In a recent series of parliamentary inquiries, Ben Obese-Jecty, Conservative MP for Huntingdon, posed two key questions to the Ministry of Defence, probing the future of the British Army’s infantry vehicles—specifically, the Boxer Mechanised Infantry Vehicle (MIV) and the Warrior Infantry Fighting Vehicle (IFV).
These questions were answered by Luke Pollard, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence.
The first question focused on the potential benefits of arming the Boxer vehicle with a turreted cannon. Pollard acknowledged that while the ongoing Strategic Defence Review would guide future capability development, he confirmed that the Army has conducted extensive analysis on the matter.
“To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of procuring a turreted cannon for the Mechanised Infantry Vehicle, Boxer.”
Pollard responded:
“The Strategic Defence Review will guide future capability development priorities to ensure the United Kingdom is both secure at home and strong abroad now and for years to come. As the review is still ongoing, the implications for capability programmes, including BOXER, will not be fully known until it has concluded in the first half of 2025.”
He further added:
“However, I can confirm that the Army has conducted operational analysis, lethality and survivability studies, which includes analysing potential turreted options.
The Army will continually review the capabilities, priorities and affordability choices that will be provided by BOXER and other platforms to ensure that its Armoured Fighting Vehicle fleet best meets Defence and NATO’s needs.”
While no immediate decisions have been made, the Army is carefully considering all options to enhance the combat effectiveness of Boxer.
In a related query, Ben Obese-Jecty inquired about the future of the Warrior IFV and what steps were being taken to procure a new tracked Infantry Fighting Vehicle.
“To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what steps he is taking to procure a tracked Infantry Fighting Vehicle capability for the British Army.”
Pollard confirmed that Warrior is scheduled to be retired by the end of the decade, but reassured that the Army’s overall vehicle fleet strategy remains robust.
Pollard stated:
“The Army’s tracked Infantry Fighting vehicle, Warrior, is due to be withdrawn from service by the end of the decade. Whilst BOXER is not a direct replacement, it will become the Army’s primary mechanised infantry platform working with Ajax and Challenger 3 in the Brigade Combat Teams. Warrior will remain effective until new capabilities are introduced throughout the decade.”
In other words lots of lip flapping with no substance.
We haven’t ordered anywhere near enough Boxers of different variants and nor is there enough lethality.
I hope that 2025 is the year for the updated and closing various capability gaps.
Correct. So far the Boxer Tranche 1 and 2 order totalling 623 vehicles is about half of what the army require.
The lethality of this wheeled APC is nowhere near enough. This is almost as if we are going back to the days of Saracen, which once accompanied our tanks!
There is substance, the answer makes it clear there will not be a tracked IFV and all coins are in Boxer.
…and back to an issue that caused so much fuss four or five years ago. Wheels and tracks. The whole army programme is a dogs dinner.
Does it ? – I think theres enough ambiguilty in there to provide some wiggle room…or maybe that just me putting hope before reality.
I think to replace Warrior with Boxer shows what a ridiculous decision Boxer is…and tbh always has been- making an ill informed decision based on a now defunct doctrine and then doubling down on it to save a generals ‘face’ and fk everything else- only my opinion of course.
Do you see any will?
Not even talking about resources like manpower and budget.
Given that the General who wanted Boxer is long out of service I don’t think saving his face is particularly high on the priority list tbh.
Do go on and name him. Carter. Just a reminder to all, as I understand it. In the A2020 days, Boxer was the MIV program which was to come into service AFTER Challenger 3, Ajax and WCSP had been funded and delivered. To replace 3 Battalions of infantry on Mastiff, HPM Bns. So sensible and in stages, as finances dictate, with funding beyond 2027. Instead, Boxer was brought forward as No 1 priority, leaving WCSP to be canned as we did not have the money to simultaneously spend on all programs. Did he alone make that choice? Did the Army… Read more »
That was said by MoD in March 2021.
No brainier they are looking at a turret to make it an IFV! To admit it is not a direct replacement for Warrior and only mention “ mechanised” infantry is again a fudge!
” it will become the Army’s primary mechanised infantry platform”.
Is it meaningful to conceive of the army having both wheeled and tracked?
Mechanised meant in the back of a truck or Saxon back in the day!Are they saying now armoured infantry battalions don’t exist?
You might say that, I couldn’t possibly comment.
Well yes, at preset there is no plan for a replacement IFV, which means all the armoured infantry will convert to mechanised infantry and we end up with a armoured division of 2 armoured brigades made up of one MBT regiment, a heavy cav regiment and a couple of mechanised infantry battalions as well a strike brigade made up of cavalry regiments and artillery. The British armies armoured division will end up very low on direct fire lethality, better hope it wins the deep battle and the cavalry regiments find plenty of things for the artillery to target..because there’s very… Read more »
I think the point is a perhaps, you should re read it. If you add a weapon station to a vehicle you have to put it in harms way, and it will reduce the number of troops and/or equipment it can carry. Where as an armoured vehicle that’s primarily transport doesn’t need a weapons station. If its fire power you require then protest for more support vehicles, not arming battle taxis.
A battle taxi would be 432 or 113! Or turretless boxer,The infantry still need an IFV which is precisely what warriors are, drop the troops and hang around for fire support.
Sorry but every reference army puts its armoured brigades infantry in infantry fighting vehicles for a reason, an infantry fighting vehicle brings a cannon to that infantry sections fire power. That is a massive increase in direct fire lethality. An APC simply dumps and runs, an infantry fighting vehicle stays and supports its infantry section..either via direct fire or screening it from other infantry fighting vehicles. Jacko was very much expressing the fundamental difference between mech infantry and armoured infantry…at present the British army seem to be dumping the concept of armoured infantry ( mounted on an IFV,that supports the… Read more »
Good to get confirmation that the army have done the studies on turreted Boxer options. Wait to see now what the defence review says about number and type of additional Boxer. There is speculation that the budget won’t be all about taxation and will contain some selected spending increases; the NHS for example. Probably wise not to get too excited but something for defence has also been mentioned.
Boxer with RT60 and40mm CTAS and still a good number of dismounts- I think its been mocked up hasn’t it?
The RT60 was shown at the recent DVD exhibition, so yes.
The Army will argue for the cheapest option and dream up some clever reasoning as to why it is the best option. It is what our service chiefs do now. It is one thing accepting a lack of funds, it is another to make it sound like a virtue. It is blatantly obvious that with increased lethality of ATGM and drones that there is need to reach out further with greater effect. The UK short of numbers needs firepower. Never mind our likeliest opponents are still fitting infantry carriers with cannon. And lastly on future fields the lack of British… Read more »
The Army never argues for the cheapest option. Politicians and Treasury officials do.
Wonder if something like the LW30 would be looked at. 30mm cannon, 7.62mm machine gun, Javelin ATGM, no manned turret taking up space. Easy way to massively boost firepower
Isn’t the RS6 being delivered to the US Marines?
I think that’s the debate: is RS6 good enough or should we go for RT6 with another cannon….use the CTA40mm we bought?
Isn’t Ajax the direct replacement for Warrior?
No it doesn’t have any dismounts – it is not an IFV.
As Pongolo said, Ajax and it’s derivatives is a Cavalry vehicle replacing the CVRT family in the recce role, it’s not designed to do Warriors job.
No. It is a recce vehicle. Ajax family replaces the CVR(T) family.
Boxer was announced (to everyone’s surprise) as the successor to Warrior by the MoD in March 2021.
The British Army’s head of strategy, Brigadier John Clark, shared more detailed information in early May 2021 how the Boxer will fill the capability gap left by the decision to cancel the Warrior Capability Sustainment Programme (WCSP).
The army staff has been looking at ways to enhance the lethality of Boxer for 3.5 years – and we have finally had this bland announcement, which suggests that study is still not complete.
Words fail me.
This is one of the things that seriously concerns me and I feel no body is aware of. We are replacing all of the ~1,500ish Warrior and CVRTs with Ajax and Boxer, that is fine, the issue is of all the replacement vehicles only ~350 of the Ajax will be armed with the new auto canon. We are completely loosing our mass of auto-canons, Ukraine has just shown that these weapons are one of the best for suppression, still relevant against modern MBTs and high versatile I’m basically any situation. The old 30mm wasn’t the best but, it had mass.… Read more »
Except you’ve missed a key detail:
Not all CVRT’s are autocannon armed. In fact, only about 350 CVRT’s in the British Army where equipped with 30mm RARDENs (not a coincidence if that number looks familiar). Realistically the shortfall is going to be about 200ish 40mm’s for the Warriors that are being replaced by Boxer, and 58 120mms.
Yep. There is nothing new here for us to get heated over.
Like most folks on here I thought we should have either continued with the WCSP, cancelling that after spending £430 million was just plain nuts. Failing that they should have gone for the well proven CV90, but they didn’t so no tracked IFV. That was then and Boxer is getting there, but it’s wheeled, under armed and we haven’t ordered sufficient numbers. If we do order more I actually think we should bite the bullet and order the Tracked Boxer, simple reason is the economics of operating 2 platforms with a lot of mechanical and logistical commonality. That way the… Read more »
I can’t understand why we haven’t been testing out the tracked bases (at least not openly). There may be pitfalls with this route, but it has such an obvious upside we’d be idiots to ignore it. And if we build them in the UK, we’ll be in a position to export if they catch on.
There is an option over the pond! The Bradley’s gifted to Ukraine are now being replaced with ones taken from stowage and upgraded to a much higher standard,not going to happen I know but tag an order for us on to that and we get a replacement for warrior cheaper and quicker than CV90 or Boxer tracks!
I think for every Bradley being sent to ukraine . The US army is receiving funds to buy brand new Bradley’s with the latest modifications , built by BAE in USA. I’m sure I have read a couple of articles where 100s of millions of dollars have been contracted to BAE . In theory your right , the uk could probably order Bradley’s as a short medium term stop gap, which would probably be not a bad idea except perhaps maintenence logistic issues . But we are currently in twined with boxer and ajax variants that could also do the… Read more »
Slightly off topic, what about lighter vehicle replacements? As well as CH3, Boxer and Ajax, there are six other programmes being talked about this year, grouped into Land Mobilty Programme (LMP) and Light Tactical Mobility Platform (LTMP): LMP Heavy 500 vehicles 20t-40tLMP Medium 2,000 vehicles up to 20tLMP Light 2,500 vehicles up to 10tLMP Utility 3,000 vehicles up to 7t.LTMP Light 156 to 311 platforms, utility terrain or all-terrain vehiclesLTMP Medium 48 (initial) to 863 UTVs.As I understand it, LMP will cover Protected Mobility and LTMP will cover utility vehicles from Land Rover replacements to quad bikes. Am I right… Read more »
The army has always had heavy, medium and light equipments…for very obvious reasons. A light equipment cannot replace a heavier predecessor – it will not have the protection required.
KNDS have shown off a tracked version of the Boxer, could this be the ideal solution to give the army a tracked IFV? it would allow modules to be shared more widely as well as having limited parts commonality.
A remote weapons station with a cannon would probably be better and more affordable for Boxer. Of course, RWS is more vulnerable in battle but probably quicker to procure/replace if damaged in combat.
Wouldnt it make sense to store the retired warriors . They may be needed at some point and its easier to bring them out of retirement than build new vehicles
Storing vehicles in any state, but particularly a state where they can be reactivated unfortunately costs money. And the Army will almost certainly cut that kind of capability in favour of retaining more useful capabilities.
Dern is right. There is no money to do this and not enough storage space. Besides the Treasury expect to recoup money from sales of old equipment.
The army are going to get spanked if they get into a conflict with a near peer enemy that has actual IFVs.
You can’t go into contact without a turreted armoured vehicle. That would be suicide.