MOD reveals cost of AH-64E Apache programme

I assume the assumption is if they can get it over the line and built then they can start lobbying for tracked options.

Really? That is not how the Treasury thinks and operates. The MoD has declared Boxer as the replacement for IFV (in March 2021). Treasury will read that at face value as MoD no longer want a tracked IFV, and will shout down any belated and futile lobbying efforts.

Anyway, assuming you are right…..Boxer is built and issued to the Infantry in the armoured brigades, MoD then successfully lobbies for a tracked IFV which is funded and procured, where do those every expensive Boxers now go?

I suspect the treasury is well aware that the boxer only option was only went for due to cost issues.

The number of boxer orders doesn’t go anywhere near replacing the number of platforms it is replacing, so I’m sure if money was ever made available they could operate together well. Plenty of nations have a mix between tracked and wheeled, such as US and France. Useful for different jobs.

Yes but most nations don’t have such an expensive heavy wheeled option with a machine gun stuck on the top…France specifically has a very very difficult paradigm for its army…it’s main focus has always been the ability to deploy into African due to its still significant focus on colonial interventions and at the same time maintain just enough heavy equipment to force a nation invading France to do so with maximum effort…the French army has not actually been designed to win that fight.. just to force that fight…at which point France has always made it clear it would go nuclear strategic deterrent on the invading nation..the British army on the other hand has a paradigm ams a major purpose of supplying a heavy armoured division into the mud of Eastern Europe….a wheeled apc replacement for an IFV does not fit with that…unless the UK is planning to change it paradigm and move away from being able to deliver a heavy armoured division in support of an ally….the problem is at present the army is being turned into a light intervention force and suppler of a couple of heavy armoured battle groups…but still maintaining its old commitment and paradigm….

I’m not really sure what the UK is gearing for, and I get the feeling they don’t either. At one end there is backing up nato in Eastern Europe and at the other end is the far more realistic prospect of another counter insurgency /failed state operation.

I don’t think reinforcing nato is the focus as if it was you would expect a far bigger deployment into Estonia/Poland when the Ukraine war kicked off but instead we sent less than a dozen tanks

The army has to be prepared for both of those prospects and many more besides, such as warfighting beyond Europe (we fought two Gulf Wars a while back), PSO in a troubled region (such as we did in the Balkans), restoring public order/counter-terrorism in NI (if the Troubles reoccur), various MACC tasks…The list of possible missions is endless – it has always ever been thus.

Most of our land forces are committed to NATO, so that is a focus.

The eFP effort in Estonia and Poland is as much as NATO asked us to supply. We do not decide nationally how much kit to send there. If the Estonia commitment ramps up from a BG+ to a Bde, we will find a way to supply that.

We sent 14 tanks and 2 CRARRVs to Ukraine over a year ago plus a vast amount of other kit including 32 AS-90s (we have probably sent more military kit and munitions than any other European country), yet that was not due to a NATO edict.

You speak as if the French fight on the Continent (against Russia) is one for France alone – in reality that would be one for the whole of NATO.

I agree that Boxer APC is the wrong vehicle to replace an IFV – but that doesn’t mean that we would abandon the idea/commitment of supplying an armoured div to NATO to fight on the continent. Just that it would be sub-optimally configured.

What evidence is there that we are only likely to supply a couple of armoured BGs? 3rd Div is so much more than that.

Hi graham..if you go though and have a good read around how the French army was build it was around the concept of how it would defend french boarders against a large enemy .. France has always had a very clear focus on how it would defend itself…with our without NATO..although it’s always been a member, from 1966 to 2009 it was not in the integrated command structure and did not form part of NATO task groups or command structures..so it’s army was built around that and not as the British army was in that it would fight in Central Europe under NATO command structures.

French doctrine was very much based on when Germany fell to the USSR…it’s army would then face off against the red army at its border…it was never designed to win that fight, but it’s army was designed to make sure the red army had to essentially fully deploy and make a maximum effort to take France…at which point France would then start lobbing buckets of sunshine until the USSR pulled back…its army was not therefore as heavy as those designed to fight to the end on the inner German border. It’s the same with its nuclear forces..France has always maintained what it calls a sub strategic option…which is essentially a limited strategic response as a warning shot to the USSR if it stepped over the France German border…before full release if it kept coming. not a tactical nuclear response…very clearly a limited strategic response…it’s why they have maintained their air launched strategic weapons, so they can still undertake this two step strategic response. This very specific responce was why they stayed out of the NATO command structure..because they had a very specific “how to defence France” plan that was not on quit the same page as the NATO plan.

Thanks Jonathan, I do ‘get’ France’s unique historical perspective. Since they rejoined the integrated military command structure very recently, they should be back on ‘the NATO page’, more or less.

We (UK) seem to do more and more collaborative defence work with France – all good.

Yes indeed, and let’s be honest at some point the African colonial part of the French army will change…so over the next 20 or so years it may be that the French army starts to follow a more traditional NATO style “heavy” structure…

The French Army (118,600 regulars) has always had heavy armour and a NATO style structure – they have 215 Leclerc MBTs, of which 150 are in 3 regiments spread across two armoured brigades (2nd and 7th).
They have 5 Cav units with wheeled tanks (AMX10RC, ERC90).
They have 2 Mech brigades (1st and 3rd) with Mech Inf in wheeled APCs.

Hi graham, yes but the Leclerc is by a long way the lightest of the modern western MBTs..and everything else is wheeled and light, it’s new IFV is a 28ton wheeled vehicle and it’s core AFV is a 12 wheeled vehicle, it’s news wheeled reconnaissance vehicle is 25tons …it’s army is profoundly lighter than any other wester army….not saying it’s actually wrong as it creates a very deployable force in austere conditions ( poor rail and road networks)…

Splitting hairs maybe? Leclerc is a proper MBT (heavy metal by most definitions – 57.4t for the later models without add-on armour).

OK that is lighter than M1, Chally – but it doesn’t make it a medium tank, to use a very old phrase, or a tank not suited for NATO use.
It is heavier than its opposition…T-80U is 46t. T-64A is 38t.

Leclerc is for armoured warfare, not colonial duty in Africa.

Their 2 armd bdes with tanks and 2 mech bdes would fight for NATO, rather than swan about in Mali.

The requirement for Boxer is 1,306, and 1,016 are already funded with 623 ordered.

There are around 1,500 Bulldogs and Warriors, but the force will shrink by a bit anyway with the reduction from 6 to 5 infantry battalions and 3 to 2 armoured brigades.

Boxer will replace Bulldog and Warrior on a near one for one basis.

I thought it was also replacing a few other vehicles.

Either way that is 1500 vs 623, a significant reduction. Who knows if the remaining number will get ordered, but based on history i would guess we will end up with something like 800.

No-one is saying that 623 represents the final order figure. It is usual to order new equipment in tranches over several years – eg, we have not ordered all 138 F-35s yet!

800 Boxers would not be enough.

It’s more histoy tells us that when tranches are involved the full order never happens. The next goverment or the next defence minister will have different ideas

I was trying to find the origin of that 1,306 figure. Guess it equates to the number of Warrior and FV430s after current Orbat tinkering.

It’s from the NAOs assessment of the equipment plan.

625 Warriors and 746 Bulldog in 2023 so similar numbers.

Yes, I got my numbers from the MoD spreadsheet. Very similar. But I doubt Treasury will fund the full ‘buy’ required – they never have done in the past. Thats why the army ran about 1,000 FV430s (now over 60 years old) on after Warrior was fielded.

I have mentioned before that Warrior upgrade was not scrapped purely because of cost issues (although it was a programme with excellent VfM, ironically), but also because if Warrior had been upgraded there would have been no brigade(s) to allocate Boxer to (embarrassing) as the Strike brigades had been deleted from the Orbat after yet another army organisational re-think (cock-up?).

Correct that the 623 Boxers ordered so far are nowhere near enough to replace all Warriors (all variants) and all FV430 series vehicles. Probably need well over 400 more.

I am aware that other nations mix tracks and wheels. A Warrior battalion today mixes tracks and wheels – most of its admin and support vehicles are wheeled.

A Mech Inf battalion could operate its recce platoon in Ajax recce ahead of the rifle coys in Boxers. A useful benefit would be the provision of 8 x 40mm cannons to the unit.

Terminating tbe warrior upgrade program was insane, especially after so much money invested in it but it feels most military decisions are political rather than tactical.

Boxer is a hugely expensive programme as it is a hugely expensive APC, possibly the most expensive in the world.

It would have been cheaper to equip the five AI Bns with upgraded Warrior and to have halved the Boxer order.

Yep. And just to remind again, as I have many times.
Boxer after the 2010 SDSR was the MIV program to replace just THREE Bns of Heavy Protected Mobility Mastiff, one per Armoured Infantry Bde. From 2027…way after CH3 and WCSP and Ajax were meant to have been sorted.

Carter chasing his medium weight Strike dream has cost us 1 Armoured Brigade and all the IFVs in the two that remain.

Yep. Its good to have both the back story and the newer story. I see that many nations still operate Mastiff 6×6 or Cougar 4×4. I wonder if Mastiff could have been further developed rather than replacing it (soon) with Boxer – still that is water under the bridge.

It was clear that Boxer procurement really should not have jumped the queue – there was a far more desperate need to first replace the 60 year old Scimitar, upgrade or replace the 35 year old IFV (with a better IFV) and upgrade or modernise the 25 year old Chally.

Medium-weight wheeled armoured/PM vehs was for COIN ops that have (temporarily?) ceased. The focus now is on preparing for manouevre warfare, which has been much neglected.

Exactly let’s not blame boxer for warrior as they aren’t related. One didn’t cause the others disaster

Except again an upgraded don’t make sense throwing billions at an outdated platform that did well back in the day but has major shortfalls in modern war.
Let’s not blame boxer it’s a wicked platform especially a tranche with more offensive capability.
It’s not boxer fault that warrior program was a disaster. We could have bought something of the shelf far more capable and modern.

This has been discussed to death, the cash was wasted now we need to move on and fix the system

Andrew, I hope that today’s Infantrymen see this the same way as you do ie that Boxer is a better vehicle than in-service Warrior or upgraded Warrior.

The Boxer we are getting has the same armour standard as the Australian version. Which is in part why it costs so much. In that it will offer protection across the frontal arc to 30mm APFSDS. Along with protection against 14.7mm AP rounds down the sides and rear. This is the same as Warrior with TES used during GW2. Warrior’s has subsequently been upgraded since. So in theory Warrior with the latest TES has better protection than Boxer.

I do fully expect Boxer to have an applique armour kit fitted to meet the operational threat when deployed. Slat armour for defeating RPG’s being a firm favourite.

The caveat though, is that normally the Army will say the vehicle complies to STANAG protection X. But in reality its better.

As an aside, Ajax’s protection is a step above Warrior’s TES. In that it is supposed to be protected against 30mm APFSDS across the frontal arc and sides. They haven’t mentioned the rear, which ASCOD was already protected against 14.7mm AP. But it has likely improved over the base vehicle. This is the primary reason why it weighs so much.

For Warrior’s life extension program, it shouldn’t be viewed as replacing obsolescence, but as a new vehcile. The base vehcile much like Chally, was going to be stripped down to the bare hull and reconditioned. With new parts replacing most removed parts. The rumour was that a Warrior that had been through the modification program was going to be called Warrior 2. Technically after modification the big three of mobility, protection and firepower, would have been on par with the newest IFVS if not better firepower wise.

This is why those of us in know, say it was a colossally stupid decision to cancel the program.

The soldiers etc know what they want but who ever listens to them. They are just told accept what their betters force on them. Is it the 1800’s or 2000’s?

Actually they do know what they want, but it is physical impossible.
Army dig the “AFV Magic” hole they are in, Chasing a physical impossible armored vehicle that is light enough to go into a A400 – it was a C-130 before – that is protected as an MBT , have heavy weapons and has off road mobility as a tracked vehicle.

Boxer is just the guy next door husband they ended up with after realising in panic they would end up not married if they continued chasing a fantastic tale prince.

Sadly the Army does know what it wants. It just doesn’t have the funds to make those ambitions real!

Makes no sens to have a tracked recon Ajax into a wheeled Boxer unit.
Imagine delaying the whole unit because Ajax can’t go 100kph in roads.

How many battalions advance to contact or conduct defence on public highways?

How many battalions advance to contact or conduct defence on public highways?

All armored movement is made by highways and roads unless you have a very flat terrain( some deserts, frozen steppes and/or lack said roads or highways, but then it is too slow advance.

Off roads is only for deployment to combat, static frontline. You also want to make frontline breach near roads and highways.

Most off road movement in Europe is impossible to armored fighting vehicles except in very small quantities.

Alex, is this your experience of exercises or combat operations? Any vehicles irrespective of type, move in accordance with the tactical plan, the Operational level plan or strategically.

Certainly strategic movement (such as getting from peacetime locs to Theatre) is likely to be done by airlift, sealift, rail or HETs/lighter low loaders. Although back in the day for the large exercises in Germany, then SAXON and B Vehs deployed from the UK to Germany went on their own wheels (ferry for the wet bit).

Operational level movement ie moving very long distances from one part of Theatre to another (intra-Theatre) is generally done by lift – more usually HET/low loaders – although Boxers may travel at 100kph(!) on roads if there is a shortage of HET/lowloader.

I have never seen much tactical movement done on public highways. They canalise your forces and make them a very fat target for enemy air, drones, artillery, mine attack, ambush etc etc. Achieving all-round mutual protection can be impossible if combat vehicles are in linear line-ahead formation. The Russian advance into Ukraine in Feb/March 2022, particularly the column heading for Kyiv, exemplified this very risky approach; many vehicles were destroyed by UKR forces and the column was halted for days due to dead vehicles blocking the road. It then proved very difficult to refuel the vehicles as fuel bowsers could not get forward.

“Off roads is only for deployment to combat, static frontline”. You suggest that moving off-road is a rarity and only done if the frontline is static. I don’t get that point of view. If the frontline is static there won’t be much or any vehicular movement. But that is not the type of warfare we wish to undertake. We adopt a manouevrist approach and if successful then the frontline will not be static. Our forces will be moving a lot and aiming to manouevre to hit the enemy where he is most vulnerable time and time again – we will not be seeking out main roads to move on, unless there is a clear advantage in doing so. Most movement would be on tracks and cross-country. When our forces adopt a defensive position that is for sound reasons but it would not be intended to be static long-term – and we would be always ready to launch counter attacks in vehicles or on foot.

“Most off road movement in Europe is impossible to armored fighting vehicles except in very small quantities”. I assume you are American by your American spelling, so perhaps are not familiar with Europe. I had 4 postings in Germany and never experienced that most off-road movement with even the most heavy vehicles was impossible; colleagues who exercised in Poland also usually had relatively little trouble driving cross-country.

Certainly in deep snow and during very heavy and prolonged rain, then off-road movement was far more challenging and greater care with route selction was required. I accept that the Rasputitsa situation in Russia and parts of eastern Europe is far more of a problem and then cross-country movement is difficult to impossible

I am not talking Strategic level , i am talking Operational level and even Tactical.
It is my experience of reading any armored history. The movement outside road is in last 10-5km to the frontline or so if possible. Level desert, steppes, dried savana are exceptions.

Going off road is most of the time too slow.
I think i have an article from International Defence Review about the the % of really accessible terrain for armored movement in Western Europe. It was surprisingly low and even less as the unit size increases.

Thanks Alex. I did see that academic study on terrain accessibility for western Europe in fair weather conditions.

It’s a lot different for eastern Europe in the rainy season – Rasputitsa mud is something else, and wheeled vehicles don’t have a chance of moving.

Of course it is faster moving on roads – that is a given – and wheeled vehicles are faster on roads than tracks. But Combat is not all about driving fast on good roads in dry weather – sometimes you have to engage the enemy and also to fight to seize and hold Key and Vital Ground.

Many armies avoid roads if they wish to avoid ambushes, mines or presenting an easy linear target to enemy air, AH, drones, srtillery and a/tk weapons. I thought I mentioned that the Russian army failed to do this on their approach march to Kyiv in Feb 2022 and paid the price.

Armies also can choose to avoid roads for other reasons such as to use cover and create surprise – the Wehrmacht advanced through the Ardennes forests in 1940 (12-15 May Op Fall Gelb or Op Case Yellow) and 1944 (16 Dec 44 – 25 Jan 45) to provide concealment and create surprise; it certainly did that – if they had sufficient fuel they could have achieved some sort of tactical victory.

We avoided using roads in South Armagh during The Troubles – they were too dangerous. We avoided using roads in Afghanistan when it was known that the Taliban were in close proximity.

I am not saying that you should never use roads in an operational Theatre of course, just that combat is not just about motoring at high speed. There are many factors to be considered when selecting a route for operational or tactical moves.

I know very well the Battle of the Bulge it was done all by road.
Only when there was a resistance point the armored vehicles tried to find ways to bypass via trails, but trails went fast to impassable as the vehicles keep using it.

You cannot not move by road at operational level. There is no tempo going off road. The distance done by Germans in Ardennes 1940 by trails was small. The issue with Ardennes was not “terrain” per se. But the number of roads and small ones available.
Edit: plus deployment areas.

The Battle of the Bulge or the Battle of the Ardennes was not all done by road – look at some newsreel footage. There were some roads running through the Ardennes, but the Battle famously included German forces including heavy armour intentionally moving long distances on forest tracks through the Ardennes forest to ensure a covered approach from aerial observation and to generate surprise.

Do you think we have erred in having tracked vehicles in the British Army in general, or the infantry specifically? Do you think tracked vehicles have any advantages in combat? You are telling a one-sided story, Alex.
Combat is not all about driving at 100kph on roads.

Damn, had a flashback to Sandhurst.

Scary thought. Scarier is that I am going to the 50th reunion of my commissioning course next year.

Now that just isn’t funny!

Well the Russians seem to be writing the book on that one…but it only seems to work if you have a couple of spare armies worth of equipment stashed away when you loss the first lot.

If war with Russia occurs we would commit 3 (UK) Div in toto and more. We have some Attrition Reserve stock of materiel, but not much.

If 3 Div is rendered combat ineffective in battle even with the attrition materiel stock being deployed and with BCRs replacing soldier casualties – we would withdraw the Div and our (UK’s) ground war would be over.

Then the Americans come in and finish the job with massive conventional forces!… or US/UK/France goes nuclear…or maybe peace talks happen.

Or even better Ajax cannot road march like Boxer from say the UK to a far flung border area 1500 miles away! It would need transporters that are going to be very busy elsewhere moving CH3 or a rail move.

Indeed mate. Yet in Carters Strike plan, 2 of those Regiments with Ajax were going to be garrisoned in Catterick!!! Even further from eastern Europe than SPTA.
While being expected to go waky races to Tallin.
Their firepower ( in Ajax ) divorced from their wheels and infantry ( in Boxer ) in deploying vast distances by the tracks issue.
So F knows what the Army upstairs has planned.

Hi mate. We used to use the phrase TTW a lot – Transition To War. It was assumed that we would get combat indicators of trouble brewing and could do strategic moves (move equipment to Theatre or close to Th) in time. Some scoff at this, but it was clear in Sep 2021 that Russian forces were starting to move to areas bordering Ukraine – thus there was 5 months notice before hostilities actually commenced.

Sure, sometimes there is not a lot of advance warning – Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait, Galtieri’s invasion of the Falklands. No concept is perfect. But there is time to get forces to Theatre to do their job….

In the case of GW1, Saddam invaded Kuwait on 2/8/90 and was in full control within 48 hrs. Then there was all the diplomatic stuff (UN resolutions, sanctions). Saddam refused to withdraw his forces by the UN’s 15/1/91 deadline, so the aerial bombardment campaign began on 17 January 1991 and lasted a month. British ground forces arrived in Theatre (Op Desert Shield) mostly in Sep 1990. By October 1990 7x had deployed from Germany to the Gulf – more forces would follow. The coalition began a ground invasion of Iraqi-occupied Kuwait and parts of Iraq on 23/2/91.
Thus TTW took about 2-3 months – time enough to move armour and everything else to theatre. Combat occured after a further 3 months. The wacky races bit need not be at 100kph!

Evening Graham.
Yes fair point. Given our comprehensive intelligence capabilities I’d hope it is the former, like you say with the RUS/UKR scenario.

Yes, all armour is moved overland by rail or HET/other low-loader for a 1500 mile move.

Gunbuster i was not talking for such long distances, but 100-200km my point in Operational and Tactical situations.
Your unit need to cut the enemy advance at 100km distance junction. You have no Centauro+Freccia IFV or the French equivalent to go there fast, your Boxers will have to wait for Ajax, C2/C3.

With Ajax would have made more sense also to buy the Ascod.

I am also seeing UK being very dependent on Germany for land forces:
C3 update
Boxer
Boxer artillery.

I think UK establishment realised that what is important is Naval and Air. Land combat industry is basically zero and the Army will buy stuff from other countries.

It is a puzzle. Boxer CRV (Combat Recce Vehicle) variant as ordered by Australia for their Land 400 Phase 2 (in 2 sub-varaint types) has not been ordered for UK’s Tranche 1 or 2, and time is pressing on.
Would be odd for them to have Ajax Scout, although I presume enough were ordered for the 5 battalions in the ABCTs, when they were to have WCSP in the rifle companies. Mixing tracks and wheels in the same battalion is possible.

I recall the Soviets did it all the time.
Unless it’s anotger hidden cut and they end up with Jackal. Or nothing at all.

Soviets/Russians had/have both wheeled (BRDM) and tracked(BMP based) recon vehicles.

Yes, I can see some merit in having Ajax in the recce platoon of a Boxer battalion…such as giving the battalion 8 x 40mm cannons!

You can’t do recce in nothing at all (haha) but you’ve got me worried mentioning Jackal, which lacks all-round armoured protection and a cannon.

Personally I am surprised hat during the prototype review. They didn’t look at replacing the steal tracks with the Soucy band tracks as used by the CV90?

The Norwegians proved that band tracks work in a combat. After fielding them for a year in Afghan. What was perhaps surprising, was how quiet the tracks were in some cases better than wheeled vehicles. Another big finding was the longevity of the track. It was expected due to the sharpness of the stone tracks. That the tracks would be cut fairly quickly and need constant replacing. The opposite was true. They performed better than the comparative steal tracked CV90s. Needing significantly less maintenance.

To my mind the band track would solve some of the issues experienced by Ajax. It would remove the induced noise and vibration from the steal tracks and suspension. But perhaps more importantly it would allow Ajax to cruise at a higher speed, without the fear of the tracks overheating on road marches. Perhaps even keeping up with Boxer to a degree. Mind you didn’t stop CVR(t)s overtaking traffic on the Farnham bypass back in the day!

Thanks. I am very familiar with the existence of the Soucy track and am not at all surprised at the advantages. I agree that some of our tracked vehicles should undergo trials with Soucy if that has not happened already, and adopt it on successful completion of trials.

It has always been said that there is an upper weight limit for a vehicle to adopt rubber band tracks and cannot recall the figures being bandied about a few years ago. Maybe Ajax might be too heavy?

I don’t see Boxers leading the pack in the armoured brigades – expect to see Ajax as recce in the lead, for tactical reasons.

Worth saying that GDUK claimed sometime ago to have solved the vibration issues!

From what I’ve read, Soucy are saying 45t is the upper weight limit. So in theory Ajax even with additional appliqué armour, should be under the max weight limit.

There used to be a video on YouTube of a civi owned Scorpion fitted with band tracks. It hit 85mph, but to be fair, was fitted with a BMW straight 6 diesel. That had a huge intercooled blower fitted. No idea of the hp, but well over 300 I’d imagine. Be great for commuting to work I reckon!

Thanks. I must find that video.

Boxer with offensive capability would be good – we will have lost all our cannon-equipped IFVs – thats ‘criminal’/stupid/dangerous. No way for an infantry section in Boxer to take out an enemy BMP/recce vehicle/any vehicle.

The army staff was supposed to be looking at increasing Boxer’s lethalty early last year – no idea what they concluded.

‘We have to buy what we can afford’ – hmmm, can we afford to buy the right number of Boxers? – or rather will HMT stump up enough cash to buy the right number? – they are horrendously expensive, probably the most expensive wheeled APC in the world.

Warrior upgrade was very affordable – would have been better (and cheaper) to have completed Warrior upgrade and fielded ‘Mk2’ Warriors and to reduce the Boxer order significantly..

You answered your own question, the USMC are paying for it, Israel Americas greatest ally gets lots of free shit from uncle Sam.

Missile integrations costs are in the hundreds of millions of dollars then there is the issue of stockpiles and logistics. The RAF may operate brimestone but no NATO army including ours does.

Yet…but that is changing. UK will in all likely hood pick it for overwatch and Poland wants it.
Some Nato air forces are after Brimstone as well.

Missiles have been tested an evaluated at battlefield courtesy of Mr Zelesnksi and the UK ones have done well.

Good for exports…..good for R&D jobs……good for MOD….

Pssst this Apache program is under budget….

And Brimstone was tested and integrated onto an Apache over 5 years ago for trials in the states. It apparently owned everything it went up against.

Brimstone was tested on the AH-64D but full integration wasn’t completed. Why JAGM was chosen over Brimstone wasn’t declared, Brimstone on a helicopter probably has a range of 10-12 Km, greater than JAGM and £100k cheaper per round. So for a change it doesn’t make sense buying USA due to economies of scale. There is a version of JAGM having a range of 16km (double current). I do like how the MOD thinks that each combat available aircraft will have 125 rounds each though, will be interesting to see how many aircraft are still flying after 2 weeks of war. I doubt in an intense peer to peer war that Rockets will be used much by Apache. If they did they wouldn’t last long. If we did get JAGM-ER they’d probably need targeting by a 3rd party as I doubt the Longbow Fire Control radar will be able to get 16Km of range at low level. It would be interesting to know how the ground based fired Brimstone is being targeted in the Ukraine, is the terminal phase of the flight path using radar or laser?

Israel made it before USA and certainly wasn’t paid by US that one.

Not just aircraft mate.
The whole of MOD went massively risk adverse post Haddon Cave on everything. I sat in on “what if this happens” risk matrix meetings for vessels and systems for weeks, time I will unfortunately never ever get back!

Sadly, totally agree. Those within the MoD and MAA in particular, have become too risk adverse. Thereby becoming totally dependent on the platform DOs to make the decisions.

Always rolled my eyes when the Safety Team wanted 5 minutes of my time. Guaranteed it ended up as an hour.

For a helicopter, the only real option when facing Starstreak. Is hope that you have time to get something like a hill/tree/cloud in between you and the missile. However with the darts reaching Mach 4, and the short distance between the firing point and target. There’s very little time to do anything!

Sadly that’s true. The UK doesn’t have the massive budget that the US has. So it does the best it can with what it has. In the main this means more funding goes into systems required to detect a threat to the aircraft. Be that from Radar, Laser, or IR based threats. Fitting and using active countermeasures is slowly getting there, but there is still a reliance on expendable countermeasures such as flares and chaff (mostly due to cost). In this respect the UK’s military helicopter fleet is not that far behind the US.

However, Leonardo’s Britecloud is getting pushed out and integrated on more platforms to counter radar threats. The IR threat is the predominant threat to helicopters. So the MoD are attacking this in a number of ways. The first is how to make the aircraft less detectable. So this means primarily fitting engine exhaust heat suppressors. But also looking at camouflaging other heat sources, such as gearbox oil heat exchangers.

These measures will reduce the threat from older legacy style IR seekers. That rely on differentiating a heat spot from the background. But against the newer imaging infrared seekers, this won’t work so well. As the seekers looks at a whole image to determine if the target is legitimate.

Broad frequency spectrum flares can still have some effect against these sensors, but it’s not guaranteed. As the missile’s ECU gets better at differentiating the velocity difference between heat sources. Therefore, as you stated, Directed Infrared Countermeasures (DIRCM) is the preferred option to counter newer IR based missiles.

Some of our helicopters already have DIRCM fitted, such as the Merlin. As funds become available and assessments from the Ukraine War become better understood. I will fully expect more of our aircraft getting DIRCM as funding is pushed in that direction.

The caveat though, is that against missiles that use laser beam riding or SACLOS for guidance. IR based countermeasures will have no effect.

I heard that £5bn was transferred from the army’s FRES project.

Money well spent if it came from the cluster that was FRES…

I know, Heseltine Thatcher and Westlands.

My BH mention was to Graham and was in response to him saying this

“Often it is the politicians (PM, Chancellor, SofS, MinDP) who force UK content and UK workshare as key factors and favour a ‘made in UK’ developmental project and so the option for a fast and cheap(ish) MOTS procurement from a foreign country often gets elbowed aside.”

On Blair Brown and helis, SABR was cut as Brown would not fund it and they robbed Peter to pay Paul by transferring in service RAF Merlins to replace the CHF Sea King HC4s. A cut.

Labour may have spent 2.5% but that % thing is always a red herring. What matters is who cut what and they cut the RAF and RN as much if not more than the Tories since 2010. The only reason the army survived personnel wise is due to the ops in Iraq and Afghan, and even then Tanks, AS90 were all being cut in Labours time.

Examples, 35 Frigates and Destroyers to 23.
22 Fast Jet Sqns to 12.
12 SSN to 7.
Most army armoured vehicle programs cancelled leaving the army in the mess it is in now having to recapitalise much of its fleet at the same time due to block obsolescence.

So I prefer to not highlight one over the other, they are both as bad. Labour have no moral high ground whatsoever when it comes to defence cuts and many have long memories, me included.

On your comment re Osborne Cameron and CASD capital costs into core, I agree. And I voted those B******s in to replace Labour who were cutting throughout their 13 years in charge.

Read about FRES, TRACER, Boxer, Ajax and others and then complain about wasted cash and opportunities.
No Govt is squeaky clean…not by a long shot.

True, however every option results in a single outcome in most cases, out of date kit, delivered late and way over budget.
Which given that we are asking men and women of the armed forces to lay down their lives in defence of the realm is a VERY Very poor show.
They should have the best of kit available to do the job.
However like the NHS perhaps what you have illustrated is a strong case for defence to be a cross party matter and not a political football.
The defence select committee does zero to hold the government to account. It should have the power to bite down hard.

It is only the stories about poor procurement that make the Press – many MoD programmes and projects are successful. However, the procurement foul-ups tend to be huge and damage our ability to defend our nation, our continent and our allies – and risk lives as you say.

I fully endorse the idea that Defence procurement strategy should have cross-party support. The Defence Select Committees and other such scrutiny committees (eg HCDC) have zero power as you say – they should have power.

We should also stop politicians eliminating a capability before the successor system is in-service. It happens time and time again.

Unfortunately Defence project do go over budget . It is the nature of the beast F35 Being a good example.
And yes there are many success but too many colossal failures.
There is no incentive for defence contractors to be realistic about price . Cost plus is the standard model when risk sharing should be more frequently used.
The rest I agree with but unfortunately will never happen.

Some Defence projects, but not all, go over budget. I am sure that the CR3 project is firm price. My own (much smaller) procurement project at Abbey Wood did not go over budget.

Sir Peter Levene many, many decades ago had a war on cost plus contracts, and insisted they should be the exception rather than the rule.

I have not seen any stats about the percentage of cost plus contracts compared to the overall number, but I would hope it would be in a minority. I am shocked to hear that you think that cost plus is still now regarded as the MoD’s standard model for contracting so long after ‘Levene’.

Hi
You are part of the MoD but from what we have seen lately.
Ajax, over budget, over time and the tax payer picks up the tab.
Astute class sub, over budget, late and the tax payer picks up the tab.

I don’t know about Dreadnought, certainly the carriers were late and over budget but that was because the MoD puts the brakes on.

I believe Type 26 is on time and budget.

From a layman viewpoint in the nuclear world . We seem to be taking on a lot of risk.

Hi Michael,
I have not been part of the MoD for a long time. I was Army (REME) from 1975-2009 which included 2 years as an ESM (Equipment Support Manager) in Tanks Systems Support IPT in DLO Andover, then my first civvy work was three back to back contracter stints at Abbey Wood, which included being a PM for a tiny £60m project.

I often put forward the ‘MoD view’ as that is what I know, and I hope folk find it useful. I am not and never have been an apologist for the MoD’s procurement cock-ups.

I really don’t think Ajax, a firm price contract, is a penny over budget – I have never heard that. But it is certainly excessively late. ISD was meant to have been in 2017!

Many of these projects are very complex, cutting edge, and there is risk in not achieving cost, time, performance/quality targets. So some projects are cost plus but that is the easy-to-take and not very good option. There are risk-sharing projects – I worked on one back in 2010 – AVST – but they are probably still few and far between.

The carrier project is interesting. I never for a second believed that the original declared budget estimate announced by SofS of £3.9bn in 2007 was credible – some had thought that it might be done for ‘a little over £3bn’. I feel sure that was MoD game-playing with HMT to get the project green-lit.

Budget rose to £4.1bn at formal project approval a short time later with ISD for first carrier being expected to be July 2015.

Budget increased by £1.6bn to £5.7bn due to political decision (due to global financial crisis) in Dec 2008 to delay ISD for first carier to May 2016 and delay second carrier by 2 years.

Budget further rose to:
£5.9bn in March 2010

£6.2bn in 2013

£7.6bn in 2019 (quite a big increase from £3.9bn)

Many reasons for the delays – these are well known and include multiple changes of mind as to whether to fit ‘cats and traps’ or to go for a FFBNW option or not at all (ie permanent use of STOVL aircraft).

Also, was it largely a political decision to split the work around a number of yards across the country? or because one yard alone could not possibly make an entire carrier on their own? Not sure. But it certainly was a costly way to build a ship.

The decision of the MoD to include itself in the Aircraft Carrier Alliance ‘build and delivery organisation’ is an interesting one. Two ways of looking at that. I would be interested in your ‘take’.