key functions of a (hypothetical) strike brigade.
Find. 1 x Ajax Reg
Fix. 1 x 105mm Reg
Strike. 3 x Boxer Btn
Exploit. 3 x Boxer Btn (Ajax support)
Sustain. 1 x Log Reg
Enable/shape. 1 x Armoured Engineer Reg (Trojan/Titan/Terrier)
Out of all the platforms mentioned only Boxer has true strategic mobility, you could argue 105mm can be strategically mobile if you have the correct towing vehicle but the lack of protection would be problematic as would the sustain problem inherent with artillery. Lets be clear from the outset, tracked vehicles are not, no matter how well you spin it, strategically mobile.
This leaves the brigade commander in a rather sticky situation, does he/she punch forward at maximum speed using only the Inf on Boxer, a battlegroup with no supporting elements is a battlegroup in name only (lets call this light strike). Or, does the brigade commander move at the speed of the slowest unit, Trojan and Titan based on Challenger 2, and sacrifice speed for firepower (heavy strike).
Light strike is an immediate no go in all but the most benign and permissive environments and only if the situation required no engineering assets, no counter battery fires or OS and is happy with the area not being pre reconnoitred. Logistical support will be a pain in the ass so the op will be limited to BG sustain assets only. I am struggling to find a potential enemy formation that fits a light strike target set, a battalion of Santa’s little helpers perhaps? backed up by the baddies from Care Bares with Star trek red shirts in fire support?
Heavy strike is just as ridiculous as light, why limit your speed to that of a Challenger 2 but not bring Challenger 2 with you? in which case an armoured brigade will be far superior.
We all know the cause of this ridiculous situation, we want Bollinger for Lambrini money, we want a capability but we just don’t want to pay for it.
BV
See, you done it again, you and Daniele, always explaining everything so much better and quicker than my waffling rant!
Nonsense. Behave!
You two have experience. I’m a damn nobody.
In all seriousness, looking at BV’s list there, I’m not even sure the Strike Brigades will even have that level of Engineer support. I have seen no info on what the 2 Engineer Regiments assigned will comprise. Titan Trojan Terrier all too heavy surely.
All I read on the Logistics support is that the RLC Regiment and REME Battalion of each Brigade will be merged into a “Combat Service Support Regiment”
Why this is necessary I’ve no idea.
I recall that sort of logistic set up was last done on an established basis by 19 Light Brigade.
I concur with Daniele, reading both yours and BV Buster’s take down of this is fascinating and even made more so by the relevant experience you both have
But hat tipped to Daniele, for someone with no experience, you are clued up mate on all this, great insight
Respect to you Sole, as always.
Gosh, after all that, I think I need a bath!
One bath later. What a team effort…Masher Mandelli eases through several tackles showing devastating ball-control. He chips through to mid-fielder Airborne, who muscles his way through two defenders! A long cross to Slasher Sole who slides the ball, seemingly with little effort, to Basher Buster who slams the ball on the volley, past a frustrated goal keeper and into the back of the net! Much hugging and congratulations ensue…but then, that’s premiership UKDJ these days…nice to see!
Thought you’d be a Rugby man…..!
I was until last Saturday!
Lol! There is always the 6 Nations to look forward to.
Yes, we play Scotland at Murrayfield….oh God!
I’m hoping the Olympic Games next year reminds many Scots that, actually, Great Britain as a team, together, do rather well.
Very true!
Hi BV,
Couldn’t agree more.
One observation from the list you present is that we appear to have some good kit (coming soon), but it is being miss used.
Also, it seems to me that the Strike Brigade concept is something of a niche use concept. As the concept is currently sold by id advocates (and not just here in the UK but across the pond as well) is that it is really at its best during the Exploitation / Breakout phase of a battle. A force with the Strategic Mability and sufficient fire power to seriously disrupt an enemy’s Lines of Communication and avoiding tangling with enemy heavy units. Of course the mix of kit we are proposing at the moment, as so you explained so well, clearly undermines the concept on both mobility and firepower grounds.
The only other use I can see is as an early entry into threat force, that could either secure the port of entry for the following heavies (fair enough) or in a worst case scenario fight a delaying engagement using fire power to engage [briefly] at range and mobility to disengage fast before an enemy could properly respond. Although, I think this is somewhat far fetched or at least theoretical as I am struggling to think of an instance where such an ‘ideal’ engagement has ever been fought without the defending force finding itself having to stand it’s ground at some point, at which point a Strike Brigade would be at a serious disadvantage. Our version as currently proposed, lacking fire power and mobility (as a unit) would be sacrificed on the alter of political stupidity – again!
Good news… Although I am not sure that Camouflage is going to be very effective…
I actually saw a variant for another Country’s Boxer that had a huge anti tank cannon like on some of the US Stryker vehicles in a promo video…..but the party poopers at the M.O.D have come out and said “We’re not going to go there, it’s unnecessary”
There is bound to be module created for box launched Brimstone, Starstrek and hopefully 120mm Mortor.
I think they will opt for Archer when it comes to the 155mm howitzer replacement but who knows.
We need to get the rump of the infantry mounted sooner rather than later.
I think we will both be dust before that happens. Of 31 Battalions 9 currently have armoured mounts. That will be reducing to 8.
I do not include the LPM Foxhound Battalions in that as I thought they had done away with the LPM concept but they still seem to be around?
Still, there’s the MANN trucks I Suppose for the Light Role infantry!
Yeah 7,000+ Mann trucks lol
These boxers look a bit like the APC from Aliens, minus the phased plasma phalanx, particle beam canons or any other kind of decent armament. I am worried these vehicles are going to get chopped to pieces without total air superiority. All they have to come up against is a peer or near peer IFV, light tank or canon armed scout vehicle and they are toast.
Seems like a bad decision. Where is the standing or fighting power in these vehicles?
Immediately order at least 100 more vehicles with a decent turret, call it the boxer fire support vehicle or whatever you like but for every 5 of these vehicles there should be something with a hard punch. 90-105mm canon, coaxial HMG, etc etc or just design a modern scorpion light tank to go alongside them.
Worried!!!!
Lot of old miseries on the board today. You lot would boo Santa Claus.
Rejoice for goodness sake, this is the best wheeled AFV in the world and the BA is getting 500 and 60% of the work sourced in the UK.
Plenty of time left to buy Gucci’s guns & missiles to fit on them.
Greetings Mr Rider, Mandelli, Herodotus, Survivor, Errrrrrrborne, et al.
Lots to say in such a short period of time so forgive me if this seems rushed.
First let me give you all a few course grain points.
I should have made myself clearer during my last post, I am a 100% firm believer in strike. Having personally seen it delivered well a number of times by different nations (no not Pristina, I wish) I have become a convert to the whole idea of fast moving medium-weight, network-centric warfare. The key takeaway point is, the countries involved were fully committed to the concept of strike and didn’t cut corners when things became expensive politically or financially.
Imagine strike as the new blitzkrieg, Liddell Hart spent decades trying to convince the powers that be that the future of warfare will be based around manoeuvre and slaughter. Back in the 1930s that was just not as sexy as big guns and bayonets so his view fell on def (English, unfortunately not German) ears. Imagine the current generation of generals, cutting their teeth in Afghan and Iraq, slow, light infantry/protected mobility scenarios being told the future is not a slow moving MRAP covered by an anti IED team, or set piece battles in the green zone but in fact based around wheels and data radios, not even a slight tingle in the M&S Y-fronts.
So why do I think this will work? If I can get a divisional sized formation to any point in Europe in a matter of days the deterrent effect would be massive even if the said division was somewhat lacking in firepower. Without sounding tawdry, having the generic eastern European country X steam rolling over the generic eastern European country Y is not as politically damning as the queens soldiers getting hammered and the UK government (Big 5) being militarily embarrassed. To put it simply, the second NATO arrives it becomes a peace support operation no mater what the phase of warfare.
What I would like to do is answer each comment in turn and I think the best way of doing this will be to describe a concept of ops including a full order of battle of a hypothetical strike brigade, we could then wargame in a slightly wank way to develop understanding and refine what we think good strike should look like. I believe we have all the relevant expertise on this site as demonstrated by the comments upstream.
What do you all think?
BV
You are proper crazy and it’s a great idea! And also don’t get me wrong, I’ve been light role all my career and understand the needs and requirements! Just think UK strike plan is a bit Aldi when it needs to be closer to Marks and Spencer’s! Chat soon mate!
Fire away!
I have a question. The proposed Strike Brigades have just 2 Infantry Battalions on Boxer. Brigades of past years had 3, whether it was 3 Warrior, 1 Warrior and 2 Saxon, or now, 2 Warrior and 1 Mastiff.
Should they not have 3? As in 2 up one in depth? Is this a new concept, or just the usual cuts exercise?
£2.8bn? Are they gold plated? For 500+ half of which will probably not even be truly combat capable. Recovery, ambulances, command vehicles. We are always good at providing back up to an ever depleting front line. Too many signal regs, REME maintaining fewer and fewer combat vehicles. Armour, artillery of all descriptions chopped by over 50% in the last few years but still too many REMF’s on the payroll. Cut those first but you might as well talk to a brick wall. What has changed in the world since Tim Collins said we needed a mininum of 6 deployable armoured brigades? Has world security improved? Of course not but the British Army continues to ‘wind down’ creaking on with a CR2 that should have been upgraded with 4 regiments benefitting from that. We ponce about for years talking endlessly about stuff that takes years to come to fruition. An UOR comes to mind from Cameron’s govt for more chinooks in Afghanistan. By the time it took for the first one to be delivered we had quit the country!
One thing about the USMC, last time l looked they had 230,000 personnel including reserves. 38 amphib ships. They can deploy men at will worldwide. The current proposals are hardly cutting down on their capabilities and no troop numbers are being cut. The tip of the spear is never tempered ‘over there’. We’ve blunted ours for decades.
Hi Bill.
I agree with most of that bar a few things.
Firstly, you say too many Signals Regiments? The opposite is true. There are too few RS! And the RS importance is growing with the information age and greater demand for comms of all kinds. Once all our Brigades had a Signal Squadron. Now only 16AA has its own, the rest of the Brigade Signal Squadrons have been cut.
Look at 1 (UK) Division and see how many Royal Signals are in it? None. Whatsoever.
REMFs? The rear support chain has mostly been out sourced or is run by MoD Civil Service, who do a vital role. Head office and officers have been cut several times.
You’ll find that, especially in 2010, it was the enablers that have been cut. Engineers. Signals. Artillery. RLC.
Which highlights another glaring issue. We have “too many” Infantry Battalions. Kept due to the “cap badge mafia” with a nod and a wink, putting pressure on politicians that their local regiment must be saved.
Now I’m against cuts of all kinds, so I’m not advocating cuts to the infantry for the hell of it. But what is the point of battalions alone that have no artillery, engineers, signals, REME, medics, RLC, and AAC support? They cannot form deployable all arms brigades.
Have you looked at the ORBAT of 1 ( UK ) Division lately? It is a group of Infantry Brigades with no enablers, save 102 Logistic Brigade.
Not one is deployable as a self contained brigade with supports.
On the Army website they say one is at readiness to deploy worldwide at short notice. Yes, it is, though it is never said which one, and just Infantry, I’d guess from whatever Infantry are available, with support from the likes of 29 PCMR RLC and 30 Signals.
Even looking at Force Troops Command, or whatever it is called this week with all the pointless re branding, its assets are going to support 3 ( UK )Division, where the armoured brigades are, and the Strike Brigades will be.
TLDR – There should have been more balance in the cuts, with less enablers axed so that what Infantry and Armour we have left can be properly supported by the support arms of the RA, RS, RE, RLC, and RAMC, and proper all arms brigades formed.
As it is, the ORBAT of the Field Army is unbalanced.
Daniele, impeccably responded to as always! More balance in the cuts is what is always required but never quite gets there. But then we are dealing with the MOD.
Sadly Bill, yes.
Though alarmingly, I also believe much of the Strike Brigades fiasco ( and previous FRES ) is not down to politicians but the army itself.
General Carter was the architect of Strike Brigades I read? And the absolutely ground breaking genius idea of hamstringing them by putting them with tracked Ajax, while insisting that the 3rd Armoured Regiment, the KRH at Tidworth, is dispensed with at all speed!
Why? Why? Why?
Is this a case of talking about how many battlegroups the brigade can generate, rather than individual battalions?
Although this comes back to problem you and others have highlighted many times before with mixing tracks and wheels. A battlegroup consisting of Ajax and Boxer will not be able to get the most out of Boxer’s strengths.
I completely agree with keeping Ajax with the armoured brigades and buying a wheeled scout vehicle based on Boxer to fulfil the recce role for the strike brigades.
I like the Singaporean Terrex, I think that is a really great product and they already have a scout version I think. But hopefully if Boxer is bought in numbers and variants it will hopefully succeed. It is sad though that a wholly UK firm cannot provide this system anymore.
(I’m not saying we advocate buying Terrex now, mind, just generally speaking I admire the platform).
Morning Marquis.
Yes I’m aware in the field a brigade operates in battle groups of combined arms rather than Battalions. But it is those same battalions and the 2 Ajax Regiments of the RAC that will be with them that form the teeth of them.
And in the previous brigades of the army there were 3 Infantry units.
More to go round, more flexibility, more reserves.
Hi Daniele,
Agreed, I was just trying to play devil’s advocate, to be honest. Maybe they are planning to draft in an additional infantry battalion on an ad hoc basis from the adaptable force. If the reduction to 2 infantry battalions is due to cost cutting, do you think it is a legacy of the drastic cuts of 2010, or another round of cutting?
Interestingly there was a quote on forces.net about the recent trial last month which is rather interesting: “For the exercise, 3 RIFLES were pitched against the Household Cavalry and were given assets they wouldn’t usually have at this level, including Gun batteries, Apache, Wildcat and UAVs.”
Given the cuts to artillery and the small numbers of Apaches being ordered, I wonder whether the Strike Brigades would have access to those assets on a regular basis in the future!
The whole process has taken a fair old length of time already. And they won’t be ready until 2025? I mean, we’re likely going to have another defence review next year after the election, regardless of who wins, and maybe the whole concept of strike brigades could be cancelled altogether.
I daresay some people might call that a blessing in disguise, but generally speaking we really should try and move faster in this regard. I know wholesale changes to an entire branch of the Armed Forces can’t be done with a click of the fingers, but such long gestation periods leave these proposals open to alteration, cancellation, or even redundancy at the hands of a change of government or geopolitical circumstance.
I would not know marquis, there are battalions available, though maybe not the money to outfit them as Boxer units.
There were 6 battalions on Foxhound as LPM – Light Protected Mobility Battalions within 1 Div. Indeed, most of the Infantry are still there.
16AA for example has had a 3rd restored after 2 were seen to be too few.
Of 31 Battalions, only 11 are in deployable brigades! Another supports UKSF.
4 more have been dismantled as line units and given a specialist role.
Apache and Wildcat are meant to be available to 3 ( UK ) Division as a whole, as well as 16AA and maritime ops.
I doubt the Strike Brigades would have more of a call on them.
It is all a bit of a mess and I agree with your wider comment on the time things take and thus the openness to alterations by politicians treating the military like a football.
Hopefully they change the colour scheme – current paint is great for moral, not so great for camouflage.
Although it would make for a great diversion.
Good choice for the UK finally! Hope the IFV variant is predominant as its gives you the auto cannon for support. Looks like it carries the full 8 man fire team as well in mine blast resistant seats. I think the APC is too under-gunned.
The main strength comes from the modularity and I would like to see the UK build an artillery variant (105mm as per the old SP Abbott as there would be less wear than a 155mm system and it wouldn’t look so ungainly!).
As for recon the Aussies have picked a Boxer variant for Land 400 – why doesn’t the UK pick up this variant for the formation? it would keep all systems as common as possible within the Brigade easing logistics. I do however feel the UK needs to retain a broad range of Brigades – light through heavy and not chuck everything into this.
Great site and enjoy reading the opinions.