UK aid to Ukraine excludes further Challenger tanks

It would be usual to donate a spares pack, but no details were published.

I had not heard UKR criticism that CR2 does not have any anti-personnel rounds. It is not the primary role of a tank to take on dismounted infantry, its not even generally considered to be a secondary role.

US will make higher quantities of a future tank than the 200’s. So too would any Euro collaborative venture.

 It is not the primary role of a tank to take on dismounted infantry

That was the NATO Cold War tactic in 70’s due to large superiority in numbers for Soviet tanks. Not after the end of Cold War, HE and APAM rounds with sophisticated fuses exist long ago, note that target is not only infantry but ATGM teams, buildings.

My operative phrase was ‘primary role’ not ‘only role’. Clearly a tank can fire at anything if equipped with the right ordnance and munitions, but with limited numbers of tanks there has to be focus of use. I suspect our tanks will always be up against a larger enemy grouping of tanks and other AFVs, and that was not just a 70’s phenomenon.

The US M1 has an impressive variety of rounds that it can fire including the quite new M1028 120 mm anti-personnel canister cartridge and the M908 obstacle-reduction round to destroy obstacles and barriers. The US may well field the M1147 Advanced Multi-Purpose XM1147 advanced multi-purpose (AMP) round to be effective against bunkers, infantry, light armour, and obstacles out to 500 m, and will be able to breach reinforced concrete walls and defeat ATGM teams from 500 to 2,000m.
I am not sure how many of these rounds are ordinarily carried.

In addition to APFSDS, our CR2 carries very long range HESH rounds, which are effective against buildings and thin-skinned vehicles…and L34 white phosphorus smoke rounds.

It is perfectly logic for a Ukrainian to make that criticism since: their Soviet era tanks were multi purpose and the other NATO countries with Leo, M1 also have multi purpose function.
The 120mm NATO evolved, the British 120mm did not. I think that is a legitimate critic.

Fair enough.

With their APFSDS and HESH, CR2 can engage heavy, medium and light armour, and buildings/strongpoints. They could only take on dismounted infantry with the chain gun and the pintle MG, or even 120mm WP, but have no cannister shot.

Our doctrine is to task infantry supported by artillery to deal with enemy infantry including their ATGM teams. I am content that we focus the very limited number of tanks that we have on the more difficult (better protected) targets.

Yes we did supply apfsds d rounds.

So we supplied DU 120mm? I wonder if UKR has DU rounds for the Abrams and Leo2s or if they have Tungsten?

Yes we 100% did not sure about the other nations to be honest.

Yep, Alex, I know that. There are other factors beyond engine hp that determines a tank’s top speed and acceleration, principle ones being weight (thus P/W ratio), gearing, track aggression, and suspension performance.

Certainly but we are outsiders and from available data we have on Challenger, appears to have less available power. 300hp is also significant.

As I said, don’t just look at one number (engine BHP at the flywheel) as there are other factors, which I mentioned,which dictate mobility performance. CR2 can motor cross-country at 40kph (some say faster than that), the same speed as M1 Abrams and just about the same speed as Leo2 (estimates vary but most say 40 or 45 kph).

An honest and quite concerning assessment. Vaguely reminiscent of the post Dunkirk status of the British Army in WW II, intact, but w/out the heavy weapons necessary to successfully confront the Wehrmacht (now Orcs). Unfortunately, the RAF does not possess the same 25 Squadrons of fighter a/c to conduct a second potential Battle of Britain. 🤔😱

If the RAF had 25 Squadrons of Fighters during the Battle of Britain things would have worked out for the worse – ACM Dowding wanted 52 and he got them.

Thought that Dowding told Churchill that he had to reserve 25 Squadrons for home air defence, and therefore could not commit them to the Battle for France. May have transposed number.

We only sent 10 manouevre divisions to France (BEF) in 1939 plus 3 Pioneer divs, not the whole army of course.
Yes, the BEF lost all their heavy weapons, artillery and vehicles.
In those days we could re-equip a lot more quickly and had a large enough army to fight elsewhere despite the Dunkirk equipment losses. The British Army was still able to fight elsewhere in 1940 – ie. Norway, Egypt.

Very true about the stretched RAF of today. We have only two Typhoon bases in the UK – 4 sqns at Lossiemouth in Scotland and 2 sqns at Coningsby, Lincolnshire. Only one sqn of F-35Bs – based at RAF Marham, but they are by default assigned to carrier ops. No RAF combat aircraft based in Germany since the end of the Cold War, of course.

An intriguing theoretical question: which branch would take the least, or conversely, the longest, timeframe to return to Cold War standards, presuming an existential crisis which eliminated budgetary restrictions?

I’d go with the Navy being the longest purley due to the lead-times delivering ships- and army shortest as its far easier and quicker to train men.

Concur. Deliveries of any, or all, of F-35A, F-35B and Typhoon a/c, though requiring multinational participation for production, could still be accelerated more quickly than expanding/renovating multiple shipyards. 🤔

A very interesting question. It was once said that the RN and the RAF ‘man the equipment’ and the Army ‘equips the man’. A tired cliche and rather pre-dates the era of the Army having a lot of complex equipment to man, so it may well have had more veritas before mechanisation in the 1920s!

But a grain of truth survives. The army is nothing without manpower and lots of it. If the MoD sacked Capita, the totally hopeless civilian company that recruits army manpower and reinstates High Street ‘Army Careers Information Offices’, then we stand a chance of speeding up recruitment. It takes about 26 weeks to train an Infantryman from scratch at the Infantry Training Centre, Catterick – but other Arms can produce a very basic soldier from a civvy in about 12 weeks. So if an existential crisis loomed, adopt the 12-week model for all including the Infantry to produce basic soldiers (Phase 1 training) – perhaps even shave a week or two off it. The problem is that there are too few camps, ranges and training areas now to cope with large numbers doing basic training.

Where does that get you though? The Infantry lads would go on to do their Phase 2 course (to teach more advanced Infantry skills), but a short one due to the looming crisis, say 4 weeks. The Phase 2 course (initial trade training) for Other Arms and Services would be longer.

Then where would the kit come from? I am unsighted as to how much kit there might be from boots, uniforms, helmets and webbing to rifles, radios and vehicles – for a vastly expanded army. I suspect there is not much available. That is where it would probably all come unstuck. Although… there is currently a huge vehicle disposal operation about to start, covered in a previous UKDJ post. Perhaps stop that even though it goes against ‘tradition’ of selling off equipment that has been formally declared ‘Obsolete’. Keep those CVR(T)s, and PM vehicles that were produced for Afghanistan/Iraq. etc etc

At the very least the army could generate a body of new soldiers to be used as Battle Casualty Replacements. Much of the ‘new Infantry’ could fill out light role units who have relatively little complex equipment or enable new such units to be created with a cadre of experienced officers and NCOs at its core.

None of this is ideal. We have probably not got enough barracks, training camps, ranges and kit to make things work well. Would we call for volunteers or adopt conscription?

All much more difficult for the RAF and RN, I imagine. Without additional aircraft, ships and submarines – it would be a waste of time to expand the numbers, except to fill a few Orbat holes.

*15.
9 Infantry divisions (split 1/3/3/2 between GCHQ and the various Corps) in the BEF proper.
1 Infantry Division attached to the French 3rd Army.
3 TA Divisions where deployed on rear echlon tasks and further training
1 Armoured Division was sent to reinforce the BEF on the 10th of May
1 Infantry Division deployed to France after operation Dynamo was completed, and had to be evacuated separately.
There where also 3 unattached Armoured Brigades.

By comparison Norway only saw 4 British Infantry Brigades deploy, and the WDF in 1940 consisted only of:
1 Armoured Division (The Mobile Farce as it was called) and
1 Infantry Division (Initially Indian later replaced by an Australian division).

But for the sake of balance (and because EVERYONE forgets this) I’ll add:
The British Army also had 2 Indian Divisions fighting the Italians in Sudan, and had the 1st African, 2nd African, and 1st South African divisions fighting in Kenya/Somalia.

Huh, never knew there was conflict in Kenya and Somalia (presumably during the North African campaign?)! Thoroughly enjoy learning additional info on widely varied topics on this website. 😊 👍

Yeah it’s not a very widely publicised campaign. Italy had Ethiopia and most of Somalia as colonies pre-war, and a rather sizeable force, even some minor successes early in the war when the British colonial forces hadn’t been stood up yet.
But as I said, eventually the British Army mustered 5 divisions in two formations, and Cunningham did a great job when he assaulted the Juba River with the 1st and 2nd African Divisions, broke through 2 Italian divisions and covered the 200miles to Mog in 3 days.

I think it’s not talked about for a few reasons: 1) Despite actually being quite a large campaign (the Italians had 250,000 troops in East Africa) after the initial fall of Somaliland the Italians never really managed to get any offensives going. 2) It’s often written off as a bit of an automatic conclusion due to Italy being realistically unable to resupply East Africa (hence why they only had a few offensives), which is a bit unfair since the Imperial forces where pretty consistently outnumbered, and 3) Most of the fighting was done by the two African Divisions in the South and 2 Indian Divisions in the North, which meant the vast majority of the soldiers involved where colonial troops (If you’re curious a lot of African Armies got their start as formations within these two divisions).

And the massive difference between then and now is the ‘vastly’ larger domestic industrial base we had in 1940 and the economy on a war footing.

By example, we lost three quarters of our Bren Guns, but ROF Enfield was working 3 shifts, 24 hours a day and turning out substantial quantities a week.

All manner of equipment for all three services was pouring out of hundreds of factories and a steady (and rapidly increasing) number of newly trained volunteer and conscript personnel were joining the fight.

The often quoted ‘critically short of rifles’ was actually nonsense, that was more to do with striking a cord with America to open up the taps of defence donations.

We still had many hundreds of thousands of WW1 Lee Enfields in store and being refurbished and re issued alongside new production.

But they where not doing that in 1936, which is more the stage we are at ATM. (Also fun fact about WWI Enfields, the Rifle No 4 wasn’t actually adopted until 1941, until then all issued Rifles where the No 3 (or SMLE MkIII) which was the WWI rifle.

Morning Dern,

I would say the huge difference between now and then is that the UK in the 1930’s was a major industrial world power, that huge manufacturing base could be turned to War production and the actual foundation of the planning for war had started way back in the very early 1930’s.

True re the SMLE, in fact both rifles remained in production alongside each other through the bulk of the war, the No4 in three UK factories ( and two North American) and the No1 MK3* via BSA dispersal, being assembled from supplied parts all over the UK until early 1944.

I mean I could counter that in 1930 we where a world power that was basically capable of fighitng another world power on its own which is not what we aspire to today, but we can keep this up indefinietly, because the 30s and today are not an exact analogy

Thanks Dern. Very different to my own perceptions. I read somewhere that the BEF comprised about half the UK-based British Army – is that about right?

I mean, it’s really hard to count and depends on your definitions. The British Army in theory had 30 divisions, plus 3 (7th Infantry, the Armoured Division (Egypt), and the 8th Infantry) overseas. But of those 30 divisions 24 where TA, and well, 3 of the Divisions that went to France where still training and being issued kit, which is why they got put on rear echlon security detail while they continued training.

So yeah, I mean, on paper, about half would seem right. In practice? If 3 TA divisions got deployed that where still in the process of forming, exactly what condition where the remaining 15 TA divisions in 1940 in? (And plus you have to factor in the British Indian Army, Canadian Army, ANZACs, and South Africans (By the end of 1940 there where two Canadian Divisions in the UK, along with most of two Australian divisions). Basically what I’m saying is: It’s messy trying to work out what % of British Combat strength was in the BEF.

Thanks Dern. I really appreciate your knowledge on this.

It all seems rather sad that today we would have trouble assembling, then deploying just a single warfighting division with full manpower numbers and modern equipment and plentiful ammunition supplies….and have no Army Reserve (was TA) formations at all.

In fairness: A 1939 TA division only consisted of 7 Infantry Battalions (2 brigades of 3 and one divisional battalion), and 2 RA Regiments with towed guns, plus enablers. You could easily achieve that by splitting 19L in half and moving AR attachments out of the Regular divisions.

Yep, fair enough.

And what about the Omani CR2’s?

Yes the Omanis have just over 30 ch2 , also about 30 scorpions I noticed . I’ve had a quick Google scan and looks like oman not replacing ch2 anytime soon. Rheinmettal maybe involved maintaining Omani ch2 tanks or upgrading them but that requires more research. Oman did inquire about the Korean k2 tank before covid but that looks to be on hold . Oman new kit budget is something like 1 billion dollars plus a year. I even read one article that rheinmettal got hold of some ch1 for refurbishment in 2023 but I guess that has gone quiet .

The export cr2e we exported was a much better variant more reliable in most respects and has probably been better looked after so are probably in much better condition than our cr2 fleet.

There were no CR2E Tanks exported – no one bought any and it was removed from any catologues when Greece chose the Leo2 instead.

Yes Jordan has finished with the CR1s we supplied them some 20+ years ago. They have been replaced by a mix of Leclerc MBTs and Italian Centauro Tank Destroyers. Not sure what they are going to do with the CR1s.

The Jordanians are perfectly capable of refurbishing the CR1s if they wanted to gift them to UKR – very hard for UK to do that – we have no CR1 spares, publications or Special Tools, as they all went to Jordan.

Converting a MBT to an APC is very difficult as the powerpack (except for Merkava) takes up the rear half of the tank. Israel has done it many times – some Cent MBTs were converted to Puma APCs.  Achzarits APCs were built from the captured Soviet-made T-54/55 tanks. Namer APC is a converted Merkava MkIV MBT.

OK thanks I did not realise that Jordan was probably in a better position to refurbish the tanks compared to uk , but that makes sense as we gave them the whole lot for a tuppance. Seems a waste to me as the ch1 chassis have Chobham armour , so a shame for them to be sitting unwanted . Yes I was thinking of the israeli setups of ifv using mbt chassis , but I get what you mean now about engine wanting to be at the front for an ifv conversion , that must make using the ch1 for ifv redundant I guess . I’ve just seen you can get a challenger 1 Haynes manual for £14.99 ! .
Maybe I will have a quick readup and put in a offer for 400 ch1 refurbushments 🙂

I seem to recall that Jordan payed for the UK to do a Base Overhaul on the CR1 tanks (not cheap!!) and shipping costs. They are a relatively poor country (not an oil-rich state) and didn’t have the funds to pay a full market price for them. We had a major problem disposing of the tanks due to their security classification and the solution of passing them on to Jordan with very strict security rules was deemed to be the best solution – it was also a political/diplomatic matter – Jordan was and is a pro-UK middle eastern country.

You think it was a waste? how else would we have disposed of them after their British Army service?

They gave Jordan 20 years good service after 17-18 years British service. Unsurprisingly Jordan have now replaced this tank of the early 80s. It will be interesting to see what becomes of the Al-Hussein CR1s now.

As I said, Israel managed to convert rear-engined MBTs (Cent and T-54/55) into APCs (not IFVs), so it is possible but surely expensive, time-consuming and a sub-optimal result.

A waste as in 400 no longer required, if a possibility they can go to Ukraine , not a waste to go to Jordan . And agree politically a good move

Understood. Any possible transfer of CR1s to UKR is very much up to Jordan.

Jordan has a very good capability in the King Abdullah Design & Development Bureau (KADBB) estb 1999 – I went there once.
They can do major engineering work including Base overhauls and major upgrades on AFVs and can produce their own light combat vehicles such as Fast Strike vehices for Jordan’s SF etc. They upgraded a number of their CR1s to the Falcon standard which incorpprated a 2-man turret.

Thanks , I did not realise Jordan had an accomplished vehicle program

Morning Graham, my point being that I will wager the majority of the remaining stored Chally 2’s sit without power packs and have been substantially robbed of parts to keep the active fleet going.

As we are refurbishing and mildly upgrading the same power pack in Chally 3, I would assume the stored examples are being robbed out even more to provide parts for the rebuild programme.

If you are left with little more than gutted hulls, reliant on a limited amount of rebuilt old engine’s, there’s little point in keeping them.

Despite the evidence of Ukraine, re the importance of having a least a minimum MBT force, we are still reducing MBT’s from a core to a neche capability, that will never likely be deployed in anything other than a single token Brigade.

Drop from three Armoured Regiments to two and it becomes an increasingly pointless proposition in my opinion, as mass drops below what many consider a minimum viable and effective level.

Cameron’s defence review of 2010 put 159 Chally 2s into storage in mothballs – Inactive fleet. Some or many of those have been cannibalised over the years and sometime in the 2010-2014 timeframe some 43 of them were scrapped as they were BER. A further number have been scrapped since 2015.

We don’t know the details but I doubt that many parts are being robbed from the Inactive fleet for the CR3 programme. Take the turret as just one example – CR3 gets a complete new turret & gun, so no need to rob any turret items from the Inactive fleet for the CR3 programme.

Gutted tanks in the Inactive fleet have been and are being scrapped – they are not keeping them.

Without a crystal ball it is hard to be sure that we will only ever deploy a single armoured brigade, rather than two armoured brigades or a full warfighting div (3 Div). Right up to 1989, when the Berlin Wall came down, I doubt anyone would forecast us deploying a warfighting division to the Iraqi desert.

I disagree that our CR3 capability will not be viable or effective – 2/3 of NATO members have fewer than 148 modern tanks. In a crisis, all tanks will be required, even relatively small numbers – every little helps! …and ours will be very capable, arguably the best in NATO. Of course, we should have far more than 148!

Evening Graham,I would imagine the main component part robbed out for the CH3 line will be the power pack, as this is being rebuilt and mildly upgraded.

I think our CH3 will indeed be effective, but as we have discussed many times, dropping below 3 Armoured Regiments robs us of bare minimum critical mass.

CH3 will serve a niche capability….

I personally think they will never be operationally deployed in strength, unless the Orcs attack!

Not sure what the Minimum Acceptable Presentation Standard (MAPS) of the donor CR2 is, ie how complete it needs to be and how operational some or all of the assemblies, sub-assemblies and components have to be.

As regards the power pack it might be that the MAPS states that the donor tank merely needs to have one fitted and with any faults to be repairable.

I read that the donor tank gets a Base Overhaul before being put down the CR3 build line; in reality they must mean a modified Base Overhaul, as there would be no point in overhauling gun and turret items as the CR3 gets a new turret, for example.

There really won’t be a tank submitted to RBSL that recently lacked a power pack – they don’t just vanish into thin air… meaning one had to be pinched from an Ashchurch hangar Queen.

We have operationally deployed tanks many, many times in the last 30 years, often at some meaningful number – 221 CR1s in GW1, 120 CR2s in GW2.

The availability of British military equipment to deploy is rarely publicly stated, except for RN vessels!
The last official figure I saw in Open Source was from March 2023 – 157 CR2s were reported to the House of Commons Defence Committee as being available for operations out of 213. That is not a figure that surprises me (70% availability as a snapshot was typical when I was in REME). That does not mean of course that the balance were sat in a rusting heap totally stripped for spares. We always worked on the premise that the 70% figure could be raised to 90% after a concerted push by REME and the User but that did assume that spares could be quickly sourced. Therein lies the rub, as the old phrase has it.

No significant upgrades have been done to the CR2 fleet so there are no newly designed assemblies, sub-assemblies or components. Everything was designed in the 90s (or earlier) and many suppliers will have gone out of business.

Cannibalisation to generate spares is the last resort – there are other options to generate spares. Clearly the equipments to have been cannibalised would have been the Inactive Fleet, not the Active Fleet. We bought 386 tanks and some 159 were mothballed in the 2010 Cameron review. At least 40 of those 159 tanks were scrapped a few years later, and probably some more since so well over 100 inactive fleet tanks are still at Ashchurch as a source of spares.

MoD will not order 30 years of spares for CR3 upfront, but might order 10 years supply.

Which is one reason I’ve read of why BATUS was downgraded, the Tanks there were needed in Europe.

Ah, sorry Dern, I see you’ve covered BATUS further down.

Exactly. Unfortunately, per Dern’s post, those hulls have already been shipped to Senelager. Another of my proposed plans, shot in the ass by reality. Oh well…🙄

Well if it makes you feel better the BATUS hulls are still being used for training, just on the North German plain instead of the Prairie.

Yes, but it might have served as a convenient pretext to ship CR-2s to some southern tier USA or National Guard base/training area, thus providing an impetus to create longer-term storage areas for non-frontline British equipment. Admittedly, not quite as convenient as Germany, but probably would only require marginally more Ro-Ro sealift capacity to ship and result in significantly less corrosion to the equipment. If/when the balloon goes up, equipment simply folded into materiel convoy(s) headed East to UK/Europe. 🤔

Again it’s a cute idea but it wouldn’t happen for reasons of access. (Plus as your republican party has just proved, we shouldn’t be trusting America any further than it could be thrown at the moment).

So no tanks in BATUS at all now? Do they still run Med Mans in Canada without tanks?

Ah, Ok, so they’re the training ones and suchlike? I’d have thought we could release some of our training ones, but maybe that’s not a good plan…

So the British Army currently operates 3 Challenger Regiments (lets call those hulls 1-168) that’s the current “front-line force.”
Then it had 22 in BATUS for training (hulls 169-190, I think these have moved to Senelager) a few more in the UK for training and development purposes (lets say 190-200) and then the Operational Reserve (200-213). Then hulls 214-340 are in long term storage and have been stripped for parts and hulls 341-380 have been scrapped or donated to museums.

When the Army moves to future soldier that breakdown will change; hulls 1-148 will be upgraded to Challenger 3 standards to equip 2 regiments, and have a small training and reserve fleet. Hulls 149-213 should in theory be free to donate then (obviously the British Army will pick the best condition 148 to upgrade, and make a case by case decision on the remaining 65 whether to scrap, donate, or strip for usable parts.

I do happen to know that the 22 BATUS hulls are really beat up having been almost constantly on exercise for their entire lives, so I suspect those will be canned.

I’m sure there are more than 10 CR2’s in the training fleet. Bovvy, Lyneham, ATDU………….

Possibly, but if the training fleet is larger then the operational reserve is smaller.

Absolutely👍

And thus, at least theoretically, there would be additional hulls (ranging from 1- 65) available that could be upgraded/rebuilt to CR-3 standard? Contention is that could become a very desirable course of action, dependent upon future, currently undefined, requirements.

Theoretically yes, probably more expensive as naturally they’ll pick the best hulls for the 148 currently slated to be upgraded, but in theory yes.
In practice I’d be surprised if it happened.

Understood, thanks. 👍

We have 213 tanks in the Active Fleet, with 4 different remits (roles) – the majority assigned to the three armoured regiments and the balance split between: the Trg Org (REME and RAC); the Repair Pool and the Attrition Reserve. All 213 tanks have a key role.

We already gifted 14 of our Active Fleet tanks to UKR (it was 227), so took a hit. If we gifted more it would impact further on meeting those 4 different remits. As it is we are batch-feeding 148 of those 213 tanks to Industry for the CR3 conversion.

My view yes. The hiding of the real situation has led to where we are at, its clearly not a good thing.

Look at Germany, once the public became aware of the state of their equipment there was massive pressure to fix the issue which is what is now happening.

In the US they have it all in the public domain and senators are constantly pushing the topic.

Clearly not the golden bullet to solve the issues, as the public and media would need to engage with the data but it would be a start.

In Germany it was less a case of “the public becoming aware” and much more “a largely pacifist public that was very much against the employment of the Bundeswehr outside of the defence of Germany itself simply didn’t care.”

That is no longer the case though. The gaps have been exposed and their expenditure now exceeds ours. They are rearming significantly but it is expected to take decades, like it would for the UK if the money was there.

Again, it’s not that the gaps where exposed, they weren’t exactly hidden. It wasn’t some huge expose that showed up the Bundeswehr, it’s just that the public started to care.

A bit of both. There were rumours of issues but it didn’t really get a light shined on it until Russia attacked Ukraine. I guess the difference is the UK isn’t under any form of risk of attack whilst Germany is.

Unfortunately with Poland, France and Germany all rebuilding, even Italy is and the UK continuing to cut, one of key negotiations card we had with the EU is reduced, as they don’t need us as much.

I disagree about characterising them as rumours. If you where a German speaker and interested in defence in the 2000’s the readyness state of the German Army was not “rumours” it was known fact, it just didn’t really go beyond enthusiasts because, as I found out first hand, the reply to talking about readyness states would usually boil down to “We are surrounded by friends, we do not want to invade anyone, and frankly we think we should be supporting the Americans in Afghanistan and suspect it’s unconstitutional.”

(Also Germany really isn’t under much more risk of attack than the UK is, Every country it borders is friendly. The only way it’ll end up in a war is if it, like us, gets dragged into one through alliance commitments)

Sorry AA, others here can give a more expert answer to that than me. From my couch I’d go more for a 200 number, 3 tank battalions, almost a rule of three plus a reserve. I know that some countries on the Eastern flank have and are boosting their tank numbers but if they ever needed substantial help from us, could we do it with 148? Is it too big as leap to go to 200? Question is, what is too much and unnecessary and when is being too lean not effective? Note sure on the AS90. Wasn’t a rebarrelling to a larger calibre quashed, maybe as too expensive and fiddly to get refurbished? Graham, Dern or Daniele will know.

If Russia invaded a NATO country, we will deploy our forces to Europe. All tanks wil be useful.

Many AS-90 SPGs were supposed to receive the Braveheart upgrade over 20 years ago, one aspect being the installation of a 52-cal long-range gun of the same calibre (155mm). It is said that it was cancelled as the South African company, Somchem, contracted to supply the ammunition, could not make IM (Insensitive Munitions).

I think you might be confusing a few things? So we generally have 150 frontline challengers in 3 Regiments (until the KRH give up theirs) and another 50ish in training roles. Those 3 regiments will rotate through a readyness cycle, mostly for the crews sake. So 1 Regiment with 50 tanks will be at high readyness, just finished their training and ready to go out the door at short notice. That unit will be the highest priority for spare parts. It’s somewhat rare to move tanks from unit to unit to enable this and generally only happens if one of their tanks absolutely can’t be repaired in a timely manner. (Asterisk here which we will come back too)
Regiment 2 will be training, their the next highest priority for spares and repairs because they need tanks to train on, but their schedule is generally a bit more known.
Regiment 3 will be recovering and they’ll be the lowest priority, but their tanks won’t actually be stripped for spares.

The asterisk above is the Estonia deployment, because it’s expensive to rotate tanks in and out of Estonia instead of just the crews so those will stay there and move from unit to unit (we did the same with BATUS in Canada, we kept a dedicated training fleet out there).

What does get stripped for parts are the remaining 100ish tanks that got removed from the orbat when we went from 350 CR2s to 227.

As for AS90, the Americans have a considerable advantage with their M109s in that they are still rolling off the production lines. When the US introduced the M109A7 they didn’t send their old Paladins to be upgraded, they just told the factory to change what they where making. Not only is that easier than upgrading an existing vehicle in many ways, but also you don’t have to deal with the fact that, frankly, the vehicle is physically old. While the Americans have been continously upgrading their M109 design (as I mentioned they’re on version 7 now), we’ve not done so with AS90, and at this point we’d probably want to do a really major upgrade. It then becomes a question of “Is it really worth spending a ton of money on this old artillery system or is it a better idea to just buy a new one?”

Thanks for that. No confusion…I was asking a general question, not specifically about tanks which you have answered quite succinctly.
AA

Ah the 200 number threw me off.

Only Jordan has CR1s (all parked up in a desert compound and out of service now). Jordan has replaced them with a mix of Leclercs and Centauros. They have zero interest in buying and putting CR3 turrets on their retired CR1s and sending them to UKR.

The Jordanians used Khalid Tanks to make Reefs, one step away from a CR1.

Exactly. It has got nothing to do with us. They are not our tanks.

Unfortunately, the big heavily armoured tanks we have are about as fast and manuverable in a tactical sense as you can get. Go much above 30mph (which virtually all tanks can achieve) and it doesn’t matter how light your vehicle is; it might technically be capable of going faster, but suspension and crew will limit it.

This boils down to Tactical, Operational and Strategic Mobility, which are not mutually inculsive. A MBT, even a 70+t one, has good tactical mobility, that is, off road, moving into position, firing, relocating. It’ll be more mobile than most 8x8s and definitely more mobile than a 4×4.

Operational Mobility is what you referred too, there’s a weak bridge, we have to go around it, we’ll have to do a road march 100km etc. In that sense yes your 4×4 is more mobile, and in that context the 100km/h speed is relevant because on metalled roads or ashphalt that speed is actually achievable (also vehicles with tracks usually suffer on long road moves, considerably more so than wheeled vehicles, which is why tank transporters are a thing).

No idea what your on about with C3 being designed to fight an enemy that doesn’t exist. CR3 is designed to take advantage of wider NATO ammunition natures, improve the sensor package on CR2, and add active protection systems.

Don’t forget that a lot of that 72tonne weight is add on Armour Kits. If someone geniuenly deployed a CR3 into theatre and felt it needed to trade armour for “manuverability” it could in theory just operate without it’s add on kits.

If operational commands decide that the add ons are worth it, then they’re probably doing it for a reason.

Overplaying the importance of heavy armour? It is pretty important to provide the best protection that is possible. Would you like to go to war in a poorly protected vehicle?

Sorry, my wording was not clear. The armour used on some of the more modestly weighted tanks is also well protected, but the tanks themselves are lighter due to a smaller design, and benefiting from 20-30 years of technological & metallurgic improvements to reduce weight. I am not talking about the UK using lightly armoured tanks.

Thanks mate. I think the next generation of MBTs (post CR3) will have to be lighter but as well protected as required – I agree with your ways to achieve that, plus one more:

• materials improvements for the main structure.
• reduce crew numbers to 3, to 2 or to zero.
• develop a much lighter primary weapon system and ammn.

Before that era, I also think there is merit in fielding medium weight tanks/fire support platforms/assault guns for medium-weight brigades, similar to Booker M10.

A fire support AJAX variant was in the original (now deleted) requirement.

It’s actually no problem at all, it’s already been done ! Our Ajax variants are based on ASCOD, the USA is now introducing the M10 Booker. It’s also an up engined version of an ASCOD, only problem is it’s also built by GD and they rather blotted their copy book with Ajax.
Oh it isn’t a Tank, it’s an MPF Mobile Protected Firepower. It’s lightly armoured but is there to provide extra fire power so a bit like an assault gun.

Booker’s 105mm is conventional rather than CTAS, which is what I was suggesting. I thought that the advantages in ammunition carriage and compactness, along with the boost to penetration, would allow an Ajax with “CTA105” to, if not comfortably beat, then at least compete with MBTs along with a fire support role.
Only the sketchiest of work was done in the US into 105mm CTA, though, so a 75mm would be more likely.

In fairness, the 105mm on the M10 is, as far as I can tell, based on the old 105mm gun that was on the original M1 Abrams, which in turn was based on the L7 found on Leopard 1, which has seen service in Ukraine.
It has an APFSDS round too so it is capable of competing with some MBT’s. Not that I’d want to, but if pushed into a corner it still has some claws.

In recent Canadian tank exercise CAT 24 in Latvia a Italian Centauro team with old model 105mm reached 3rd place just behind the British Army Challenger 2 in 2nd. Now an exercise is certainly a limited scope but they could get in front of 120mm tanks.

Just imagine a 120mm version and the penetration power that would have.
Chally 4, anyone?

Morning mate.
With no army involvement or recommendation?? If true, well, how typical of politicians.
Hope it actually works I read its not in service yet as UKR don’t yet have theirs.

Nsn and Oracle software number sound like the same thing . The very large telecoms Ltd company I know uses Oracle software as its stores database , every nut and bolt hardware , , spare parts for old and new kit is identified, well 99 percent of it and advises whether in stock , out of stock , waiting shipment , obsolete use this product instead, manufacturer etc its quite organised

It’s a similar system, though NSN isn’t precisely linked to specific software (as each NATO member will have it’s own software system and Database).

OK thanks 👍

I wonder how this issue might become at least somewhat less of a problem in future generations of MBTs etc. Some companies are 3D printing rocket engine parts and other high-load heavy machinery such as engine parts now and I am sure the boundaries for what can be 3D printed will continue to be pushed back.

For equipment with very long planned in-service dates I can imagine a future where the supplier(s) could be required as part of the initial contract to put as many design files as possible (e.g. 3D printing templates and associated input material formulas) into escrow to be released if a supplier fails so that the Army/RAF/RN could source the parts from another supplier with appropriate heavy duty industrial 3D printing equipment.

Actually, perhaps on a part-by-part basis one could go further and not even put the info into escrow but instead release it immediately to the client (Army/RAF/RN) for them to 3D print far more locally to where they are needed. The RN is already experimenting with on-ship 3D printing I believe.

There might be some intellectual property issues for complex parts that the supplier considers proprietary but that shouldn’t be insurmountable. A bit like how the RAF has to pay Air Tanker a fee per litre for any AAR fuel it takes from non Air Tanker assets (with a few exceptions for NATO training exercises etc) maybe a fee per part printed could be paid for any more complex part that the customer 3D prints using a supplier’s design files rather than ordering it from the supplier as a manufacturer spare part.

All pipe dreams for the timescales involved in the current Ukraine conflict but I can definitely see the ever increasing capabilities of 3D printing having a quite major effect on supply chains in the future with the opportunity to do some really beneficial things if a bit of creative thinking is used in negotiating future contracts.

Thanks Julian, REME is no stranger to 3D printing and acquired four bespoke printers 4 years ago.

This from REME’s FB page in 2020:

“Last week, Thursday 16 July, 5 Bn REME received a visit from CGS, DCGS, and DCap at Army HQ, to speak to them about the 3D Printing ‘Makerspace’ which had been created for them by HoC CSS. 
4 of these containers will be fielded across the Army over the next 2 months, and will provide the ability to print spare parts, prototypes, and conduct Expedient Repair on the front line”.

From http://www.forcesnet of a few hours ago!:

“The British Army is using cutting-edge 3D printers in the field for the first time to provide spare parts and important equipment for troops and vehicles.

During Nato’s Exercise Steadfast Defender, members of 9 Theatre Support Battalion, Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers have been using this new technology to replace damaged or missing components.

“Sometimes depending on where we are deployed, we can have the spares to be able to fix it quite quickly – but sometimes we can’t do that,” said the Commanding Officer of 9 Theatre Support Battalion, Lieutenant Colonel John Anthistle”.

Not everything can yet be made by a 3D printer…

From http://www.printingit3d.com:
“Here are 7 things that cannot be 3D printed: 

Perfect spheres without supports
Flammable natural materials 
Hard natural materials, such as stone 
Certain metals, including gold and silver
Large and intricate objects 
Complicated designs 
Completely finished products”

This fighting at range stuff isn’t a new revelation, we’ve been killing tanks with tanks at ranges out to 5km since Gulf War 1. It’s only a revelation to people who think that War Thunder and movies are what Tank Warfare looks like.
If a APFSDS round can kill a vehicle at 5km then you still need armour, and if ATGM’s can reach 4km then again, you still need armour.
Urban areas are a nightmare for anything going into them, tanks, infantry, vehicles, it’s just a horrible environment and you will loose a lot of anything if your opponent wants to fight there. Ultimately a smaller 30mm just means you have this weird vehicle that’s not tank, but not IFV, and that still will suffer from the same issue that all armoured vehicles have in urban areas: They can’t see Infantry in buildings.

Which does not mean we could not regenerate the capability of we wished. That is because of the challenger 2 barrels are rifled.
Which no one ever made except the Brits.
However it does not mean we could not regenerate the capability if we wished. There is a big difference between no longer manufacturing and unable to manufacture.

You are moving goalposts: I never said that it could not be recreated.

Not moving anything and they were your goal posts Just pointing out a fact.
Yes we no longer have the capability but we haven’t lost the knowledge.
As for building more CH3. Considering very little ch2 components are being used. Basically the hull, these could be relatively easily buiit.

RBSL have stated that production of new build CR3 is possible should a customer request this.

Hopefully their will be more built