The Minister for Defence Procurement, James Cartlidge, along with representatives from the Ministry of Defence, recently visited the KNDS UK manufacturing facility in Stockport.

The visit highlighted the progress in producing the Boxer armoured vehicles for the British Army, with the first UK-built Boxer Drive Module coming off the production line.

During the visit, the ministerial delegation engaged with the skilled team of welders, fitters, and mechanics working on the new armoured vehicles. They were informed about the extensive technology transfer programme between KNDS Germany and KNDS UK, which has resulted in over 60% of the project’s content being sourced from the UK.

Besides manufacturing all the hulls for the British Army’s new armoured vehicles, KNDS UK is also responsible for their assembly, integration, and testing.

The tour included a visit to the Bridging facility, where the Medium Girder and Dry Support Bridges are produced. The visitors learned about ongoing projects for the British Army and international military customers, including Project Tyro, which aims to equip the British Army with the latest generation of rapidly deployable military bridging.

KNDS UK, operating from the Heaton Chapel site since 1915, is a significant employer in the North West with a workforce of over 300.

Tom Dunlop
Tom Dunlop
Tom has spent the last 13 years working in the defence industry, specifically military and commercial shipbuilding. His work has taken him around Europe and the Far East, he is currently based in Scotland.

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55 COMMENTS

        • In the meantime Ukraine is getting some you beaut new CV90 IFVs as reported in Defense News today and will have BAE manufacturing setting up in-country. Good on 🇺🇦, they need plenty of good equipment. Sweden also getting more and the Netherlands are having their CV90s upgraded which has been mentioned in earlier postings.

          • We need highly regarded IFVs too, for the infantry in our armoured brigades. But we will have to make do with Boxer for at least a generation.

          • Morning Graham, all the Boxers haven’t been built yet. Lol. Sorry to sound irritating but why not habey both? A mixed fleet is surely more sensible and even more survivable! Isn’t it? If “all wheels” are the thing why did they ever go with the tracked Ajax?

          • Morning Quentin. We have always had both tracked and wheeled equipments for artillery systems, recce vehicles, infantry carriers etc etc.
            Further, we have many examples of tracks and wheels in the same Brigade, Unit and sub-unit.

            Ajax (tracked) replaces Scimitar (tracked) and was the recce/strike vehicle for Infantry battalions with Warrior/upgraded Warrior, and tank regiments with CR2/CR3 – known as Close Recce. It was also to be the equipment in formation recce regiments (Formation Recce formerly called Medium Recce) – there they typically provided recce for an armoured brigade (ie a formation). Tracked recce supporting tracked units (AI Bn, tank regiment) and predominantly tracked brigades – as we have always, always done.

            One thing that has changed is the relatively recent decision (March 2021) for the Inf in the armoured brigades to get Boxer instead of upgraded Warrior – so what may change is those battalions getting a different recce vehicle for their recce platoon – perhaps we might order a Boxer recce variant – who knows? It doesn’t mean that the army as a whole suddenly does not need Ajax or that procuring Ajax is an anomalous decision. The Ajax project was launched decades ago – it is ony very recently (2021) that it was decided that wheels replace tracks in the Inf Bns and even more recently (last week) that wheels replace tracks in the RA.

            The army is not going ‘all wheels’ but wheels is getting a higher priority. Much of the kit, other than the Ajax family of vehicles, in the armoured div is tracked and will be in the future – eg CR3, Trojan, Titan, Terrier.

          • Good evening Graham, thank you again for a very well written reply and for making sense of it all. I’m likely getting some of my horses for courses muddled up a bit. With the decisions for wheeled or tracks, it’ll be interesting to see what cross influences happen between US-Aus-UK and UK-Europe with any future vehicle and equipment choices for the Army.

          • And in Janes today, Korea’s Hanwha Redback IFV being offered to Italy and Romania. As adopted by Australia.

          • Sems like most countries with an IFV are upgrading it or will soon be replacing it with a better, brand new IFV….except the UK.

          • I find it hard to believe that the UK can’t see what others are doing. If they’ve ordered too many Boxers well you can always cancel the bloody things. They’re not even built yet. Replace 200-300 of them with tracked and turreted IFVs.

          • The MoD haven’t ordered too many Boxers according to their plan which is to equip five battalions in the 2 armoured brigades with wheeled APCs – in fact they haven’t ordered enough by a long way.

            They have ordered too many for my plan though!

          • Lol. You versus the MOD! We’re with you and we’ll see who wins! All may still work out well in the end. I’m enjoying your comments and from others here who speak from real experience.

          • Thanks. I am pessimistic. I don’t see the army getting more than 148 tanks. I don’t see IFVs back in the inventory unless they are whd Boxers with cannons in the later tranches or if some tracked Boxers are ordered with IFV module in place of order of some whd Boxers.

          • Thanks Quentin. In the armoured brigades, tanks and infantry often work in close proximity and support each other. Tanks destroy enemy MBTs and can destroy other strong targets such as medium armour and strongpoints with the right ammunition, all of which threaten our own Infantry.
            The Infantry target enemy infantry especially enemy anti-tank teams which threaten tanks. It is essential that Infantry keep up with tanks and vice versa.

            Many are concerned that wheeled vehicles (Boxer) may not be able to keep up with tanks cross-country. Also if our Infantry are unable to defeat enemy infantry carriers (because it does not have a powerful cannon) at distance that is an issue. Hence it is a considerable risk for the BA to have a wheeled APC with MG in the armoured brigades, rather than a tracked IFV with a cannon, when it comes to tanks and infantry working closely together.

            The French operate tanks with wheeled VBCIs, but they are IFVs as they have a cannon (25mm autocannon firing at the rate of 400 rds/min).

          • Good evening Graham, If the risk is considerable as you’re saying then why are they doing this? It sounds highly dangerous, even ineffective and frankly just stupid. You’d think that the Army if any one should have a real grip on this. I might have this quite wrong but wouldn’t the Boxer be better replacing more the Bulldogs and get a proper tracked IFV to replace the Warrior and even some Boxer IFVs if still needed too? The lack of anti-drone tech and gunnery on Ch3 is also a bit of a worry too. Sorry for carrying on. I’m sure there’s an awful lot going on that is good for the Army. Happy to be corrected on any of this.

          • High Quentin,
            Back in the period 1996-2003, UK was in the multi-national Boxer programme. Boxer was to replace all FV430 vehicles, Saxon and non-turreted CVR(T)s.
            UK left the programme to pursue a national programme, FRES in mid-2003.
            On another tack, in 2011, contracts were let to upgrade Warrior to push its life out to 2040, with ISD envisaged for 2018.
            UK re-entered the multi-national Boxer programme in 2018, intending that Boxer as the army’s Mechanised Infantry Vehicle (MIV) would replace Mastiff HPM and no doubt to still replace FV430s.

            The army had created a plan to build 2 Strike brigades, a natural home for the Boxers, but then cancelled the plan.

            Warrior upgrade was floundering with huge delays and some over-budget spending.

            In March 2021, Government decided to take some dramatic action. Boxer had no natural home with the cancellation of the Strike brigade concept. Programmes started to collide, with the Boxer being brought forward, so at a similar time CR3 had to be funded and Warrior upgrade and Boxer, with AS-90 replacement coming along too. They cancelled the troubled but sortable Warrior upgrade programme, and reassigned Boxer to the armoured brigades.

            The army probably did not get a look in to challenge this decision which looks to be political and financial. The army wanted upgraded Warrior but the politician cancelled it. What can you do?

            There is now no money for a new IFV programme. The best that can be done is to beef up the firepower of later tranches of Boxer – with a cannon it becomes an IFV, albeit a wheeled one. Maybe the order for some wheeled Boxers could be cancelled in favour of some tracked Boxers?

            60 of the CR3s will have Trophy, but I hope that all will get them. It remains to be seen if Trophy could be configured to target drones in adddition to incoming tank cannon rounds. If not, I don’t see a purpose-built anti-drone system on CR3 anymore than other AFVs will get one. There are other ways to defeat drones and to protect MBTs from them than to fit an anti-drone system to each tank.

          • Yep. Key point is that the army never intended for Boxer to be in the armoured brigades replacing Warrior. They wanted (required) a modern or modernised IFV to replace Warrior – that’s why they wrote the Requirement for and launched the WCSP project. Politicians cancelled it.

    • Describing what they’d seen as the ‘tractor module’, I presumed that was the chassis with the wheels, engine, cab, etc. on- onto which the mission module goes? At least that’s how I understood it to mean. I don’t think he turned up just to be shown a box with a ramp at one end and some tie-down points on it, but I may be wrong..!

      • And they should be looking at Boxer based SkyGuard 30/35mm with Starstreak /LMM for VSHORAD. Germany has recently ordered a lot of these. Why not the UK? Maybe it’s in the pipeline.

    • Yes there’s going to be a rack on top to hold a fair few Lee Enfields they sourced from a museum.

  3. Really with that Paint scheme, very patriotic but no use for concealment hope this is just the Showroom colours

    • The paint scheme will be standard on all Boxers flying the flag with no weapons as when the enemy sees the boxer with the flag they will run for their lives 😂

  4. I remember building mgbs in the pouring rain in the middle of the night.
    More to the point, what are the developments of the tracked version?

  6. i honestly think the army needs to trim the order of boxer and work on an upgrade programme for warrior….the 2 armoured regiments really need to accompanied by armoured infantry battalions in a proper tracked infantry fighting Vehicle..not mechanised infantry battalions in wheeled APCs…there is a place for boxer but that should be as a vehicle for the mechanised battalions.

        • You could be right. But they are ordering a Boxer variant for the artillery, so it seems they’re going down the road of commonality. Be interesting to see what replaces the Alvis Stormer for example, as it’s due out of service in 2026.

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