First Challenger 3 guns enter production ahead of schedule

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Cheers AB always interesting from your point of view.

I second that!

Even during the Cold War, the BAOR’s life expectancy was about a week from sustained conflict/contact and that was with 500 or so Chieftain/Challenger Mk1s. Where it was hoped that they would provide enough of a sacrifice to slow the Warsaw Pact down enough to enable France and Spain to bring up their armour, but also to get the UK’s remaining armour across the Channel and ready to roll east. Which was hopefully enough to delay the Warsaw Pact’s westward march, to then allow the US to get their armour across the Atlantic.

Today, there is no Warsaw Pact, but there is constant underlying possibility that there could be a conflict with Russia. Also today we have the benefit of much of the Warsaw Pact now being part of NATO, which includes Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovak Republic, Romania and Bulgaria. These countries are now the buffer states where any conflict with Russia will likely be played. Not forgetting Russia’s thorny problem that is Ukraine.

It would seem logical that these Nations form the bulk of the heavy armoured force. I would agree. However, as per our roll in a cold war scenario, where we would be expected to form the reserves and counter any breakthrough. I don’t believe this expectation has changed, except we probably could just about manage to put a meaningful force in the field compared to a few years ago. But it is now a one shot pony. Once its gone there is nothing that can replace it!

Therefore, in my view it is critical that we have both heavy armour and strike brigade/brigade combat team availability. As Airbourne says above, a tank can both be offensive and defensive. It is capable of changing roles in moments notice. But it also has a massive physiological impact for both friendly and enemy forces, which is normally forgotten about.

An example I can give, was on my last deployment to Afghan with the Canadians, who had a few Leopards. These would sometimes be used as heavy support for priority convoys, or when making a new door in a compound wall. It was on one of these convoys that we were attached to, that came under a Taliban ambush. There were two Leopards, one at the front and one at the rear with about 20 other vehicles including two fuel tankers and trucks carrying ammo along with about 8 MRAPs and our 2 Foxhounds. The Taliban had spotted the one in front and where giving it some. The Leopard took a few RPG and recoilless rifle hits to the front, sides and turret, but the tank returned fire all through the engagement. After debussing, we moved to outflank the ambush. The second Leopard then got involved. With the two tanks giving the noise we were pretty much ignored (bad mistake). But because there were two tanks, this seemed to cause the Taliban to focus on them and pretty much ignore everything else. Unfortunately this allowed us to outflank the ambush and let us do what was necessary. Without the two Leopards it would have be much harder to break a coordinated and well set up ambush and there would have a hell of a lot more casualties on our side.

Spot on mate. Great example of the correct use of modern, efective and well deployed and crewed tanks in modern asymetric warfare. As for the reinforcing BAOR in the cold war, good old 24 Air mobile was an excellent concept, with light role, deployable teams, with extra Milans to provide a kintex fist to fill in the gaps and prevent breakthroughs. Thats something we could still provide, with a couple of re-roled light role Bns, shed loads of Jav teams, and give the Army wildcats a more useful role. This is something that is relatively cheap yet effective and deployable as the shit roles down hill towards any future European conflict.

16 Bde no longer has any role in Europe if we are honest, and is currently pretty toothless. With the up and coming changes to our force structure I wouldnt be suprised if all the “Army Commandos” which form the OS and enablers to 3 Cdo Bde be quietly returned to the Army, leaving a few specialists and 148 in the Commando role. These could be used to plug the gaps in 16, and the MOD could trumpet some “new capability” which in fact reduces the people but just about fills the gaps and makes 1 combat capable Bde out of 2 rather toothless ones. Just a sad thought on my behalf lol…cheers mate.

kintex…wtf…kinetic.

Mate, that was a bloody scary contact. It was on the road from Kandahar to Kabul near a town called Ghazni. Remember the phrase from Zulu? Well it was pretty much like that. We estimated from the dead that we faced a force of around 250. Went dry on the Foxhound’s GMPG and had to go tactical. In all I remember checking my mags after the contact and had 8 rounds left, that included the 150 in the bandolier and I carried 8 mags. Those were all single shots, not spray and pray. I even called in a pair of USMC F18s who used everything they carried. We were lucky as they detonated the IED in the road early and the Leopard shook off the blast. It lasted nearly 2 hours before the shooting finally ceased. That was on my second day in country -welcome to the Stan!

I remember 24 and 16AA. I think the concept would still be doable, but we need to look at a dedicated aircraft to support them. The Chinooks still practice this role along with a few Wildcats. But the AAC really need a cheap battle taxi for this kind of role.

I am getting a bit sceptical about the Commando Force. Where are their heavy weapons? If the Green Slime get the intelligence wrong and the Commandos walk into something unexpected. How and what are they going to have to help them? Does it mean that the AAC will be sending some Apaches to support them, where does that leave the land Army?

Welcome to the Stan indeed!!!! That place never ceased to amaze and surprise mate! No matter how ill prepared or on a back foot you think the Talibs were they can always surprise us! And Ghazni, damn as a history buff that is quite a historic town and area, right from the early Greek culture right up to the 1st Anglo Afghan war when the citadel was attacked and burnt. Never operated around there mate, always seemed to be Sangin, MQ or bloody Nowzad.

I’ve got to say all the tours and time I was in theatre I would always keep my eye out for a bit of history, have quite a few history books before, during and after op tours (thinking of the next one) but also to include books about the Russian invasion. Excellent one was “the beast came over the mountain”, alas I digress mate lol. Cheers.

If you have time I would recommend Robert’s Ridge. It shows how something benign can quickly be turned into a shit show.

One thing that did come out of it, was that the Chinook’s miniguns were modified to run from AC to DC. Beforehand if the aircraft wasn’t powered the guns wouldn’t work. The miniguns would have made a difference to what happened on that mountain. Since that event, the guns are DC powered via a rechargeable battery.

The FOB I was billeted at during my last tour was in Khandahar town. Lots of markets and shops selling pretty much anything. But it was Gun Street that was really fascinating, where gunsmiths rolled out replicas of the old Brown Besses, Martini-Henrys and even brand new Lee-Enfields. There was lots of Russian stuff to and the odd AR. The old Webley revolver was also quite popular. Whilst there we did get to visit the citadel of the old Kandahar that was supposed have been started by Alexander the Great.

Mate, bear came over the mountain was the book bloody predictive txt. Yes the citadel in khandahar, which loosely translated as Alexander in the caucuses! However they reckon Alexander’s campaign in the region he certainly founded very many “Alexander’s wherevers” all along the Greek lines. In fact so many people have no idea that the region of Bactria and others all had cities with the same grandeur and buildings as Macedonia at the time (although dried mud featured very common in the buildings and as we know that stuff is bloody tough to get through) anyway I digress once again. However in 2001 we did actually come across a genuine Martini Henry, not far outside of Kabul, which went back to the Bde HQ I believe. Got to say, when I got out and went back for a contract or two privately, it gave me soooooo much more time to study the regions history, although not many “site visits” allowed lol cheers.

Roberts Ridge I will amazon prime that, cheers.

“I remember 24 and 16AA. I think the concept would still be doable, but we need to look at a dedicated aircraft to support them.”

To be fair I think we had as few RAF SHF helis then as now.
Just 1 squadron each of Puma and Chinook in RAFG if memory serves me well. The other Puma squadron in the Uk was for the AMF and Norway.

The brigade had 3 battalions and over 60 Milan FP.

Morning Davey. What was the Phrase from Zulu?

“Thousands of them, sir!”

Of course-Zulus coming over the horizon! Zulu was of course about Rorke’s Drift(driven past but not been there) but the bigger Battle was the day before at Isandlwana. I visited the site twice in the company of the late great David Rattray. We sat on the Sphinx shaped slope-half way up on the spot where one of the last skirmishes took place- a small group of British soldiers on this elevated position were overrun and killed by Zulus mopping up all over the battlefield. Dave could literally reduce us-men and women,to tears in his talks. I also have a friend Hugh Raw who is a direct descendant of Captain Raw who died on that fateful day

I agree Airborne. I was in 24 Inf Bde in the mid-80s (before it went airmobile) and we had 24 Milan FPs per battalion (72 in all) and Saxon to move us to the Continent at speed. Saxon got bad press (much of it exagerrated, with some numties trying to compare it to Warrior etc!) but in that role it was very good.

I was also in Colchester with 16 AA Bde in 2006-9, before the cuts to the brigade. Its role seems to be to supply paras at very short notice to places where there has been a cluster****. Is the replacement of C-130s by A400Ms going to really work for 16 Bde?

I seem to remember that once being bounced out of camp on Active Edge we would only last a week before the Russians would be at the Channel. Probably even less these days if they could keep their supply chains up.

I don’t remember it was as a little as a week – we did have some advantages over the WP which are glossed over. I will have to re-read Hackett’s book to see how long he thought we would last. It was telling that every exercise ended in a NBC phase as we (simulated) launched tactical nukes to hold the hordes back.

With the advent of cruise and highly accurate cruise missiles it is likely that there will be no resupply, the ports and airfields will be rubble. If the next war is peer to peer then all will fight with what they have already in position. Hence the prepositioning of US gear all over the place. If the Challenger 3 are in the UK their main task could well be very defensive indeed.

Interesting point. We have only ever used our tanks overseas since 1916. At least some of them (or even most of them) should be pre-positioned in Germany in the BAG vehicle depots (Paderborn and Moenchengladbach). Armoured regiments only hold small numbers of primary equipment these days.

Good answer. I recall when the Canadians were on the point of giving up their Leo1s (C1s) and to come out of the armoured warfare business. Thank good ness they hada change of heart and actually modernised their tank force. I despair at amateur armchair critics talk about the demise of the tank and its replacement by drones and cyber gadgets.

It’s hard to argue with a tank. There’s little else that can do the same thing as a big, heavy armoured vehicle with a massive gun on it. And whether it moves by wheels or tracks, effectively it’s a tank.

The only thing that I disagree with is leaving the mass of heavy armour to Allies, because like it or not, high end conflict on the ground will get you the senior negotiating positions, while, admittedly important, support in secondary rear echelon theatres, will always be seen as perfidious Albion shirking the real fighting.

Especially if we maintain the idea of commanding the ARRC.

Relevant points mate for sure, good points of view to discuss. But yes, we dont want to lose our hard won reputation for always being up for a fight and willing to deploy assets when needed mate. Not many nations want, or able to be day one door kickers in. Cheers.

I agree there seems to be some confusion on future Equipment
and roles but then again I’m no expert, but the government will stretch them knowing the troops are some of the best trained in the world.

There is no argument your soldats are good, I have been reading about your military since being little girl but equipment is only part of the problem, the lack of clear idea of what your army should be organised as and the emotion behind keeping historical regiments blinds the military to practical or logical decision. You want heavy brigades but they lack depth, you want strike brigade (or did) but don’t arm properly and they lack depth and then you have all these under strength light battalion that do what apart from keeping history alive? You cannot decide on what equipment you need until you decide what army you want. Ulya rant over

Ulya, we have amalgamated historic regiments on a continuous basis. Some regiments only last 25 or 30 years before they are merged again.
There is still a role for light battalions, I would argue. The paras that went to Kabul airport were light role.

Is there confusion? We have the Joint Operating Concept document, have just had the Integrated Review which described Briatains place in the world and then had the Defence Review. Orbats have been well honed and the field army is based around a number of BCTs.

How can there be confusion? What don’t people know?

I agree that ‘Global Britain’ requires a pre-eminent navy – ours should be second only to the USN and significantly better than the French navy.

Yeah that’s what I’ve been saying . I mentioned it before on similar post and I think DM corrected me but I heard from a former tankie they are stored in Ashchurch at the moment.

With the closure of Ludgershall many years ago, there is only Ashchurch in UK to store A Vehicles. Some vehicles are in Moenchengladbach in store too (don’t know if that includes CR2s).
As far as I know no CR2 has been scrapped and certainly none have been sold but quite a few in storage will have been stripped for parts and left as ‘Christmas trees’ as the expression goes.

Cheers I did not know Ashchurch was the only place.

The problem is (and I absolutely agree with 227 Reaper) the new force structure calls for two armoured Brigades, so 50 Chally3 a piece, the rest in maintenance and training facilities.

It’s enough to equip the force structure ‘as defined’.

Is it enough, nope, we need three Armoured Brigades, allowing us to deploy an Armoured Division with 100 plus Chally3 at its core.

I can only hope they (the people in the know) are confident that the envisioned future combined arms force of a single Brigade, backed up by Spear3 equipped fighters, UCAV’s, swarming drones and AH64E will provide a comparable ‘punch’ to an old Armoured Division…..

Perhaps it will provide considerably more firepower and we are stuck in the past, we will see……

We bought 408 CR2, but only declare 227 now.

‘Surplus’ CR2s will be stored in Ashchurch and some may be in Moenchengladbach in store too.

Quite a few in storage will have been stripped for parts and left as ‘Christmas trees’ as the expression goes.

you are Forgetting the ones on Foreign ranges, Canada has a group and others have been spare parted.

I would not like to think that no tanks was ever a option.

You’d hope so, but that was the scuttlebut in the press pre-defence review.

No offence Johan but i will take my army knowledge from people who have experience , who say the same argument as what I said. No offence if you served.

Quite, just like in the interwar period high-calibre anti tank rifles where quite the threat for tanks, and tank design adapted to that with thicker armour and skirts to protect tracks.

Drones of course are a threat to tanks, just like every anti-tank weapon has been since the Germans aimed a 76mm field gun at a MkI in 1916, but that doesn’t mean that, as you pointed out, design and doctrine isn’t capable of mitigating that threat.

Because the UK taxpayer isn’t spending billions to defend Germany? Germany is at precisely zero threat from Russia, it’s not 1990, in fact Germany is in a great position surrounded by friendly powers who have precisely zero beef with them, which ironically is one of the reasons why its hard to get the German government to increase the defence budget, the German taxpayer, who is less hawkish than the British one, simply turns around and asks why they should spend billions defending Estonia.

The rest of your post is pretty much ranty brexit drivel and divorced from reality so I’ll just ignore it.

come down Aldershot, they’re constantly on the roads.

Let the blokes buy their own boots, most of them do so anyway.