UK faces huge hurdle in Challenger 3 tank upgrades

Cv90 would be the obvious choice for many reasons, including capability, maturity, compatibility with NATO…

CV90 is an IFV, but Ajax is not, it is a recce vehicle I would agree that CV90 would be a good replacement for Warrior. but Ajax family are all specialised recce or utility vehicles, which were supposed to replace the Army’s CVRT fleet.

To rub salt in the wound, there is also a recce version of the CV9030 with the Norwegian Army.

There is a recce version of the Alvis Saladin scout car as well. Just because a vehicle is a recce version doesn’t mean it has what we need. In the case of CV90, it wouldn’t change a thing as they would still need extensive modifications to do what Ajax does.

Modifications to vibrate that much !

And if it had been CV90 then the problem would be exploding kettles or something. Point is with a vehicle with as much new kit as this nobody can predict what teething problems might be faced while in development, no matter the chassis.

Titan and Trojan had FABS final build standard upgrades, these were only minor compared to Ajax problems , isolation mounts are mitigation not a solution !

CV 90 Supply chain established , shared cost of upgrades etc

Thats sort of moot point isn’t it.
AJAX may indeed be ‘doing well now’ and I’m not suggesting we get rid and start again -well not yet anyway as its still not delivered .
However that doesn’t alter the glaringly obvious fact that it has been a major cause for concern and an ideal example of how NOT to run a procurement project.
If you believe others shouldnt have concerns about the issues encountered getting AJAX to this juncture and raise them against this project then …well…. thats your choice but don’t denegratee those that do.

Who says all this? You may claim it is “glaringly obvious” but that’s just you. Are you able to back that statement up with anything other than histrionics?

117 db noise measured, concerns over drive sprocket interface vibration ETC!

Which has been fixed, and is nothing compared to the problems previous kit have had. Which vehicle would you care to nominate that you can guarantee would have assuredly been free of any problems whatsoever?

Isolation mounts for seats and driving controls are not a fix ,nor is noise cancelling headsets. GD have effectively done the same as turning the radio up on a car to hide the noise of a vibrating exhaust heat shield. They have mitigated a vibration that is still there . A fix would be rubber tracks which can reduce vibration by up to 70 % or as they have done on the M10 Booker fit Hydro- pneumatic suspension as they have realised a torsion bar system that was designed for 20 -25 tons does not work when overloaded . You are clearly have a limited grasp of engineering . Don’t think CVRT or 432 had basic design flaws , GKN and ALVIS clearly had competent designers!

The crew won the comp, not the tank. Those kinds of competitions generally are about the crew’s performance and not the vehicle they’re in.

I think it’s a very very big stretch to say that challenge 2 is as good leopard 2A7/8 or Abraham’s M12A sepv3..these are very modern tanks with sensor synergy, active protection systems, modern fire control systems, as well as being up armoured to manage modern threats..CR2 is essentially the same tank it was 20 years ago, yes there are some up armour kits but the core vehicle is 20 years old also CHARM3 are just not Lethal as the rounds of other modern western MBTs ( although you could argue that increased lethality is a bit of a self licking lollipop, when it’s not likely there is anything in the field that could survive a hit with a CHARM3 unless it’s seriously oblique.)..but it does not take away the advantages that the newer MBTs have in sensor fusion and more advanced fife control systems…as well as active defence.

What is there about 50 l2 a7 and zero a8 in service

So what ? Not sure what your point is….It was not a question of numbers, but a question of if a 20 year old tank was better that the current crop. The poster was saying that the Challenger 2 is as good as the “latest” versions of the Abrams and leopard 2..that is clearly and materially not the case….if the poster had said challenger 3 will be as good or better than these latest iterations of other NATO tanks that would have been different.

I suppose the army gambled it was not going to be in a peer land conflict any time soon, which will have paid off if the army get challenger 3 operational before anything major happens…so their gamble will probably pay off, and I suppose in reality the only tanks challenger 2 was going to be inferior to was the very latest iterations of other NATO tanks and the second Iraq war did showcase how poorly designed to survive soviet and Russian tanks really were…you can sort of see why they took the gamble…but it’s pretty clear now that they need a tank with active protection systems.

I don’t think the army has been as calculating as you suggest in timing the CR3 build. It will be ‘luck of the draw’ if tanks are required before FOC of CR3 in 2030. If something kicked off before then and requiring armour, we would probably have to deploy a mixed fleet.
We had a mixed Chieftain/CR1 fleet for well over a decade from c1983 to mid/late 90s.

This is basically what I’m on about. If the hull is not in a fit state for conversion without some major refurbishment first because it’s been rained on for 15 years, then it doesn’t matter if there are 40, 400, or 4,000 out there. Thanks for putting it better than I can.

Scandalous really. That site at one time reportedly held 7,000 plus armoured vehicles, B vehicles, boats and plant costing billions.
Some in CHE, much in shit state. Just to save a few million on a proper roof.

It’s why I’m skeptical about reserve and mothball forces. Especially whenever the subject of a mothball fleet comes up. Easy to say you’ll maintain them in good order, much harder to do so over 30 years consistently and then be able to bring them back into service.

Anyway, as I said, I’m cautiously optimistic, 148 isn’t an impossible number, and I’m sure we can slowly rotate the ones we have through.

I personally think this one has been blown out of proportion a bit mate. We had 220 I think recently, hopefully enough in good condition.

Agreed. It feels like someone walked around Ashchurch and had a significant flap all of a sudden, forgetting those are the bad hulls we wouldn’t be using anyway.

I suppose the fact they only recently chopped one of the regiments means they should have 50 odd hulls that have not been bagging around neglected for to long.

Ironically, I believe the third regiment, the KRH, is still with CH2. The delays with Ajax meant it has still not converted from Armoured to Armoured Cavalry, as it was meant to, yesrd ago. Getting rid of it quickly was one of General Carters priorities.

One of many reasons why myself and others aren’t impressed whenever that bloke surfaces on TV.

That is very interesting, it actually could mean there is a problem with hull numbers going to conversion, three regiments is 168 tanks, add in say 10% maintenance pool of 16-17, training establishment numbers and all you have left is the small attritional reserve that you could convert…it’s an interesting quandary and balancing act….without the third regimen I could see it being easy, with the third regimen in place it’s more iffy. It also means that they are going to have to run the regiments as mixed CH2 CH3 regiments for a while, which will create interesting logistics for a while.

While keeping Cabrit BG in place.

Agree, his aspirations did not match the financial reality. But he pressed ahead anyway!

If I may: Russia has rhe same issue with old kits being rusty. But one rusty piece is nothing if you make steel and transform it.

Britsky on X has some pics of the building works going on at Ashchurch and a pool of Vehicles outside.

Ta, will have a look.

Now that’s what you call incredible levels of incompetence. If that is the case.

The usual neglect of the back end of the military and MoD, that back end that I keep emphasizing and banging on about as being as vital as the wiz bang front end most look at.

Be it dry docks for SSN not upgraded in decades or proper storage conditions of paid for assets like at Ashchurch.

I don’t recall where I saw the thread on Ashchuch now and the photos, might have been ARRSE.

Yes it’s just like the housing and barracks issues, poor investment hits you in the end.

The Asbestos roofs were shedding onto workers toolboxes, took complaints to get roof fixed. As you only need to breath in one fiber into the lungs to be at risk who did the survey ?

would you fit units with the cylinder having excess pitch thread clearance ( wobbling on body )and gas up to meet KPI delivery target ! Asking a lot to hold 117 – 120 bar on rebound pressure ?

Pete, you talking about Gen3 hydrogas units? You have some tech details that I haven’t got. On the face of it, sounds like this needs a fix quite urgently.

The 3rd generation have lower friction and some internal modifications , high or low pressure set before gassing. Management said ” fit them, don’t worry the anti rotation bolt will stop them coming unscrewed ” . Someone must have informed RBSL as team had to be sent to change for CR2 ones. Failure could drop track tension throwing track causing crash . Not quite the “home safe every day” motto. No disciplinary action take so far ?

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Yes they do

I’ll give you a clue – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Ukraine#/media/File:Ukraine_census_2001_Russian.svg

If we follow you logic, shall France invade Belgium because part of it they speak French or USA invade Canada because they speak English …

Western Logic is a million miles away from that of Mr Putin.

Also Belgium is an interesting comparison – there have been opinions expressed about splitting it into two to align with the different Language’s for years.

I think you have missed my point Paul.

Apologies – i thought your point was Russia was incapable of fighting its way through Poland and Germany if they can’t manage to get through Ukraine,my point was even if they could they won’t because they don’t want too .

I’m not sure they ( Putin ) doesn’t want to but as you say they couldn’t anyway.

There may be a possibility! If Trump wins the next US election and stops arms supplies to Ukraine. Europe will do its best, but there isn’t the manufacturing capacity to replace the US. This will mean Ukraine will only the materiel for a defensive capability. Which won’t be great for Ukraine, as Russia can easily replace its lost manpower from being on the offensive.

Poland doesn’t think that.

Poland’s geography and History dictates it has to prepare for the worse whatever the circumstances.

Yeah, it’s not like the Russian government has made any statements about moving on to the rest of europe after finishing off ukraine…
Oh…
https://www.polskieradio.pl/395/7785/artykul/3273249,russias-medvedev-calls-poland-dangerous-enemy-warns-nato-member-could-lose-its-statehood
right…
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russias-medvedev-floats-idea-pushing-back-polands-borders-2023-02-24/

Medvedev plays the role of a useful idiot in the Russian Govt, he says a lot of things that are quite confrontational, I wouldn’t take much notice of him, I’d rather listen to Igor Strelkov to get a better grasp of what is happening.

Nonsense! Putin wants all of Ukraine, the 3 Baltics and Poland plus others, to restore Russia to what tge USSR controlled and occupied till 1989.that is his publicly declared strategic aim. Which is why we in Poland are hell bent on rearming and making massive military hardware contracts.

Russia is only interested in areas where there is a substantial Russian population, the Baltics I would agree with, he has no intention of trying to assimilate the whole of Ukraine, only the areas that he considers traditionally Russian. Poland to my knowledge has no significant population of Russian’s living there.

Who do you report to?

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True but one should not neglect the Army and RAF ,but to be fair all have suffer over the year’s 🙄

Wouldn’t argue with the Cdo but Division ? Explain Milpol/Int please.🙄

Hi Geoff.
Too often we have employed Inf in a role they were not suited for.

Europe has the heavy armour that Europe needs.

Should we go world wide peacekeeping, then PARA as a force entry unit, MilPol – military Police as the thinking man’s soldier who can exercise a gendarmerie role backed by intelligence.

Commando, we are an island and need littoral forces to deploy around the world from navy platforms; commandos are also thinking soldiers and able to apply force to littoral ports etc; their ability to operate in Baltic climes should also be highly prized as an all found Brigade.

You suggest that we don’t need heavy armour. We have used tanks in kinetic action far more times than ships and submarines.

So, do you not think that soldiers outside of MP and commando forces are thinking soldiers?

Just one look at eg The Rifles, and you’ll see that they are literally described as ‘thinking, fighting-men’

There’s so much propaganda out there pushed by the RM about how different they are. But actually (having been on ops with them) they aren’t. And that’s not a slight on the RM – it’s actually an indication of just how GOOD the British Army is.

I’ll directly quote a RM Colonel I was talking to about the Rifles a few years ago “we think your Riflemen are below the average Marine, but we’re blown away by the quality of your NCOs – we didn’t know junior NCOs could do that kind of thing”

I’m with you on both ideas David. Your thoughts are entirely in keeping with mine. The way forward for the army is surely providing the best crack, over the horizon troops that we can develop with the best equipment. I did advocate some while ago and would still do so a doubling of Air Assault brigades, using the same format as now, but with improved logistical and CCC capabilities. Commando’s, the Para’s, Gurkha’s, probably add the Rifles and of course other specialised units. Back this up with providing the likes of Deep Fire support for allies like the Baltic States and we have the army of the future. Not stuck in the mud but able to go wherever it want’s worldwide
The law keeping/peace keeping force also appeals to me. The idea of a Gendarmerie like force could work well overseas, extending soft power (with a stick ?) but given the appropriate training, a role at home as well.

The problem with that strategy, is that a) you need to guarantee that you have air superiority and b) you have denied the enemy the ability to provide air defence.

First lesson from the 1st month of the Ukraine war, is that air assault troops in helicopters or transport aircraft, are very vulnerable to ground based air defences. Especially if they have not been cleared and fully suppressed. Doubly so, if that enemy can also provide any sort of fighter force. All it takes is a couple of dudes with some MANPADs to totally screw up your airlift plan.

Therefore, to make sure your air assault can go ahead, you need the supporting elements to provide a sanitised corridor. But also ensure layered air defences are suppressed and that you have aircraft to provide a defensive screen round your area of operations. Something that Russia failed to do.

I think it’s really a matter of what we can achieve with budget we have. We are no longer capable of providing for a Falklands type conflict, let alone, and I hope not, an Iraq war situation. The regular army has sufficient force to achieve two things. A major contribution to the JEF and a world class intervention force. Beyond this we can provide first class peace keeping; mentoring and training, medical and communications.

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Hi Graham. I do believe in the UK having a seriously good army, although I do understand why I am misinterpreted at times. My ongoing difficulty is how we are going to pay for all that we want to achieve. I argued back in 2020 that we could only realistically provide forces for four MAJOR conventional scenario’s. The R.N. would provide for a global presence with fully equipped carrier battle groups; the R.A.F protection of the U.K. and JEF airspace; an armoured brigade to be permanently based in the Baltic and a highly mobile intervention force. We actually have the makings of all of these but four years on cuts, delays and reductions has put all of them at risk. I am not greatly excited with this government but if we have a Labour government are they likely to spend on defence. I doubt it very much.

Hi Geoff, many thanks. Having been a BAOR warrior, I was fairly content with Options for Change in 1991, that looked carefully at the size and shape of our post-Cold War armed forces. Given the reduction of the threat it was decided that we needed the army to come down from 160,000 to a mere 120,000 – and to have just 386 tanks, to name just two metrics. That was deemed appropriate and affordable and a handsome peace dividend was taken.

But the bean-counters had other ideas and the army then shrinks several times over without the threat being reduced (arguably it has increased since ’91 – Russia is more belligerent, war had to be waged against AQ, the Taliban and ISIS – and we had to deal with Saddam Hussain’s Iraq twice by major warfighting) and is heading to 73,000 and 148 tanks.
Seemingly what was affordable in the early 90s is now not affordable – do we blame Brexit and the pandemic?

Your 4 scenarios represent a quite modest Orbat. I would have liked for the RAF to be able to contribute to General War in the central European front and for the army to retain its deployable armoured division that to me is a modest output for a nation of our size and wealth. The Americans would certainly write us off as serious Land Forces players, not that that is the be-all and end-all.

I too expect a Labour government within the next 18 months and agree that it remains to be seen if they increase the size of our armed forces even by a bit. The key thing for the army is re-equipment, more so than getting back to 120,000!

Back again. We always forget the lessons of the past and then build for the last war. I know that sounds contradictory but how do they decide to cut back and then not buy the best kit for what we do have to face. However we are where we are.

My scenario’s for our main role is modest because I can’t seeing us ever having the money for improvement. So I settle for a serious heavy brigade for the Baltic with absolutely everything it needs; the finest special forces and airborne/seaborne with the finest equipment money can buy.

Again with the RAF we have eight squadrons plus OCU’S…maybe 100/120 combat aircraft altogether. Every leading western nation has at least fifty percent more and some double nearly all modern aircraft or if not replacements already ordered. We are short of AEW, ASW and now transports as well. Again where do we commit my friend? 🙄

Hi Geoff,

We commit to NATO which is our lynchpin and so we need to be able to contribute with strong naval, ground and air forces (as well as relevant SF, cyber and space capabilities) to the Euro-Atlantic area.

On the army side, one heavy brigade is a very small contribution if we are to properly defend the continent alongside allies – the Dutch fields one heavy brigade from an army of 16,000 regs – we can surely do better than that small nation.

As far as combat aircraft is concerned, the RAF has to defend UK (and Falklands) airspace and provide an Expeditionary Air Wing to support a deployed army formation. How many aircraft do they need to do that – I don’t know – perhaps you are right and they need more than 100/120 fast jets.

Perhaps the ‘Global Britain’ piece (ie beyond the NATO area) needs to be scaled back if money is that tight, although we have already committed to two carriers and escorts to suit. So the timing is not right.

If more money for defence is not forthcoming under this government or the next, we need to cut out waste (particularly in failed procurements and too expensive PFI projects) to generate more money for manpower and equipment. ‘Spend to save’ measures should be considered. Perhaps some MoD civil service posts could be converted to military posts. Everything should be looked at to make better use of our defence funds to increase capability.

I agree with everything you have said BUT how is it going to happen? The RN can be brought up to a sufficient capability if it gets enough aircraft and I don’t now mean just F35’s. The RAF with the improvements I’ve already mentioned plus EW aircraft ( F35A/ Typhoons like Germany) could do the same. The army sadly is still in a state. To get a decent armoured division we would have to treble the budget. Potentially we will have 148 tanks, Ajax ( we hope ); no armoured tracked IFV’s and X number of undefined Boxer variants with wheels; next to tube artillery and “promised” GMLR’s.

I suggested cutting out waste and doing spend to save measures to generate more spendable £s in the future.

The sad thing is that not long ago we had two quite effective deployable divisions, one in Germany and one in the UK – just that the kit needed upgrades and these kept getting overlooked. Continuous decline over a very long time is very hard to overturn.

I know. As recently as 2015 we were told there would be seven brigades and sensible ones at that. Now we have three, two of which are smaller versions of the earlier armoured brigades, and the other is Deep fires with Ajax??? It seems to me that having cocked everything up for ten years or more they (?) are now trying to find a home for orders we needn’t have placed.

I feel sure that an unsuitable home has been found for the 623 Boxers ordered so far, namely to put them in the two armoured brigades to replace proper IFVs (Warrior which was to have been replaced by upgraded Warrior with a 40mm cannon). A politico/bean-counter idea, I am sure.

Sounds right. As I said….find a use rather then order to fill a need. 🙄

Of course, in a support role. We are never going to have the mass of troops other countries can supply. Our army would be swamped by the combined land forces of Germany, Poland, France, Finland, Noway,etc… Our current ‘role’ supporting Norway and Scandinavia is where we could make a difference; another BAOR would be a non starter. In the air and at sea we can make a difference, hence those are the most important areas when finances are tight.

Rob, funny to consider we would just be in a support role in WW3!
Some of those armies are not as huge as you might think they are – the German Army is smaller than ours at 62,800, Norwegian Army is 8,125 (3,725 regs and 4,400 conscripts), the Finnish Army is 22,010 (3,610 regs and 18,400 conscripts). Granted, the Polish and German armies are larger than ours.
If WW3 happened it would be all hands to the pumps, especially if a future President Trump decided the US should not join the party.
No-one is ever contemplating a return to BAOR – we moved away from that level of mass in 1991, when Options for change decided the army would reduce to a mere 120,000 reg soldiers and 386 tanks.
I don’t see that our army would be solely committed to flank protection in Norway/Scandinavia – that is just for our light role forces/RM. Our ‘armoured div’ (3 Div) would surely deploy east of Germany, possibly in a reserve role at first.

Support on land only. With NATO European forces we would have France of course, plus Spain, hopefully Turkey, Sweden, Netherlands, Belgium… some with small armies, but it all adds up. That ‘flank protection’ role will be changing a lot considering the recent NATO additions! Remember, UK ground forces are liable to find themselves in use in more theatres than, say, German or Polish ground forces. Our efforts will be greatly diluted – not only Northern Flank, but probably troops needed to ‘garrison’ the likes of Cyprus, perhaps Greenland, home defence, perhaps even some of the Gulf States. I can see British forces eventually being used in a more central role, but initially at least I think that our contribution would be very limited.

The factory in Leeds no longer exists and Newcastle isn’t BAE anymore.

Yep, I know. Perhaps I did not express things as clearly as you. I did a 3-month industrial attachment at the old (previous) Newcastle factory (1980).

You are correct,Pearson’s have completed the first Turret but as i understand it ,it is only the Core, which is derived from the Leo2 Turret,it still has to be embelished with the New Armour Package and Equipment etc.

https://rbsl.com/news-and-events/news/cr3-programme-achieves-major-milestone

Yes. Pearsons have made the citadel of the turret – its core structure.
The army website said it expected the first CR3 (whole vehicle) prototype by end of year (calendar or financial year?). Random politician says it will be late – hopefully not by much.

We really should not accept any Lend-Lease from the Americans, it was a necessity in WW2, but screwed us over heavily. Remember destroyers for bases? No thanks.

Germany did not build better tanks during WW2, they where better armoured and had bigger guns, but where much more mechanically unreliable, harder to fix, difficult to transport, and user unfriendly.

‘Lend-Lease’ is obviously triggering terminology for some British citizens. Any modernized version would be subject to revised terms and conditions, as well as a different naming convention. Historical reference only.

German WWIi tanks, w/ heavier armor and larger caliber guns, were generally considered to be more formidable than American Sherman tanks. However, the Germans never truly embraced the concept of mass-production design and build, to their detriment. Variation of the theme that quantity has a quality of its own.

Being in the US’s economic debt is not a place anyone would want to be, no matter what they call it. Especially not when it comes to trading for equipment that has been left to rot for decades.

German world war 2 tanks where generally considered more formidable….by the people who didn’t have to use them. The reputation of German armour came largely from Allied tankers who did not have to deal with the limitations of repairing, maintaining, and operating them. The grass is always greener on the other side.

Simple example: American and British tanks had a roof mounted sight for the commander and gunner. Which meant the tank could hide completely behind an obstacle, wait for an enemy tank to show up, drive forwards and already have them lined up for a shot. German tanks did not have this feature, so in an ambush would have to drive out of cover, and waste time waiting for the gunner to line up a shot.

More examples would include things like wet ammunition stowage, spring loaded hatches, separate hatches for commander, gunner and loader, all of which meant that a Sherman could get knocked out, but in the vast majority of cases the crew could get out and live to fight another day (maybe even in the same Sherman since they where quite easy to repair).

The Germans certainly did embrace the concept of mass production, some of their heavy tanks like the Tiger I and II get headlines for their small production runs, but both where concieved as specialist breakthrough tanks, ie only ever intended to be a small part of the Panzer Arm. When you compare the Wehrmachts medium tanks, Panzer IV, Stug III, Panther and Panzer III (8,000, 10,000, 6,000 and 5,000 units produced respectively), they did have mass production up and running. The bigger issues where around total industrial capacity and materials available.

This is where someone points out the disparity between 30,000 German Medium tanks produced and the 50,000 Shermans or the 80,000 T-34s, I’ll quickly highlight my comments about sheer industrial capacity, and resource availability, and the fact that the Soviets achieved the 80,000 T-34 number by A) continuing to produce the damn things into the mid 1950’s and B) by leaving a lot of stuff off them that they really shouldn’t have done. You might want to put mirrors in your periscopes lads.

Presume if situation was sufficiently dire, MoD would analyze the issue and determine the best course of action for the British Army. Democratic states typically don’t compel one another to purchase weapon systems, they are simply proffered for sale/lease/donation. Receiving country makes an independent judgment re suitability.

Uncertain re storage conditions for M1A1; have not read of any complaints to date from GDSL, re material state of tanks selected for refurbishment (beyond normal wear and tear).

Shermans certainly had some innovative features, still not convinced crews would have been overly pleased to encounter Panther or Tiger tanks on a one v. one basis. America has embraced heavier tank designs post-war, especially w/ Abrams.

Agreed, industrial capacity, including stable supply chain, does count in war

To be fair, the USAAF and RAF were making sure they didn’t have the capacity for mass production.

👍👍😁

Hum… Trump want’s to get rid off Nato if elected Next year, by reducng the meaning of article 5. Even if not, he presents relationship within Nato like a US protectorate. Politically, this will leas to a point of rupture, which might be what he is looking for.
Regarding Tanks, Abraham X is a fine machine, lighter, drone equiped and so on. The fuel issue is like most US engine beyond salvation, but it could be handled in defensive operations.
Though, pricetag is unaffordable, compared to home production. And industrial capabilities of US is no longer so significant. Steel making in China is 3 times larger than in US. There is an order of magnitude in this range. In termes of Fleet, US is allready on a very bad foot, with ships 5 times more expensive than Chinese ships, for similare capabilities. Chinese worries is the top US issue, with many things to be fixed in US.
Betting on USA for supplies of hardware is no longer relevant in Europe. The most important is to have compétitive factories running here. We are no longer in full peace time, lousy combination is not fixing issues.
Courage, strategic vision, decision making are safer bets. The right thing is to build enough hardware, planes and ship and rescue the US Navy and Aiforce from the peril they face in Asia.
In Europe, we will have to handle relationship with Russia.

I love your posts, mate. I am not sure what would render our 148 CR3s combat ineffective unless we came up against an opponent a heck of a lot better than ‘Ivan’.

Many in the UK have now a healthy scepticism about Lend-Lease, [introduced as An Act to Promote the Defense of the United States].

The US set a hard date against which materiel that survived the war could be returned which we could not meet, so were billed £1.075 billion (a lot of money back in the day). However the very nice US Treasury loaned us the money to pay for this bill which we finally managed to repay in 2006. It’s been great doing business with ya, Uncle Sam!

Sorry! We Brits are good at saying that!

I think if we ran out of CR3s in a future conflict we would get hold of some the more recent Leo2s. No offence.

I don’t think going to the e.u for tanks would be a good idea the Germans always link getting there permission to deploy them abroad in the deal we will always go to the USA we can trust them more than the Europeans

My hypothesis was based on 3 Div in hard combat alongside NATO allies, including German forces, having its Chally tank fleet severely reduced and having exhausted the attrition reserve.

I would hope that bureacrats in Berlin would not insist on extra paperwork if the opportunity existed to make use of some spare Leo2s.

GM,

As stated in comments above, ‘Lend-Lease’ triggers obviously negative connotations w/in the British public. Term used for illustrative purpose only. Presumably, any modern version would have appropriately revised terms and conditions. Bottom line is that the US has an existing inventory of literally thousands of M1A1 available for refit/remanufacture to latest standard. Uncertain whether Germans have a similarly sized pool of existing tanks available. If so, obviously price, quantities, delivery schedule, etc., would dictate decision. No offense intended or taken, simply that Abrams is competitive w/ other MBTs, depending upon user requirements.

Regarding an inventory of 148 MBTs, here is hoping the concept is never tested! Am somewhat concerned that even the Orcs are learning over time. As the Ukrainians have themselves stated, a significant portion of the less intelligent Orcs have already been eliminated. (Rather Darwinian observation of process of natural selection, as applied to modern military.) At some point, w/ Iranian and ChiCom complicity, Orcs may well develop precision fires, significantly improve UAS ops, CAS capability and may even (gasp!) embrace combined-arms maneuvering. The Soviet Army was a standing joke at the beginning of Operation Barbarossa; not considered in the same perspective by the seige of Berlin. 🤔

Many thanks. I don’t doubt for a second that some of our 148 CR3s will be used in combat during their lifetime, just as our CR1s and CR2s were. It is interesting to speculate who they wil be ranged against.

The Orcs will sadly get better but they seem to learn slowly and at great cost to themselves.

The Abrams is a fine tank and its evolution has been very impressive – I wish we had the money and determination to have upgraded our tanks over time – we used to do that so well.

👍😊

Thanks for the compliment re Abrams from an acknowledged SME! 👍

😊

If the Abrams Sep 3 was offered at a cost price, then I’m sure the UK would look at it. However, a point that needs to be made is that the Abrams in its current form even with the new gas turbine, requires two tankers compared to a Chally’s one. This is a huge logistical burden right from the off.

I do know that there were options to replace the gas turbine with a US made diesel engine, that was mooted for Sep 4. Though I’m sure it can be retrofitted to earlier Abrams versions.

The work for CR3 (formerly CR2 LEP) kicked off in 2015/2016. Armed drones (UAVs) with ATGW weren’t in anyone’s mind then.

Drones are aircraft – we have not been in the habit of fitting specialised anti-aircraft weapons to our AFVs as this is a task for RA specialists.

However LLAD is done by any Arm ie all-arms. I do not see a RWS for secondary armament on any CR3 photos and have yet to see any text on the subject.

The CR2 Megatron at ATDU is fitted with a RWS carrying a MG:
https://fighting-vehicles.com/challenger-2-megatron/

Thanks again for an informative reply Graham.

Yes. This problem is a current MoD program. It comes under the land – ground based air defence (GBAD) counter-small unmanned aircraft system (C-sUAS). Along with the future armoured vehicle survivability (FAVS) program. There are three main parts to the program.

The first item is providing the infantry with some counter measures to the small drone threat. This is two parts which includes a jammer along with a sensor to detect the drone. The second part is the SMASH smart weapon sight fitted to individual weapons and section weapons.

The second part of the program is where they are using the vehicle’s remote weapon system and linking that to a sensor that can detect and track a small first person view (FPV) suicide/bomber type drone. There have been a number of UK manufacturers linked to this program, with Blighter being one of them.

The third part is where a network is used to bring all this data together to provide better situational awareness. But to also link this in to a larger GBAD picture.

The War in Ukraine has been a catalyst to urgently find a solution to the threat of FPV drones.

Thanks also for your reply too. There’s always more levels to go to!

Well the SMASH sight will be rolling out for trials soon. Plus I’m hoping with Blighter involved, the vehicle protection won’t be far behind.

Blighter original made radar based sensors used for security. However they’ve also expanded into optical sensors. Their radar sensors are what I’m expecting to be used as the primary sensor for detecting the drone.

The issue they will have is the field of view. To make sure the vehicle is protected, it will need a view of 360 degrees. Plus it will also need a high elevation. So in principle it would need preferably 4 antennas. But you would also need these to be low probability of intercept (LPI) radars and therefore AESA based. Which could increase the cost. But means they’ll be harder to detect by RF listening gear. However the benefits outweigh the disadvantages in this case.

The radar used should also be a very high frequency one, either Ku, Ka or even W. Not only will the detection range be fairly short. But as we’re getting in to the millimetric range. The target resolution dramatically increases. Plus it allows for hits off smaller objects, with small metal content, such as a first person view (FPV) drone.

The targeting of the drone could be done via the radar or the remote weapon system (RWS) optics. A Gimpy will be sufficiently adequate to take out a FPV drone from at least 1km away.

Brand new versus a tank kit. Assuming we deliver CR3s in that number for that price…previous track record shows itll end up more than double that price, and numbers will be cut

Leo2 A8 is of course brand new and CR3 is an improved older tank. Hence the price difference. We can only afford the latter.
MoD is contracted with RBSL for them to deliver 148 tanks at a firm price of £800m. IOC 2027. FOC 2030.
I see no reason for the price to go up or the numbers to be cut (148 is a very small number of tanks, as it is).

Hence my concern…..unless thats a fixed rate guaranteed numbers deal. Lets face it it, would not be the 1st MoD deal that failed on numbers and price.

Assume he thinks RWY have a contingent? Which I believe they don’t.

On re reading, possibly he means by “army reserve” not the AR proper, but the training and attrition fleets and wants most concentrated into the actual regiments?

True. RWY is a delivery organisation. They don’t hold tanks. The Attrition Reserve is in sheds at Ashchurch.

Is It still? I thought it had changed to one of individual and crew replacement for the regular regs.

RWxY has always had the role of providing tank-trained BCRs as far as I know.

I took a look at Wiki:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Wessex_Yeomanry

I think you are right that RWxY lost the armoured delivery role otherwise known as Armour Replacement (which A Sqn had) lost from about 2013 under Army Plan 2020.

So, looks like replacement armour is delivered differently from 2013. I suppose the RLC TT Sqn or a contractor delivers Attrition Reserve armour and the replacement crews come seperately and then marry up. Sounds like a worse system.

Well I know where you can find plenty of free rubber inflatables…..

Hi John. I disagree. With our armed forces shrinking all the time – the army has been cut once or twice a decade since the end of the Korean War – everything becomes niche. It doesn’t mean you bin the capability. We have only 2 carriers, only7 SSNs, 3 Wedgetail AEWs – bin them?

Who says the army is heading for 60,000 by 2030? Never heard that one. But knowing our politicians and Treasury bean counters, nothing would surprise me.

Our army has always been expeditionary. The reason we invented the tank was to break the stalemeate of an expeditionary war overseas in France.

Who has binned the tank – and why? Just Belgium. Since the Cold War ended, they were never serious military players. They just wanted to save money. We have reasons to keep the tank – we use them a lot! In expeditionary operations! Our tanks have deployed to active combat zones and fired more live ordnance more times than any naval ship, in the last 30 or 40 years.

All the serious armies in the world (ie all apart from Belgium) have tanks, and probably intend keeping them. Our potential foes have tanks, lots of them. Tanks are being used in contemporary wars – ie in Ukraine.

I don’t get your point about holding ground forever and a day. You seize and hold ground for as long as you want it and for as long as you don’t want the enemy to have it. This is the raison d’etre of armies in combat. Other things count but domination of Key and Vital ground is a key factor. Our tanks and infantry took and held/dominated ground in Suez, both Gulf wars, Kosovo, Bosnia etc etc. Our tanks are doing a valuable deterrent job in Estonia with eFP – if we were in Estonia just with soft-skinned vehicles the Russians would neither be deterred or impressed.

The first AT weapon was fielded in 1916, the first ATGW from 1959. The tank survived, got better and lived on.The drone fanboys predict the drone as the wonder weapon (wunderwaffe as Hitler would have called it) that will see off the tank forever. I doubt it – but they will knock out a lot of poor quality, poorly handled tanks for sure.

The CR3s will all be fielded from 2030 and will surely have at least a 15 year+ life. I don’t doubt we will order CR4 one day.

Totaly agree with your statement. It is not wise to look at the 2020’s as if it was a prolongation of 2010´s. The rupture point was 2018. Since then, military budget are on the rise and the battlefield corp is raising, almost everywhere in Europe, except may be Germany, who just took the turn recently with Mr Pistorius.
I am not worried about the heavy battlecorp of UK. It will exists in due time, at the right level. Same thing here in France. We are somehow « happy » for what it may mean to be in third row. Poland, Baltic states, Finland, Greece and Roumania are in first line. We have to be ready to supply them with energy, firepower and complementary forces. What would be inacceptable do these countries would be not being able to send forces or provide energy supplies. It entail a first priority
: navy, expeditionary corps and aerial supremacy if called upon. À second one would be to help them stand their ground by providing an unbelievable amount of firepower collectively. This will certainly include tanks, IFV’s, Himars like systems and CAM systems (😉). For tanks, IFV’s and ground to ground missiles, the gates are open, with massive order in central Europe and commitment in France and UK to upkeep current fleet. For planes, we both do the due, which will soon cover the issue of numbers. For navy, coopération with UK is improving step by step, even of we will not have a navy as strong as UK in the long run. For drones, a significant step up is happening in France.

Thanks Math. I think our heavy forces are too small, but the onus is for continental European allies to have massed heavy armour. I would expect the larger European countries to have a deployable, warfighting army Corps, rather than just the Division that we have.
I agree we need Anglo-French cooperation in procurement, deployed training and operational deployments

👍
When we work together… everything is possible.

Look Daniele, Labour got 2 mahoosive carriers built that has drained the rest of the Royal Navy of cash for the next decades to come. 😉

Albeit, putting Bombers on the payroll of MoD was equally bad by the Cons.

They did indeed. I shall refrain from listing what they did not do on this occasion for fear of playing the same old record.
They are both as bad as the other in my book.

I have scaled back my comments on CASD into core in 2010 as apparently it was always there according to one knowledgeable poster I was talking to recently who had seen docs to that effect.

They have to go to Bovington to be stripped and overhauled then shipped to Telford for conversion . At last your fountain of knowledge has a flaw Ha Ha !

I don’t see the flaw? Unless you’re nitpicking that I didn’t detail the exact process between inspection and arrival at RBSL?

If i was nit picking i would say hulls are not frames and tanks don’t have keys !

Oh dear, how sad, never mind. That chip on your shoulder is showing pal.

We all have flaws I’m sure, Pete.
I know I do.
Dern is a SME here for army matters, with good reason, so I for one ignore any errors?

Raw nerve , cognitive dissonance, someone who never makes an an error has never achieved anything. To be human is fallible.

So, just mud slinging then?

I don’t really mind flaws pointing out, I freely admit my maths here is very fast and loose, eg I know that 50 for combat losses and driver training fleet is too high, but its close enough for a quick rough demonstration of how that 400 number can shrink very quickly, was actually expecting someone to point it out.

Mostly I’m just confused about what the actual flaw is Pete is pointing out, it just seems like he doesn’t like that I skimmed over something that wasn’t related to the point I’m making?

I also believe some were destroyed in the mid 2000s during the Future Army Structures cuts.

That’s a shame, a bit before my time so I wasn’t tracking it.

I know, almost bloody new. I think, and I may be wrong here as it was quite a while ago now, that was when 7 Sqns worth were cut.

About 40 were stripped at Bovington and hulls scrapped , cost more than storing them would for many years !

Awful decision.

Unbelievably stupid. Typical.

I think they leave them out in the rain! There is a carelessness that is hard to understand in the Army.

is Ajax not based on an Spanish in service IVF ASCOD we just messed about with it. It could be an Warrior replacement but the re design would cost, CV90 is the last workable option. Better than wheeled Boxer which will be crap deep mud, loose sand, and is under armored, under gunned ,

Yes. GDUK designed the Ajax recce vehicle based on the Austrian/Spanish ASCOD IFV which served as a ‘point of departure’ – and their Ajax design was much modified.

Ajax could not be a Warrior replacement as it is a recce vehicle and cannot take a 8-man section. You suggest re-design but that would cost a lot and take time. Better to buy an IFV, such as CV90, which is a very good IFV.

However, you know that MoD has decided to replace Warrior IFV with Boxer, rather than by upgraded Warrior (WCSP). I too consider Boxer very unsuitable to work in an armoured brigade alongside tanks as it is a MIV not an IFV, but I am not sure that it is under-armoured – (its baseline armour is all-round resistant to 14.5 mm armour-piercing ammunition in accordance with STANAG 4569 Level 4 and it can take extra add-on armour).

Wheeled is never as good as track, not cross country. I have a feeling Boxer will not replace Warrior and will come when it tries to keep up with C2/3 and is found wanting.

Wondering, as a consequence of your comment, whether you believe CV90 would be the presumptive candidate chosen to fulfill a potential future UOR for a tracked IFV? Boxer acquisition evidently perceived by some as a flawed selection by senior Army staff of a Warrior replacement vehicle; however, have not noted any substantive reason why CR90 could not be addirionally acquired, if necessity dictates. Relatively straightforward matter of opening HMG’s checkbook? 🤔

Er…CV90…🙄

… additionally…🙄 (Memo to self: beware of late night typing!)

UORs are usually only generated ‘in wartime’ but can exceptionally be raised ‘in peacetime’ if the armed forces lacks a capability or needs an upgrade to match a hostile nation’s increased capability.
Example – ‘wartime’ – masses of UORs were raised for Gulf War 1 and for ops in Afghanistan – examples of the former included external fuel tanks for CR1 and add-on armour – and of the latter being a whole slew of Protected Mobility vehicles and probably Vallon mine/IED detectors
Example – ‘peacetime’ – Stillbrew add-on armour for turret cheeks of Chieftain, following information received about improved Soviet tank gun capability. Then our force posture in Germany was deemed to be akin to being ready for war.

UORs are paid for direct from HM Treasury not the MoD budget. They need to be convinced of the Requirement – and they ‘play hard ball’.

The MoD top brass/politicians have decided that Boxer will replace Warrior in the two Armoured Brigade Combat Teams (ABCTs) rather than to field upgraded Warrior – and no-one publicly objected.
[I would not have signed up to that!]
So there is no capability gap to be met – and we are not in wartime. So no-one in MoD will walk down the corridor to HMT with a UOR case and HMT will not open their cheque book.

Boxer is not an IFV unless it is fielded with a cannon, however the particular RWS ordered so far from Kongsberg can only take a MG or GMG, so it doesn’t look good – it just sounds like we are getting a mere APC. The army staff are apparently looking at ways to increase the firepower but no idea what they might come up with.
Our troops will miss the stabilised 40mm fire support that upgraded Warrior would have given and the 30mm unstab cannon that they had enjoyed since 1986 with the current Warrior.
I remain to be convinced that wheeled Boxer will keep up with CR2/CR3 in deep snow and deep mud – I hope we don’t have to go to war to find out that it doesn’t ‘cut the mustard’.

I wish we had put more effort into finalising development (there was insufficient sense of urgency to overcome problems) and then fielded WCSP into the armoured brigades in a timely manner, and kept Boxer for a medium weight brigade(s).
Alternative IFVs to the upgraded Warrior certainly would have included CV90, which has been well received by 7 West European countries and Ukraine and 3 other countries have placed orders or may well do so. CV90 IFV is a success story.

Boxer is replacing Warrior for all the wrong reasons, mostly political.

Thanks, appreciate the extensive explanation. Hmmm…evidently this IFV issue/dilemma and other capability shortfalls, could be resolved courtesy of a dustup sufficiently serious to highlight capability shortfalls, yet not serious enough to risk strategic defeat. Fortunately, you have a Commonwealth w/ what, conservatively, fifty plus members, spanning the globe? Guaranteed that some other country will intimidate or invade a member state in Africa, Asia or ME periodically. Simply make a judicious aelection. Hell, if nothing else pops, reasonably certain Uncle Sugar would be pleased to issue an invitation to our next dustup. 🤔😳😉

Thanks mate. The Commonwealth (56 countries) is of course not a formal military mutual aid grouping and its apparatus does not include military to military links etc. But of course there is nothing to stop a member reqesting military assistance from the UK, not specifically because they are in the Commonwealth but because they are a friend of Britain.

There are several examples where military aid has been rendered, one readily springing to mind is Sierra Leone, who asked UK to take out ‘the West Side Boys’ an armed rebel group who had a habit of capturing UN soldiers. That group was subsequently eliminated in an operation by the SAS/SBS and Parachute Regiment in September 2000 during Operation Barras. [Sierra Leone also asked the UK to set up a Military Advisory & Trg Team after the Civil War].
Of course this was not an operation involving IFV/APCs etc – but there might be something around the corner that does – who knows?
It would have to be fairly large scale dust up for us to deploy Boxers en masse.

Uncle Sugar – has that replaced the term Uncle Sam?

It would be good to know how many of those 159 mothballed vehicles remain. Given that the C3 upgrade includes a new turret, suspension and armour upgrades and new electrics, one would think the hulls will be pretty much stripped down to bare metal and re-built so it won’t just be limited to the currently active fleet.

In that post I mentioned that some of the 159 out of service tanks were scrapped. Apparently 40-43 CR2s in storage were scrapped in the 2010-2014 period – I don’t know why or who authorised it, as it is virtually unheard of to scrap equipment that has not been declared Obsolete.
No reports of the remaining c120 tanks being scrapped so they will be in sheds in Ashchurch. Obviously in varying condition, but probably terrible – as no-one will have done any maintenance on them since 2010 and many/most all will have had many spares stripped off.

Thank you, very interesting. So potentially 213+120 available for upgrade to C3. When you look at the number of MBTs v recce vehicles in the US Armoured Brigade Combat Teams, I do wonder a bit about the investment choices the British Army is making between Ajax and C3.

Thanks Nathan. The 213+120 is my estimate of the number of tanks we have left, the 120 being out-of service and probably in dog-awful condition. We only need to feed 148 tanks to RBSL for conversion to CR3 over the next 6-7 years, whilst maintaining enough CR2 capability for the Field Army and Trg Org.

Not sure of the US numbers, but we have a bare minimum of tanks in our ABCTs – just one armoured regiment of 56 tanks. That Regt will have a Recce Troop of 8 x Ajax doing close recce. The Brigade have Ajax doing medium recce, of course, ahead of the manouevre units providing info for the Brigade commander and his staff – an armoured cavalry regiment. Some might argue that is a lot of medium recce – other nations have just a squadron doing brigade-level recce. It is certainly a matter for debate.

One thing that we have that is unique, and not in a good way is that the third brigade in 3 Div is not a proper manouevre brigade – 1 Deep Recce Strike BCT – an odd mix of 2 armoured cav units in Ajax – and some artillery. Ajax doing Strike more so than recce. That is also a debating point!

That is one armoured regiment per ABCT of course.

Agreed. I support the DRSB, but it should be a divisional asset in addition to the 3 manouevre bdes. The 2015 cuts reducing to 2 Armoured and 2 Strike caused this.

Yep, fully agree. The logic for 3 manouevre bdes is unquestionable. You can have 2 of such bdes fwd and 1 in depth or vice versa – depending on frontage to cover, whether you are in defence or on the offence etc etc. Just having 2 manouevre bdes gives you no such flexibility on placement. If you put those 2 bdes forward to cover the frontage you have nothing in depth – ouch! They will be bypassed and not checked and you will have havoc in the rear.

There is a strong view (or used to be) amongst the thinkers that we actually needed a rule of 4 (rather than 3), at every level. 2 bdes fwd, 1 in depth, 1 bde as an uncommitted reserve. Same at BG and Coy level. But of course it means you have to size up the army – so this discussion point was all quietly dropped. Tankies usually have Regt Orbat with 4 sqns though.

There was a lot of chat and input on X about the actual number of CR2 that remained in (ALL) conditions and the number reached was 302.

We bought 386.

Qty 43 scrapped in 2010-2014:

https://www.eurasiantimes.com/dozens-of-british-challenger-2-tanks-destroyed-netizens-say/

https://globaleuronews.com/2023/07/31/times-uk-to-scrap-challenger-2-tanks-instead-of-handing-them-over-to-kiev/

14 gifted to UKR in early 2023.

We should have 329 left, of which 213 are ‘in-service’ and 116 are ‘out of service’.

I admire your optimism and you are right the German component is a sure-fired partner. However, I can’t help recalling Warrior 2 issues where new bits just did not fit universally and required some bespoke rework as it appeared no one vehicle was the same! Or the pain we witnessed during the Nimrod 2 farce. The CH3 makes sense on paper but Blacknight may have been a wiser move by retaining the current turret architecture thus avoiding unique structures secured to old foundations.

I only have optimism if there is reason for it. Usually I am pessimistic and cynical!
Warrior 2? Not heard of that. Do tell more.

Nimrod MRA4 was a fiasco thanks largely to the Treasury – BAE had clearly advised that new airframes were required but HMT thought they knew better.

Black Night, the BAE TDP offering. I was in the opposing team working for Rheinmetall, so maybe I am biased. The weaknesses of Black Night were: retention of the ageing rifled cannon, and the lack of automotive improvements. I much preferred Rheinmetall’s new turret option with the smoothbore gun – and a raft of automotive improvements. The Rheinmetall turret took design cues from Leo2 and is a coherent whole – Black Night shoehorned some new kit into a very old turret.

I am cynical on this issue because the effort is so limited in scope. The current 148 are too few if we were fighting a Ukrainian-type conflict. The fleet would most probably be spent in a few weeks, then where would we be? I don’t doubt the tank will be impressive but I do not want to start hearing voices talking about difficulties and delays, which by the way are costly. Hence, cost overruns.

Of those 148, a max of 112 would be fielded with the two armd regts. In a Ukraine type war, with the rest of NATO alongside of course, I would be horrified if we lost 112 tanks in a few weeks – we are not as bad as the Orcs.

Ukraine has lost 1 CR2 of the 14 gifted – a far lower number lost than their Leo2s lost. This might indicate the quality of even the old original CR2 without TES kit etc. Shiny new CR3s would have even greater survival prospects.

Warrior 2? What is that?

I am going butt in here. The Warrior capability sustainment program (WCSP), was completely different. For starters the company that won the bid to upgrade and overhaul Warrior were not the vehicle’s design authority. Secondly Lockheed Martin UK was a brand new company, whose work force had next to no or very limited experience working on military vehicles. Thirdly it was a program run by project managers, who only knew how to work to defined time lines. When arising technical issues occurred they did not know how to cope with them or how to flex the program to make it work. Sadly, if the program was given an additional 6 to 9 months to run, all the problems would have been solved.

Conversely if we look at Rheinmetall BAe Systems Land (RBSL). We have both the vehicle’s design authority and another company who are still in the tank business. Both of these companies have very experienced engineers who know thee intricacies of building a tank. Plus they have also started an apprentice program, to sustain thee engineering. So I would say there’s a very good chance that the Chally 3 will be available as scheduled.

That Warrior update was constantly being delayed to the point that it became a joke. The original vehicle was brilliant and the refresh as you say had issues with inexperienced teams. There must have been real concerns about costs when the whole plan was cancelled and pitching the then Army strategy into a spiral. It would have taken a very brave guy to tell the MOD that all issues could be fixed within a year! CH3 is already slipping and that will result in cost overruns. Now we must keep an eye on Boxer and hope it's ISD is met in full.

A person who worked on Warrior said the management bit hostile ,had deaf ears to any suggestions from trials team, some hostility between ex-forces and civi mechanics, some testers got sacked for failing to torque running gear ( got a bit loose lol) . Did not understand that measurements varied , brackets and fixings need adjustment eg slots . Complicated solutions where simple approach would work better. Did not supply and rag for cleaning. Chain gun orientation due to space constraints caused ejection port jams (disputed by some on here along with barrel wobble ! ).

One of my colleagues was on the trials team, whilst another was in finance. They said the same about the management team. That they weren’t able to flex the plan. If it didn’t meet the schedule or was an arising issue. They’d move it aside and deal with it later. Thereby trying to keep to the timeline but forming a huge backlog of issues that came to a head further down the program.

Another incident was poor routing of power cables/ lack of clipping in engine bay. When the power pack was dropped in it damaged cable and burned away engine mount. Its sad that they did not fit the BAE sourced turret and 30 mm cannon as used on the warrior 2 prototype for Swiss competition as it would have worked !

There have been success stories – Tornado, Typhoon, Puma helicopter, FH70.

Unfortunately Graham, Tornado probably went the smoothest, but the initially envisioned multi role aircraft that started life as the AFVGA before morphing into the UKVGA, a sort of (European Phantom equivalent) became a European central front, relatively small and short ranged dedicated strike aircraft.

This was mainly at the instance of Germany, we went along with it as we desperately needed German money….

Thypoon, again the French caused trouble before jumping ship and the Germans are still causing trouble 4 decades in, slowing development and damaging sales prospects…

At least this time the UK stuck to it’s guns and forced through a larger, twin engined capable design. Had it been left to Germany, Typhoon would have looked more like Gripen!

Puma, ah the French again….

This was supposed to be a great Anglo French helicopter extravaganza, covering all the required military helicopters for both the UK and France.

Both countries buying each others products in quantity.

What could possibly go wrong…..

We bought both the Gazelle and Puma in quantity, then the French cancelled most of their Lynx order and the Lynx based AH project…

We bought big and they bought a hand full of Lynx for the French Navy. Their industry walked all the way to the bank laughing!

There was Jaguar, an outstanding and affordable light strike asset.

However, yet again, the French frustrated sales efforts to push their own products.

So time and time again we hit the ” France First” brick wall, they don’t know the meaning of the word ‘team’ .

That’s not taking anything away from their armed forces, we operate together very well, it’s just their political class and defence industries can unfortunately not be trusted….

French intransigence and German penny pinching will probably mean their joint combat aircraft will never be launched, just end in a massive euro squabbling bun fight, while Spain slips out the back door to meet up with LM executives and order F35!

I love the fact that in the UK’s def communities, it’s never their fault.
Just like the Germans and the French while in reality, everyone shares a part of responsibility.
But I don’t care for the past.

In the case of France, I think “France first” is a real wall for cooperation, as you said, sadly history has proved to us that you can’t trust the British and rely on them, and it’s even worse with the Germans.

Despite this, I still think we should try to cooperate, again and again, we’ve created MBDA, we’re trying to create KNDS, and I can even talk about Thales even if it’s very different…

And even if I love my “France first”, I also know that cooperation, especially between close neighbors like France, Italy, the UK, and Germany, is necessary for the future.

It’s not easy, but it’s necessary. Year after year, our countries get smaller on the world stage, we fight so much against each other that we weaken each other while our enemy of tomorrow gets stronger.

The days when competition between us was “fun” are gone.

Sadly Hermes, I think you are right regarding Anglo French cooperation.

Europe’s two primary defence industrial powers should absolutely be working together.

It’s a tragic state of affairs.

I would take issue with your assessment of the British being the problem however.

Let’s list the programme’s the French were difficult with.

Jaguar, France damaged exports by pushing it’s own products instead. This was carried out by French members of the Jaguar sales team!

AFVGA, France withdrew from what would have been an excellent multi role combat aircraft that would have sold really well world wide.

The Anglo French Helicopter deal. France reneged on the joint helicopter deal, waited until the UK ordered Gazelle and Puma in quantity, before cancelling the Army Lynx order the AH platform based on Lynx.

Eurofighter, France caused considerable trouble right off the bat, demanding design leadership over airframe and engine and a third of the workshare, before withdrawing.

Please do detail the Anglo French programmes the UK damaged.

Genuinely interested.

When you look at it from French perspective, you will hear (UK) Aukus, petroleum stories, Mers El Kebir, US submission, F35, Belgium created against France, (Germany) hot 3, Tiger 3, Apaches, MGCS, Maritime patrol, (Spain) S80 submarines based on stolen design, etc, etc…
Reasons to be bitter exists in every sides.
Fact that will not change is the need to cooperate to secure Atlantic ocean sea lines, mediteranean lines until India, growing world population. I hope that your gouvernment and mine will be able to encourage cooperation. I am fine in Germany and UK, as well as in Italy and Spain. French people may be arrogant, British people can be as well, German people also. So what then? Will we wait till our world shambles and turn to ashes before we want to cooperate again?
Cooperation and a sense of commun destiny is what will help us enjoy prosperity in the future. I hope we can work together to ensure our kids prosperity and common security.

To be fair Math, you tried hard to come up with a list, but it’s all really rather vague.

I’ll give you AUKUS, but when you look at the sheer amount of French knives in our back, all’s fair in business, as the French will tell you.

Totally agree that Europe should cooperate in defence matters, but alas, the Franco German fighter project was created, excluding the UK and slammed the door shut on any further UK fixed wing defence participation.

I have a feeling that the UK, Japan and Italy will make a superb team.

Er part of my family originate in France and when asked, the chairman of the company why we don’t do business in France he said, ‘ Unfortunately the French will always try to get the better of the deal or they wont do business!’.
Sorry to say that.

What literally everyone does… Or they don’t last long in business…
We remember that the British declared war to get better deals…

It’s funny to say things about the French like it’s something weird when you’re doing it yourself…

You left out the Horizon Frigate project, when 1st scoped we were going to build 12, Italy and France 2 each. Problem was the French wanted design lead and a 3rd of the work.
We walked away and T45 was our version.

True, but I also think the partners had different goals, the French and Italians more focused on a Med, while the UK required a slightly larger ship with better sea keeping abilities, with our traditional North Atlantic area of operations in mind.

Thanks for that John. At least these aero projects got built. Not many good examples in the Sea or Land sector of multinational collaboration actually producing usable kit.

True Graham, if anything, the European squabbling is getting worse unfortunately.

The French wer offered a cat’s and traps version of our QE Class, for their second carrier, they should have taken up the offer. I personally doubt their nuclear powered 80,000 ton carrier will ever happen.

I’m certainly glad we are looking internationally for our new defence partners.

Well, we have a constraint slightly overlooked. French interests and citizens are in the Indian and Pacific Ocean. So we will have the behemoth 80 000 ton carrier. In the mediteranean, we will patrol with Italy, but the carrier is for Indian Ocean and Pacific Ocean. Airbases in UAE and in Cyprus (planned) covers what has to be covered there.
The QE class was not with catapult, so no early warning. That’s why we could not proceed. French naval carrier is for winning battle at sea.

There is a very large RAF airbase in Cyprus, that France would be more than welcome to use whenever it needed to, why would France build another one??

As for the 80,000 ton Carrier, I doubt it will ever happen, at least in its current guise.

The Americans did precisely this, on a slightly scaled up fashion with the Ford Class and the complexity and ‘massive’ cost overruns nearly broke their Naval budget!

A one off nuclear powered Carrier of this scale will cost a vast amount of money, not just to build, but also to operate.

I think it’s actually beyond the French Defense budget.

Re the QE option, France was offered the base design, that could be completed as a 70,000 ton CVF with cats and traps.

The savings would have been ‘enormous’, in comparison to a clean sheet nuclear Super CVS.

A waisted opportunity for France to get a second and importantly, far larger Carrier than CdG.

And they will be replacing their Boomers at the same time as finishing off their SSNs.
I cant see a happy ending or a timely one unless they sell to Argentina.

As with @COLL above, realised my error with MGCS and EMBT after revisiting an article. apologies Hermes.

EMBT is a German chassis n’y a French turret, I don’t know if it can evolve to a product. I whish, but Germany want’s to push ahead the Leo.

Yes, that’s one of the ARX30’s raisons d’être with high elevation and air burst ammunition.

I don’t know exactly what sensors have been added to the hull for drone detection, but it’s easy enough to have a high-resolution camera with a bit of artificial intelligence to warn the crew today.

I don’t have a problem with armour as such either. The question is what we’ll end up with. By 2030, if we’re lucky we’ll have two small brigades with probably no more than fifty Challie’s apiece, backed up by wheeled Boxers and X number of Ajax if they ever come out of proving trials. Then we have one Deep Recce.Strike something or other with Ajax and a diminishing (at the moment at least) artillery force. About a third of each brigade is from the reserve. An awful long way from what was planned only ten years ago.

Evening, Geoffrey.

Yes, you are broadly correct. Though I myself do not see those 2 Brigades as small. Granted, previously they had 3 regular Infantry Battalions, now but 2.
But they have their other components.

Ideally we would have the 3 like we had pre 2015 reorg.

I support the DRSB myself. Tube artillery has diminished, yes, as AS90 s have been given to Ukraine. A reminder that in Deep Fires the 35 GMLRS expand to number 75, with 10 additional recovery vehicles.
DRSB lacks it’s own infantry and most regular CSS elements. It relies on a composite reserve CSS Bn on deployment.

Even up to 2015, we had 7 deployable Brigades. The Strike Bde plan and lack of money after that really damaged the ORBAT.

Hi Daniele, Been away for a couple of days. Sadly, I am correct. I wish I wasn’t. We have a couple of regular brigades with 100 MBT’s and whatever ( I don’t know yet in terms of quality or numbers ). A long, long way from BAOR or even the2015 defence paper. GMLR’s are good but we haven’t got them yet. Why does DRSB have to be entirely separate. Surely some units with infantry and CSS should be incorporated into each brigade.🙄

We gave UKR 2 x CRARRVs. I am sure they would have recovered the knocked out CR2 for many reasons.

Exactly, to be fair they wouldn’t have known Germany was about to flood the market with second hand Tanks.

Regarding the last bit about the RN, everyone keeps on saying we need more of this and that. But unless someone decided to scrap even more of the RAF and reduce the Army to an expeditionary force there isn’t the money, manpower or support facilities to do much.
If we are really lucky we may see a few more Frigates and the T45 replaced with 8 T83, due to AUKUS we may see maybe 2/3 more SSN. You can forget SSK we just don’t do that anymore and besides which there’s nowhere to build them on top of the RN/RAN SSN requirements.
Overall and given the size of the RFA a reasonably well balanced fleet would be 16 Frigates (8T26/8T31), 8 T83, 2 2CV and 10 SSN. That may not sound a lot compared to the 1970’s but it’s way more than most possible adversaries can stick in the Atlantic.
As for the 2 Carriers they look like being evolved into a UAV/F35B hybrid and that may well prove to be a very interesting combination. UAV are lighter than manned Aircraft so require less powerful Cats and Traps but can provide AEW, SAR, MPA, ASW and aerial refuelling for the F35B.
As for more F35B yep we need more, but given the issues the US are having with Block 4 maybe not just yet ! Short term I’d order 24 new Typhoons to keep Warton ticking over.
To pinch an expression from over the pond the CV development will be U.K. “improvising, adapting and overcoming”.
Even the US are starting to think that their CVNs are too big as with precision weapons you just don’t need that size of Airgroup anymore to achieve the mission kill.
IMHO the French are going to end up with Egg all over their faces with their attempt at a big carrier.
And although I’m going to be unpopular saying this this modest increase would enable the US to do what we really need them to do. Pivot to the Pacific and NATO looks after Europe.

Spot on. Modest, achievable increases in those areas given the money and manpower available.
I favour a RN, RAF first policy, but I would not want to see other services gutted further to fund it.

“Overall and given the size of the RFA a reasonably well balanced fleet would be 16 Frigates (8T26/8T31), 8 T83, 2 2CV and 10 SSN. That may not sound a lot compared to the 1970’s but it’s way more than most possible adversaries can stick in the Atlantic.”

Deal, I’d take that right now and be a very happy bunny.

Hi M8, I’m going to set aside getting involved with the Army procurement issues as it isn’t really my sphere of knowledge and it’s as Mad as a Box of Frogs. There also seems to be a couple of folks who are just immobile from their thought processes when it comes to the CR3 and Ajax. I know from my own experience that U.K industry has an odd habit of pulling Rabbits out of hats if the powers that be bother ask the right open questions.
But that can involve Egg on Faces as to why the obvious wasn’t asked in the 1st place.
Why are we buying so many Boxer Wheeled IFV when Ajax is a much expanded, Gold plated version of ASCOD IFV ?
It can’t be a bad baseline because the US have even developed the M10 Booker from it.
Rant over.🥴
As for the future of the RN for 1st time in my life I am quietly feeling optimistic that small, well thought out increases in numbers may well be on the cards.
At long last the infrastructure is being renewed and expanded for both the undersea and surface fleets. What I find odd is the slant of the official announcements, over the last couple of years has all been towards the Submarine support and maintenance facilities. Which is music to my ears that finally they are investing in end to end facilities, including decommissioning.
But it was only when Deep32 commented on surface fleet maintenance facility investment at Devonport that I went digging through Babcocks info.
Yep there it is buried away near the back that the surface fleet refit facilities are being expanded and renewed as part of the £750 million investment. Boy do I feel a Muppet.

As to why I think expansion is on the cards it’s the Political aspect that I have mentioned before. Due to Mr Brown with the CV’s and subsequently the Tory T31 and FSS orders they now have Clyde, Rosyth and H&W to all keep fed with orders and not doing so is politically very costly.
I know your political leanings but think about this idea it may make you laugh.
Which party would feel the greatest political pain if it allowed any of those 3 to shut due to lack of orders. Tory or Labour ?

Funny old world 😉

True. At the moment I’d vote monster raving if they gave a proper increase in the budget with assets to match.

Thanks. The army is expeditionary – every deployment is overseas – Op Banner was an aberration. Only a lunatic would reduce the army to below 73,000 – itself such a low figure that certain operations can no longer be done.

SSK – I realise that we have not done that for a long time but they are cheaper than SSNs – and the Germans can build them for us.

Graham I take it you are ex Army and I wouldn’t step on the toes of someone who knows their business.
But it’s not going to happen, we will spend any available money on more SSN’s as that is what we need for our tasking. Germany, Netherlands, Poland, Sweden and Norway have that end covered.
The other reasons are complex but starts off with Crewing / Training.
The RN Submarine force is struggling to recruit and retain crews for the Boats we have and the £££’s being offered for the specialists is eye watering.
For decades the entire training, maintenance and refit capability has been geared towards operating SSN/SSBN only. So suggesting we then spend scarce money on a duplicate system, different operating parameters and tied up in German end user agreements for an inferior system just isn’t sensible.
Do you honestly think that the options haven’t been looked at before ? Politicians just see the smaller crews and initial costs and when they get into just go Oh !

You obviously know a lot about the CR3 and the limitations on numbers. Now can you answer me a question please ?
It’s a hypothetical question.

If you had the choice of Obtaining sufficient CR3 for 3 regiments plus 30/40 for attrition / training.

Or

Operating a mixed fleet of 148 CR3 and say 148 M10 Bookers

Which would you choose ?

Oh and the Swedish AIP boats are far more suitable for RN use than the German ones.

I accept that I am not a naval SME, just an interested observor. It seems that the navy only wants gold plated exotica in the submarine service and would not consider League Division 2 kit in addition. The downside is the tiny size of the attack sub fleet. Too small to be much use by global Britain – only 2 or 3 are likely to be available for operational tasking.

The army is different – they have a range of equipment of varying complexity levels and ‘price points’. Currently infantry can ride in a Warrior, protected mobility wheeled vehicle or a bog standard TCV. Pity the navy does not show more flexibility – cheaper, but admittedly less capable SSKs are in service with many of our allies, and no doubt do a fine job. Anyway, I’d better park that observation!

An interesting tank question. The M10 Booker is an assault gun equipped with a 105mm cannon, and is fast and ofabout 40t weight. A Booker ‘tank battalion’ is assigned to an Infantry BCT within 82nd AB Div. It is well suited to accompany infantry providing fire support. I am not sure what penetrative power the gun has but assume it would be effective against older T-series tanks, medium-weight armour and strong points. I think that the US has such accompanying infantry in wheeled PM vehs.

In British service we would have to create a new type of medium-weight brigade to operate them. It would be ideal if we had ABCTs with CR2/CR3 and upgraded Warrior – and IBCTs with M10 Booker and Boxer. But we have lost the WCSP programme. So I would pass on this and opt for the 3 regiments of CR3.

One of the things I like about this site is that once you strip away all Twits you tend to find a hardcore of reliable SME from different backgrounds and walks of life. Some are ex forces, some are ex project managers, some civil servants and some are retired engineers. The funny thing about the later is that regardless of the kit or technology there are certain cross over principles and common points of reference. Must haves, desirable and nice to have being 3 when deciding what you need are just a few.

I will admit that I and others in my family before me have had more than a passing bias when it comes to the UK NNPP.

The reasons for the U.K not having an SSK fleet and not wanting one as a supplement for the SSN’s is that as resources are finite any resources used have to be diverted from elsewhere. They are in the “nice to have” category and as we have allies who are actually closer to where they would operate and have sufficient it’s not going to get the money. And I’ll try to explain why.

Your ex Army and as you quite rightly point out has a whole range of equipment for various tasks and has to try and 2nd guess where to juggle its budget to cover a multitude of possible scenarios.
The RN also has a similar problem with deciding where to spend its budget but uniquely it also has one other over arching and much more important responsibility than either the Army or RAF have. The Biggest Must Have !

The number one Task of the RN is the provision, maintenance and protection of the U.K CASD and the greatest threat to any Submarine is another one. To do that we must have a viable capacity to protect our deployed and transiting SSBNs from foreign submarines and the best tool for the job is a Hunter Killer.
Nothing else gets anywhere close, they are horrendously expensive and ours a very, very good (just ask the USN).
Quite simply an SSK cannot do that job, they are too slow, small, vulnerable, have inadequate endurance and cannot accommodate either the sensor or weapon load required. So they are just a “Nice to have”.

The RN having 6 at present is IMHO inadequate but fortunately its also the absolute minimum number required and that is temporary as it should 🤞🏻go back up to 7 in the next 2 years.

To put our SSN fleet in context France and China both have 6 so 7 actually puts us in 3rd place after US and Russia. Anything below 6 just isn’t viable (rule of 3) and thats backed up by efforts France had to make to get back up to 6. when one of theirs had a major fire to get back up to 6 indicates why that is the key minimum number. They removed the damaged half and joined up the front end from a sister ship that had been decommissioned. It’s now 1m longer than her 4 sister ships,

The RN was saddled with paying for CASD out of its budget back in 2010 (I think it was another “call me Dave idea”). It completely hammered everything else down to the bare floorboards. So no spare money for a “Nice to have”.

But there is hope but no not SSK.

AUKUS is quite simply the most important game changer in UK NNPP I’ve ever seen, the investment that is being poured into the infrastructure, recruitment and training is staggering. Here in Derby the RR(N) site is doubling in size, same up at Barrow, Aldermaston and right they way down the supply chain and on into the maintenance / decommissioning facilities.
The MOD actually even nationalised Sheffield Forgemasters as it was the only effective way to protect a vital strategic capability and provide it with adequate investment (£400 million plus change). I couldn’t believe it when BW mentioned it in his last speech.

So nope we will not be buying any SSK, but like most things the beauty of making a larger volume of anything brings the unit price down. So I’m quietly confidant that SSN(R) / AUKUS will enable us to increase our numbers a bit, and that enables us to go back up North and worry someone else.
So that would be very much a “desirable”.

I hope that explains things !

I was trying to get at a high / low mix but you’re right it isn’t as the M10 isn’t a tank. And Yep you went for the 3 regiments of CR3 (so would I), but I do have a question about the M10 Booker and I hope you can give me a logical answer.
As I understand it, the M10 is another GD development of the ASCOD just like Ajax is. So as that was originally an IFV why can’t we build a simplified Ajax IFV to replace Warrior ?
I may not know much about Mechanised warfare but as our intended NATO area is now in Finland or the Baltic does Boxer in the intended numbers still make sense ? Its way more boggy and has far more Snow than central Germany and Boxer is wheeled.
To me that would also make more sense than a CV90 from a logistics point of view.

Thanks. I always thought that the CASD boat was defended by a SSN. Others on this site have said that the SSBN ‘flies solo’, which greatly surprised me. Who knows for sure?

I am sure we don’t have the 6-7 strong SSN fleet just to protect the bomber. Hunter-killers deployed with the Falklands task force and I am sure that 1 or 2 will surely be assigned to a contemporary Carrier group.

If the SSNs exist to defend the at-sea bomber, accompany a deployed carrier group, patrol distant oceans as singletons or even pairs – then we need way more than 6-7, especially when allowing for the rule of 3. Thus I don’t see augmention of the submarine service by SSKs as a nice to have.

(Original) ASCOD has 2 slightly different versions (Ulan and Pizarro) – both IFVs with the Austrian and Spanish armies. GDUK based Ajax recce on ASCOD but departed significantly from the original design. Ulan and Pizarro look on paper to be good IFVs and accomodate 3+8, which is fantastic, as the veh commander does not have to debus to become commander of the dismounted section – he can be a different bod.

Once it was decided not to pursue WCSP, we theoretically could have bought Ulan or Pizarro (or some other in-service IFV ) to replace Warrior – you would certainly not re-engineer Ajax recce to turn it onto an IFV, even if you had ordered several extra hundreds of Ajax for the purpose.
But someone decided on Boxer to meet the AI role – its political – I have my views on why this all happened.

I have my doubts as to whether Boxer will be able to do its completely new and different job of working with tanks – its not what it was designed for and its not what we bought them for. You are right to be concerned at whether they will perform well in deep snow….and deep mud! Be concerned too about lack of firepower – its not going to have a stabilised 40mm cannon.

As I understand it they do fly solo (like that expression), but there is usually one tasked to shadow them out to and back from the deep Atlantic access points. It’s the shallows where they are most vulnerable to interference.
Once out there they just go deep and quiet, like a ghost. It’s always amazed me that given that there are multiple deep trenches and access points one of our V’s bumped into a French T a few years ago.
We aren’t alone in not having conventional submarines the French and US don’t either and it’s the same reason as ours it deflects resources from the SSN’s.
The thing about the modern AIP boats is they may not be as capable as an SSN for the high end stuff, but in the littoral and relatively shallow waters of the North Sea they are far more usable. Most of the North Sea is less than 100m deep and the Channel is far less, so 7000 tons of SSN is a bit of a big bit of metal to hide.
AUKUS gives us the golden opportunity to have more SSN’s and we also have a whole bunch of other folks wearing a crown on their caps to play with.
Folks ask me why the US is bending over backwards to help out and the simple truth is that it is 100% strategic self interest.
Every boat we can add is one less they need in the Atlantic and can be used to Pivot East. Plus having 8 RAN funded boats that are interoperable with theirs adds the Mass that they are really seriously struggling to provide.

Anyway I’m off for a pint ! Nice talking to you and thanks for increasing my knowledge on Green & Brown things.

PS why on gods earth would anyone put an un stabilised 40mm on and AFV these days ? Wouldn’t a stabilised 30mm with an ability to shoot down drones be a bit better. Well I suppose they can share ammunition with the new RN ones, please tell me they do use common weapons !

Thanks. The 40mm CTAS cannon is stabilised. That is fitted to Ajax and would have been fitted to upgraded Warrior (WCSP) except that project got canned.
30mm Rarden cannon gets dropped – was fitted to Scimitar (all gone now) and in-service Warrior, which will be pensioned off in favour of Boxer.

Predictably the 40mm Systems that the RN and BA are about to use are completely different – no commonality whatsoever 😖

Many thanks. Very interesting video.

Believe last paragraph references a duty of US Attorney General, not Secretary of State. 🤔

Thank you kindly for local knowledge. I was told that the State Ballot of Election for President was the responsibility of each Secretary of State. In other words its not a Federal matter rather for each of the United States to say who can be on their State Ballot.

I agree that the SoS will rely on expert legal help from the Attorney General. There seem to be plenty of lawyers in public service at County, State and Federal level, so why not…

It seems that the Judges are finding several reasons to duck the issue, so not brave, even if legally correct.

Ah, sorry, misunderstood context of your comment. Ideally handled by states, but contesting elections has become a growth industry and the full employment act for underemployed attorneys/solicitors practicing at all levels, local, state and federal, as well as w/ unaffiliated special interest groups. Would be pleased if we were allowed to export the surplus to other countries, including your fair land.

In our case it seems that only by including defence sector pensions and other fudges enabled us to make the 2%. But you are right about most of the other NATO countries meeting it

It’s actually the only thing in his 4 years stint that he said that was worth a damn and needed his diplomatic touch. Most ignored him and then Feb 22 lit them up.
Some of the NATO members are pretty poor, but Canada, Spain, Italy, Belgium and Germany aren’t and are really dragging their feet.
The French have stepped it up, as have most of the Nordics, all the Baltics and as for Poland they seem to have decided to not take any $#1T of anyone (can’t blame them really).

It helps the Poles that their economy is dong well, but they are really in the front line and have been fought over and occupied in living memory by two dictatorial regimes.

Good Morning ! The great benefit of an economy with steady 4%+ annual growth in GDP is the ability to flex and borrow when required and know you can pay it back. We can only dream of growth like that and Poland isn’t just investing in Off the Shelf items, they are spending big on their own capacity.
As for their attitude to the their bigger neighbours it’s not only understandable it’s ingrained in their souls. My 1st GF was 2nd generation UK Polish, her father was a dapper little man who was a BR Ticket Collector and originally from Lvov.
He was also an ex Count and former Colonel in the Polish Free Forces, imprisoned by the Russians (luckily not at Katyn), escaped via Iran and served in the Med and Italy (Cassino). Loved everything Scottish, could drink like an fish and just reached for anything dangerous if you mentioned Russia. Not many Ladas in his part of Derby, I lasted 3 months and risk assessed.🥴

They don’t trust Germany an inch and hate Russia with the Fury of Gods own Thunder.

But luckily they do quite like us and I know some folks who are involved with some of our Defence cooperation projects.
The description from one was “Focussed, No BS, attentive, well briefed and unlike our lot at MOD asked all the right questions including the ones we hoped they wouldn’t ask. Such as how can we work together to expand the future growth and capability of X”.

Everyone focuses on their recent purchases of the Korean K2 and K9, that is down to numbers, availability and price.
The SPG they are building themselves is the Krab which is a modernised adaption of our AS90 Braveheart turret fitted on the Korean chassis. But I suspect you know that already.

Now there’s a thought !

Great dits. My wife and I have been to Krakow twice and enjoyed Polish friendliness and their food.

Failing to field the Braveheart mods to AS90 years back is sadly yet another example of failing to upgrade our AFVs.

…”needed his [Trump’s] ‘diplomatic’ touch.” 😉 Intended or serendipitous usage of British tongue-in-cheek, understated and wry humor? 🤔

Yep he is about as subtle as a swift kick between the legs. But to be honest the US had been trying nice for decades and it just wasn’t working. I’m not convinced Germany will really step up anyway.
Now if you like tongue in cheek, understated and just a bit of devilish poetic justice try my next bright idea.

If he doesn’t get elected or end up in the clink (I hope he really doesn’t get re elected) then the next guy should pinch his play book and give him the job of US Ambassador to “Yes we are nice but don’t pay our round” Canada”.
They might just take the hint !

Oh and I don’t rate Biden either, but at least he is relatively harmless, has some reasonably sane advisors, they wake him up and wave now and then. I actualy tbink AUKUS may just be the smartest strategic move any US President has made since Reagan.

Where have all your young centrist idealists gone to ?

Never mind you can always ask Charles to forgive the failed experiment and we will promise not to Tax you any more.😉

Believe that the majority of citizens of non-NA NATO countries are slowly, painfully embracing the concept that a credible European military force is a matter of enlightened self-interest, given current events. Years, or perhaps decades, will pass before fruition, but believe intent and progress demonstrated. Frontline Eastern Europeans states, virtually w/out exception (other than Hungary), implicitly understand and are addressing situation. The UK is well positioned to make common cause w/, and become the institutional leader of, a NATO bloc which includes Poland, the Baltic states, the Nordic countries, Denmark and the Netherlands, and possibly Italy. The French, Germans and the Spanish will probably remain less amenable to suggested guidance and cooperation.

Believe a significant percentage of the US populace finds the prospective 2024 Presidential election to be stranger than fiction; specifically, that in a nation of 320+M inhabitants, it is probable that the contest will devolve into
a rematch of the 2020 campaign! 🤔😳😱

Would not inflict such pain on the jolly, care-free Canadians, but would definitely consider his dispatch as Ambassador to the PRC, smply to annoy them on general principle. 😁 (There is a scene in the eponymously named movie, set after VE Day, wherein Patton states that he could have US involved in a war w/ the Soviets w/in three days and make it appear as though the Soviets started it. Willing to wager that an Ambassador Trump could comfortably beat that schedule. 🤔😉)

AUKUS could well prove to be the case that the sumbag, slimeball ChiComs are ‘hoisted w/ their own petard.’ Heartily agree AUKUS could become a win-win-win for all signatories. A defence/defense pact which is directly attributable to ChiCom behavior in SCS. Poetic justice on a grand scale. 🤣😂😁

It’s actually a logical extension of the long term US/UK mutual defence and cooperation treaty. If anyone had thought 60:years ago that this could happen I’d be surprised.

It’s a leap of faith to cover the desire of Australia for 1st class defence, the mutual advantage of spreading the load whilst balancing the treaty obligations.

The Devil is in the detail and that is tied to the NPT, we can arm Australia with Nuclear submarines, we can train them to use those and maintain most of the tech involved.
But under no circumstances can we allow them to have access to what actually provides the power source. So refits or refuelling of the internals in the reactor has to take place in U.K. or US.

The reason for that is because the UK and US are the only folks who operate Subs powered by HEU U235 everyone else uses LEU.
In other words we are handing Australia a rather large lump of Bomb grade Uranium.

As for China mmm I’m not quite as scared of them as the US is. Yes they are Chinese but as for Communist well maybe but in name only. They are an old fashioned, centrist dictatorship with a manic desire for resources and Market share and no moral compass to limit how they do that.

The US has massive long term advantages over China so needs to play to those and plan for a long game.

Firstly if you can contain the 2 political extremes and stay firmly rooted in a libertarian centrist Political position you have willing Allies and Friends. China hasn’t.

Secondly China has been going like an express Train without restraint in every direction and their growth has been scary. But that is based solely on their economic growth which is massively reliant on cheap mass produced products that easy to export to a willing buyer. Transport and Labour costs are making that less attractive. Chinas economy has peaked and heading downwards. Hence XI being nice this week to Biden.

Thirdly when you look at the Demographics the 1 Child Policy has saddled China with a population that has a decreasing number of you people, an increasing number of older people and an imbalance in Male / Female ratio. China is running out of workers, mothers and soldiers the US demographics are actually getting better.

Fourth and last. China has built a lot of everything very quickly and are great at local intimidation. But study the numbers of any capability they have and the free Western Nations out gun them in every single measure.

For example South Korea, Japan and Australia have more conventional Subs than China when combined and RN has more Nuclear Submarines that work than they do. never mind yours !

As for AUKUS it’s a very clever bit of serious joined up but lateral thinking. The US gets it’s way out of the shortfall in SSN force numbers it can produce without footing the bill, Australia gets 8 SSNs and we get to increase our industrial capacity, build more boats and reduce the unit cost so we can take on Mad Vlad.

Oh and it upsets the French.

Whats not to like ?

Exactly. Hopefully, ChiComs will read and heed the gist of your arguments. Doubtful re the French. 😁😉

Exactly. (Doubtful if the French will forgive or forget. 😁😉)

…simply…🙄 (why doesn’t autocorrect function in straightforward situations?)

Autocorrect is an invidious secret CIA plot to undermine the correct use of the English language. Set up a computer to English and it autocorrects to damn Yank misspellings of common ancient words. way to many z’s instead of ise.
Honestly we invented it so please stop messing with it.

Tomatoes are not pronounced the same way as Potatoes.
Long legged lower items of clothing worn by Men and Women are Trousers not pants.
Ladies underwear are pants. Men’s are Trunks or Y fronts (slang word is Scuddies).
A Hood is something worn by young youths to hide beneath whereas a Bonnet a pretty hat worn by a Lady or the bit at the front of a cat to cover the engine and gearbox.
A Trunk is either a bit of luggage, part of an elephant or what a Gentleman wears for bathing. It isn’t the bit at the back of car to put the trunk in. Thats the Boot.
A Fender doesn’t actually fend anything off, its a bumper cause it gets bumped to protect the Rollers paintwork.

And the most important one from a military point of view.

Shouting “incoming” means something is heading your way, whereas “Duck” tells you what you really need to do.

As for the French, well I actually admire their sheer cheek and they can cook. But they hate us, you and everyone else that speaks English. And taking the P out of them is fun 😎
When we left the EU they tried to stop English being used as one of the official EU languages they use.
The entire rest of the EU told them to “Shut up and stop being silly” in English.

3 simple ways to wind the French up.

Just mention that your favourite film is saving Private Ryan and just ask them how many actual French Combat Troops landed on D Day.
They either divert the question and say “ah but what about the Resistance”.
Or shrug their shoulders as they aren’t taught about it in school.
59K UK, 57.5K US, 21.5K Canucks, Oh and 177 French !

Just tell them to speak English as it is the “Lingua Franca” and stand well back.

Ask them why they have such a backward and inflexible language. When they ask why you said that ? Just point out that they never use common new words for Technology and spell every single Acronym backwards. NATO not OTAN and a Microwave is “La micro-node”.
But 99% of young French folks call it a microwave.

Welsh is a far older language than French so the common Welsh word for a Micro wave is “Popty ping”.🤔

So the French sulk but so what, it’s nothing new and they do it with real panache (good French word so we pinched it).

When on Holiday (Vacation to you) I like a really good book. This year we went to the Philippines for diving so only room for one decent read.

I picked a U.K. best seller and I warmly recommend it to anyone who wants to try and understand why we Anglo speakers ended up where we are regarding the French.

Its called “1000 years of annoying the French” it’s seriously funny, educational and your lot get many honourable mentions. A lot of the best ones were when you were actually us but since then you are getting pretty good at it.

Great post, I enjoyed the laugh.
You’re right, bloody Americanisms altering our language.

Yes, all of that. His intervention in Afghan enabled the kleptocratic dictatorship of kaputin to believe that nobody would care about terrorism or a special military operation in Ukraine. Since RF, USA and UK were also signatories of the treaty to keep Ukraine safe without their soviet nukes, that was a demonstration of why no treaties with the crimlin are worth the paper that they may be written upon.

This rather explains the Ukrainian position that restoration of their internationally recognised borders is the only acceptable condition for cessation of the current hostilities and talks about restitution from RF to Ukraine.

Orcs, go home now..

Given that the 45th is now a convicted fraudster and rapist it would be hard to see any sane banker extending credit. If he was so desperate to borrow as to accept RF cash, and didn’t see the massive conflict of interest on running for President, that’s yet another reason why he cannot again have National Command Authority for US Nuclear Weapons.

Bad judgement and immediate extreme reactions are not desirable in any hand-on-the-button person. Not for a motor vehicle and definitely not Minuteman III, Trident D-5, etc.

Let’s hope so, as its not just politicians that are being evasive but also generals. There is something not right with the numbers that’s for sure.

The HET numbers were wrong in the previous years report.

There is a significant difference Dern.

The tanks that were taken by a rifle could hit the the rifle soldier. Today they can’t hit the drone guy.

Remember the battleship did not ended because a torpedo boat could sink it. it ended because aircraft carrier could sink it outside its gun range.

I see your point but I disagree with a few of the details:

First of all I’d argue that in the historical context: In early days the Tank was very unlikely to take out a AT Rifleman, as visibility was terrible out of them and internal communication very bad.

Secondly I do not believe that a Tank doesn’t pose a threat to a drone operator. CUAS and EW are developing fields and a MBT can carry a much better EW suite than an infantryman can carry in his back pack.That in turn can not only fully deny airspace to drone operators, but also in less ideal circumstances force drone operators to have to work very close to the front line or risk loosing their drones, which in turn makes them vulnerable to fires, including directed fires from MBT’s. If EW is forcing your drone operators to stay within 2-3km of the drone then they are within Tank Range. Russia is pushing EW further forwards and further down, with the stated objective of expecting every platoon to carry some form of EW (remains to be seen if they can achieve this).

Third, and this is a real nitpick so feel free to ignore it: The Aircraft Carrier didn’t end the Battleship, the Missile did.

I did not say that we don’t need AFV. I am not also only talking about drones.

Question: do we need a very heavy 4km range only gun in very expensive system?

If i can hit the enemy with precision from >10km(guided artillery, drone, missile) away why we need the tank as it is?
I think the major investment should be in targeting and long range fires.
For AFV we need infantry transport , anti drone to protect infantry and missile, drone launching AFVs

Getting better all the time moving much quicker than tank tec.

Drones are aircraft. We have not fitted specialist anti-air weapons on all AFVs in the past and I doubt we will do that now. I am not minimising the drone threat to AFVs at all but I think anti-drone systems will be developed more quickly now and will be in the hands of specialist operators, such as RA.

Hi Graham see my answer above. MoD are progressing with their counter-UAS program for both individual soldiers and vehicles. The Ukraine War has been the impetus and its seen as an urgent requirement with Land.

Thanks Davey. I could not find your reply. SMASH sight for the SA80 for dismounted soldiers?

With the fast moving improvements in drones I doubt very much any high cost tank orders with happen including the USA.

That’s my point, we do not need a big fleet of tanks, 146 would be ok if they reserves etc but as a total its not enough. When did tanks fire in Suez/Bosnia/Kosovo, non in Ukraine as they are not our tanks and deterrent is not combat.
I am not putting the c2 down, merely questioning when its been used in its tank fighting, break through role?

My point was that (unlike some other key defence equipment) we deployed tanks on active operations many times.

Tanks are not always used to breakthrough enemy lines any more than aircraft carriers always launch air strikes or Typhoons spend their entire time bombing ISIS – that is one of their roles.

You seem to either want lots of tanks or question why we have any at all!

Are you similarly conflicted over other platforms or is it just the tank?

i question why we do every thing half arsed, C3 will be the best tank in the world fact, but so few? seems a bit like re arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic

Mate, don’t blame the army. Blame the politicians – they want to spend more money on the vote-winning areas – social security, health, education.

not blaming the Army, may be weak top brass etc but never the Army.

I would add you have to win the fire fight in operation/assult and Anti tank missile add to the firepower. But yes its is a British thing not to have them but is it right? what does an IVF do if come across a tank? or anti tank missile that will out range its gun?
And yes Boxer as it is would be a bad idea but hopefully it might at least get up gunned if its meant to be used as an IFV.

IFVs should operate in very close proximity to tanks. In the assault, the tanks should be first engaging enemy armour (tanks then medium-weight vehs) and secondly any strongpoints.
The Infantry will be taking out enemy vehs with cannon fire and dealing with dismounted enemy troops especially those with significant weapons (A/Tk weapons, mortars, HMGs).
An IFV really should not meet a tank alone.

In recent years ATGW had to be steered by the operator for a long time to impact under SACLOS guidance – doing that when your IFV wagon is bouncing across country at 30mph is very difficult. A TOW operator, for example, would have to keep his sight on an enemy tank for 13s at max range. Things are different for Fire & Forget such as IR Homing, but so far we have not mounted Javelin FGM-148 ATGW on vehicles – perhaps we should.

That’s all well and good but but combat is not set out like the drill book, what does an IFV do if it meets a tank, run away? in the real world it happens. TOWB2 is old as are most SCLOS Missiles. Modern missiles are fire and forget but are yet to be fitted to vehicles. I agree on that.

Combat has its TTPs (including SOPs) as I am sure you know.

Your question made me reminisce about my 4 postings to BAOR during the Cold War. If that war had turned hot, I would have been driving around the battle field in a LandRover. If I had met a Soviet tank or BMP the things would have gone drastically wrong. My only option would have been to say my prayers.

Back to your question. Much depends as to whether the enemy tank has seen our IFV, what the range is, what the built and natural terrain comprises, the aspect of the tank etc.
Options include: dashing forward to strong and effective cover or dead ground; engaging with the 30mm cannon as some older T-series tanks have poor armour, especially in the sides and rear; popping smoke and reversing into dead ground; calling our tanks up and ask them where the f**k they are.

My discussion on SACLOS missiles giving TOW as an example were to indicate that in the past they were not easy to use if the IFV was moving at speed cross-country – you were talking about the assault. With a modern fire and forget missile and no need to track the missile, it is worth considering if our IFVs should have this – but there are still pros and cons.

Fir point, if i had seen a tank in Germany we likely have already lost as was Div Artillery. I would say it best to have Anti missiles just in case, rather than trust in god and cross your fingers.
The Army never bothered with them on IVF’s as you say little point unless to sat still. Hopefully that might change, more fire power to fire fight normally wins

You misunderstand me. The vast manufacturing complex I envisage, would be state owned. Not a private enterprise that needs to be self financing. It would be a strategic asset, much like the armed forces themselves. The aim of the exercise being procurement of armoured vehicle and systems for national defence (offence too.) Just as important, maintaining the trained workforces capable of building such things. Not to make profit for shareholders. Think “Tankograd” in the old USSR.

It would be nice to sell to other nations but not essential. GB could have the capacity to supply friendly nations with cheaper versions at a loss, purely for geopolitical reasons. The USA have been doing that for decades. The USSR turned it into an artform.

I’m not talking about tinkering around the edges of the military industrial complex here. More kicking it into action by taking over! By placing huge procurement and maintenance orders. The thousand or so new MBT production run for the British Armed Forces. Would be supplemented by similar production lines for APCs, IFV, SPG and other armoured equipment.

It’s radical and bold. A complete departure from the current system. As much as I hate and detest socialism/communism. I’m not afraid to pinch their ideas and practices when they work.

I thought Chile wanted a chunk of Argentina rather than of our islands. Chile supported us in retaking the Falklands, so they muct haev approved of our ownership?

https://www.reddit.com/r/asklatinamerica/comments/s1msvi/argentinians_and_chileans_what_do_you_guys_think/