The Ministry of Defence has ruled out the transfer of surplus Warrior infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs) to Ukraine, citing concerns about cost, suitability, and the burden on Ukraine’s logistics and training systems.
Responding to a written question from David Taylor MP (Labour – Hemel Hempstead), Defence Minister Luke Pollard said:
“Warrior Infantry Fighting Vehicles (IFV) are key platforms for the British Army to meet Defence Commitments. Although small numbers are scheduled for disposal, these will have been selected in line with serviceability and suitability for role. As such, without substantial investment, they are not likely to offer significant capability to Ukraine and providing such small numbers would only increase the diversity of Ukraine’s armoured vehicle fleet – increasing their logistic and training burdens.”
The response comes as a public petition calling for the transfer of surplus Warrior vehicles to Ukraine has passed 14,000 signatures, prompting an official government response in the coming days.
The petition argues that Warrior IFVs—already due for disposal by 2030—“could be sent to bolster Ukraine’s defences without new cost to the taxpayer.” It also states: “We believe Infantry Fighting Vehicles have proved to be an extremely effective tool on the battlefields of Ukraine… this transfer may be beneficial as it comes with no new cost to the taxpayer.”
Warrior, introduced in the 1980s, is being phased out as part of the Army’s shift toward the Boxer mechanised platform. Defence Minister Maria Eagle previously confirmed in Parliament that 359 Warriors remain in service, with their out-of-service date set for 2027.
“As the Out of Service date for Warrior is 2027, with all vehicles withdrawn from service by the end of the decade, any that remain held by the Department beyond this will be classed as surplus to requirements,” said Eagle. “Plans for Warrior beyond its Out of Service Date are yet to be formally agreed.”
The petition will be considered for parliamentary debate if it reaches 100,000 signatures before its 4 October 2025 deadline. You can view or sign the petition here.
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In other words, we are hanging on to them until we figure out what we are doing.
Agreed, despite all the blurb, that was my take on it too.
Are we about to see WSP brought back from the dead???
Pollard is having a laugh. Warriors are not a key bit of kit. They are all parked up, no BA units. Foot dragging feet, confiscating, do nothing. What the current MoD do best. By the time the MoD makes a decision, Putin will have taken Sumy, Kharkov, pressuring the Baltics, and things falling apart with NATO.
The UKs 630 WARRIORS, 300 SCIMITARS need to get to Ukraine ASAP. Ukraine can sort out the RARDEN 30mm ammo line, KONTAK 5 EPA up-arming and engine /transition parts. Locally.
The UK don’t need them. No British Army unit man them. They are just parked up 3 miles from Tewksbury, doing noting.
Not so, Rob.
Warrior is still in use by several units.
All CVRT, including Scimitar, were withdrawn, so there might well be lots of those at the Ashchurch site you mention.
Warriors are used by a couple of units in Estonia only. The rest in store. So who are trained and drives the rest stored at Tewksbury. Nobody. Johnson Beharry et al? These folk have all left or in the territorials with a beer belly. It looks like a paper exercise of MoD nonsense excused, of not looking too small. Seriously we are looking at hundreds of unused and unassigned vehicles. These hundreds of Warriors are at MoD Ashchurch. They could be donated at the rate of 100 pa minimum.
By the time the UK MoD thinks about or gets around to donating them to UKR, the Russians would have attritted them over a Donbass front. UKR out of IFVs, M2s, CV90s due to drone.It takes 6-12 months to train a UKR on these, some already, it hakes 12-24 months to retain a British Army unit on them. But now they, BA units are training on Ajax family and Boxers. No stored Warriors. It all sounds and smells wrong. Pollard and Healey need challenging furter on the detail, not the excuses/flanneling.
Warriors are still used by the armour infantry and armoured cavalry.. that’s 4 infantry battalions and 3 cavalry regiments.. that’s 7 formations..
There is not actually an operational boxer battalion yet nether is there an operational Ajax regiment.. so there are plenty of people in the British army who can operate warrior.
The rate at which the British army is getting boxer and Ajax is anemic.. so it will be years before they have numbers to equip and convert the AI to Mec and get all three warriors equipped cavalry units to Ajax…
As for money you can convert 4 warriors for the price of 1 boxer.. the army needs at least another 1500 armoured fighting vehicles.. so cost wise the money will be there if that is how they decide to go … it was only in year treasury nonsense that killed the warrior upgrade programme.. need to be war ready will very likely override that.
Hopefully a bit of sense is starting to filter in and they are thinking about extending the life of the warriors.. it’s the cheapest way to keep 350 tracked IFVs.
Either use them or donate
They are using them the army does not have IFVs just hanging around. Once these are gone they are gone and the army does not have 8-10 million o pop to replace them.. better to shove them in a garage and have time for the correct decision to be made ( refit and extent their lives) than give them away..
Don’t agree, the diesel Perkin Condor engines, hydraulics, electrics degrade if stored outside like Ashcroft, Tewksbury. MoD Ashcroft is not Sierra. This is what the Russians have found with their BMPs, needing total engine overhauls, which is added cost/time.
Indeed you would not store them outside, infact we actually need to start a lifex program straight away.. the British army needs to move up to 6 armoured infantry battalions.. the army simply does not have enough armoured vehicles for its size.. look at the French army has about 6500 armoured vehicles vs the British armies 3000 odd.. the simple fact is the British army needs to ensure all its battalions have access to Armoured fighting vehicles and protected mobility vehicles.. until it can do that it’s not in a position to give much of anything away.
The number is actually 615. Clive Lewis. MP for Norwich and ex army, checked this with the MoD last year 2024. 13 were “economic write offs”, which means the fleet is still large.
If the MoD were going to keep them, and stick a GE Ajax type 40mm or CV 90 turret on them; its a time to make a decision. We are at WAR, MoD procurers need a fire under them.
Hi Rob the 615 was all variants.. remember the army only started with 489 IFV variants of warrior with a cannon…..
The most important element of the Warrior is as a troop carrier, numbers, IFV armoured protection that gets troops to and from the front more safely, the 30mm cannon is a bonus. Not every Warrior variant needs a 30mm cannon, 1-2 coaxial 7.62 mm L94A1 chain guns will do. Basically anything that can stand up to a BMP 1 or 2, or scooby doo van, motorcycle suicide squad. The UAFs could start up their own non NATO 30mm RARDEN ammo line. The UK prism of use with CH2 with not be the UKR prism of use. UAF will likely add Soviet EPA, anti drone caged, just like they have with the NATO stored, now reborn Leo 1 A5.
If the UK MoD is vacillating about the Warriors and the original 40mm turret update, they should say so, whether Ajax turret or CV90 turret. But sitting on the fleet is not good enough.
No sorry don’t agree, the cannon that an IFV like warrior provides is the most impactful element.. any old APC can carry a squad to the point it dismounts and moves to contact.. the important bit is the direct fire provided by the cannon that is the different between armoured and mec infantry.
My point was a Warrior variant with a RARDEN 30mm cannon is the most useful, so send these. Its not stabilised, a small point. But second point, sending non 30mm cannon Warrior variants as APCs would be valid and useful. i. e what Italy have done with 400 aged VCC-2 Camilinos. UAFs needs both the IFV/APC numbers, now. The RARDEN 30mm ammo is specialised ammo supply chain and not compatible with the NATO standard 30mm round / cannons found on other IFVs. RARDEN is 1-2mm longer. But this should not be a barrier with UKR being able to produce these rounds locally with their inventive MIC. Scimitars, 300 are also RARDEN 300mm ammo so the it would make sense to send all Warriors and Scimitars to UKR.
If the UK MoD still have revised plans to put Ajax/CV90 stabilised 40mm cannoned turrets on the Warrior fleet chassis, they should say so, not give the UK MOD “key platforms for the British Army to meet Defence Commitments” BS line. IMHO
And what does the British army fighting with ? The British armies armoured vehicle capabilities is a joke at present and removing warrior and essentially the British army is F%cked.
The only thing that should be happening to warrior is a lifex program with a budget of say 2 million a vehicle.
In reality the best think that could happen for Ukraine in regards to IFV is if the EU and UK approach the US to buy a large number of Bradley’s.. the US has a vast supply of old Bradley IFVs stashed away…
People say giving warrior has no cost.. yes it does a new IFV is between 10-15 million.. that’s the cost.. because the army and MOD will end up needing an IFV.
That’s the point. Even if British army armoured units (people) retained on Warriors; they would not be ready, operational until 2027. That’s also assuming the British Army could recruit and train/ retrain another 2000-3000 plus personnel on top of the existing levels to operate Warriors. GenZ is not stepping up to the plate, territorials are getting their beer bellies, long toothed and might not fit. Putin has another timetable.
Yes but unless you can suddenly make 3 regiments worth of Ajax and 3 battalions of boxer the army will be walking to battle if you take away warrior.. there is a reason the out of service date is 2030.. if Putin decides to go to war in 2027 you either leave half the army at home or they deploy with warrior.. and in reality not having an IFV is a huge mistake the army is going to have to rectify unless it wants to be the only army on the battlefield that just drives around in APCs.
But the UK MoD has no plans for this. Its a dream. Yes, I would like 40mm extended life plan to happen, but its not, and the money in the SDR is not there. Ajax Fleet and several A variants are The Plan. The UK MoD plan is dispose at 100 per year until 2030, from 2025, 80 this year. Stored chassis don’t stay pristine, they degrade outside, especially if not run, maintained. 13 were scrapped last year 2024, because they had degraded so far with engines, transmission. “Economic write off” in the UK MoD ledger.
Bare in mind that with the delays to Ajax and the glacial pace of Boxer, these still equip the Armoured Infantry ( what little we have left – 4 Battalions, down from 9 in 2009 ) and also Squadrons of the RAC Armoured Cavalry Regiments.
As CVRT was, as usual, discarded before new equipment arrived.
What would the Armoured Cavalry do without Warrior?
Walk?
So this is welcome.
Probably revert back to the horse, Believe they still have a few in stock!
I guess they’re stealthyish, and cheap to run.
Long cabToyota Hilux with a .50 in the back mate….
Mate….it’s embarrassing! 😄 I know you jest, but this is the British Army, not some rag tag rabble in the desert!
We have to laugh, joking aside, I wonder if anyone else has pulled the dust sheet off the WSP prototype yet??
There’s absolutely no way the government can’t move defence spending to 3.5% GDP now, it’s just a question of when.
Bare in mind that there are not enough personnel to man and train on 615 Warrior variants in store, perhaps 100-200. It takes 12-24 months to retrain a British armoured unit. Then te point is? These Beharry’s are either not around in previous numbers, or on other vehicles. The rest are territorials, or gone. Hundreds of these waxed and stored Warrior vehicles have not had a British unit near them for several years since coming out of Iraq etc. The lag times and training cycles are all wrong. By 2027, 200-300 Warriors out of the fleet would have been scrapped/ totally decommissioned sold from stocks/storage, and the currency lost. 80 are gone in 2025, 13 last year due to economic write of.
Wish we bought CV90s
Thank god for that.
The MOD can’t sit on the fence any longer.
Either LIFEX warrior with new turret CTA-40 armed and brimstone or purchase a new IFV.
Definitely don’t that the capacity to hand over our only IFV even if they are ancient.
In reality keeping the armoured infantry in warrior is one of the cheapest ways to support the lethality of the army.. and once the armoured cavalry are in Ajax get them to give their warriors back to the infantry and turn a couple of the mec infantry back into armoured infantry.
The heavy brigades really should have 6 armoured infantry battalions.
Exactly this. Which was the Army 2010 set up post 2010.
Refresh the warrior hulls, new as done for some cvrt.
Is there any manufacturing facility in the uk that could upgrade these warrior vehicles with new turret extra armour and stuff . We have the facilities for Boxer and Ajax family vehicles but I assume they are busy. We have the Lockheed Martin turret facility which I would imagine would love an upgrade project , though i am not sure a fire on the move rilurret would fit the chassis ? Though even a 25mm round chassis would do the job . These ifv apc are just a chassis with engine , wheels stuck on . Surely there must be a place in uk that could smash some new chassis out for a cheap price.
Agreed, either Boxer 40mm or CV90 40mm turret. Its easier/ less time consuming than building a whole new IFV, you start with 600 working and proven hulls.
Either that, state, or send as a fleet job lot to UKR over 2-3 years, retrain with trained territorial instructors. Beharry types who know te kit, engines, transmissions.