A senior employee of General Dynamics UK has posted comments on social media suggesting that crews bear responsibility for several problems associated with the British Army’s Ajax armoured vehicle.
The remarks were made on the widely followed FillYourBoots Facebook page during a discussion about ongoing issues affecting the programme.
The individual, who identifies publicly as an Acceptance Manager and whose employment history includes roles such as Ajax Trials Manager and Trial Manager for reliability growth work, responded to a post describing a range of faults reported by soldiers and trial personnel. In his response, he stated that issues, aside from coolant leaks, were attributable to crew error, poor maintenance and shortcomings in command decisions. The comment directed criticism toward those discussing technical problems with the vehicle.
Further public comments from the same individual appear on LinkedIn, where he took part in an extended exchange with another user discussing recent reports of sickness and hearing injury among soldiers operating Ajax. In those posts, he questioned the reliability of media reporting and suggested that some public criticism came from people with no direct exposure to the platform. He also wrote that he would not comment on specific incidents until full facts were available but stated that he remained confident in the vehicle and its capability. The exchange included responses to another user who said he had worked with personnel involved in initiating a safety stop during recent activity and who maintained that crews had experienced significant sickness and hearing symptoms.
The vehicle has been the subject of multiple parliamentary questions following reports earlier this year that soldiers again experienced hearing damage and vibration injuries during use, despite previous declarations that the system was safe to operate. These latest reports followed earlier concerns raised during trials in previous years.
In responses to Parliament, Defence Minister Luke Pollard said that the Ministry of Defence declared Initial Operating Capability in November only after receiving written assurances from senior Army officials and acquisition personnel that the vehicle was safe. Pollard stated that the assurances confirmed Ajax was demonstrably safe to operate at the time IOC was approved.
Further review activity has since been announced. A new ministerial led examination is now underway and is being carried out by external experts, including Malcolm Chalmers. The review will assess how previous recommendations were implemented and will report directly to the Defence Secretary.
The individual’s online remarks appeared on a public page where the user’s profile lists detailed employment history with General Dynamics Land Systems, including several years working on testing and acceptance activity linked to Ajax. The comments were made in response to an ongoing and widely viewed discussion on the platform.
General Dynamics UK was invited to confirm whether it wished to comment on the post or clarify its position regarding public statements made by employees about the programme. No response had been received at the time of publication.
That’s a very good way to lose people very quickly. Apart from coming across as an absolute belter, if you put a product out there that is so far from squaddie proof that troops make themselves ill, then your product isn’t fit for purpose.
From a guy I know at ATDU, it appears that Ajax is particularly hard to maintain by the crew compared to to things like Warrior. The fact it’s 40 years newer makes that unforgivable. (Noting the spec should have included ease or speed of crew maintenance)
Oh dear! It gets worse:
‘I am an anonymous General Dynamics Employee (ex army)….
– Vehicles regularly come off the production line with circa 150 faults on them.
– We can’t even build the vehicles to meet the test standard which we came up with ourselves.
General Dynamics management will force the whole team of soldiers to come in all weekend at a moments notice just because we have 1 guy working overtime.
– As an ex soldier myself seeing how General Dynamics management abuse the fact that soldiers essentially don’t have any employment rights is painful to watch, if the Soldiers refuse to work ridiculous hours of overtime or multiple weekends straight our senior managers who have the email addresses of high up officers in Army HQ will directly contact them and force the soldiers into work.
– Sometimes when a vehicle has passed inspection and the Army now owns it, our low level managers at General Dynamics will encourage us to rob parts off it to repair one that has failed an inspection.’
‘The defensive attitude of the majority of GD staff is becoming clearly visible…..It’s becoming very much them and us divide.
Instead of helping each other to find the issues and rectify them allowing the platform and program to move forward safely thus not wasting £10bn of the tax payers money, they seem to just want to find a way to blame the users to try and save face…..
There are known multiple vehicles arriving at units unfit for purpose, and unfit to operate due to issues that should have been rectified before loaded on HETs.
Critical vehicle fitted items missing, FFEs not fit for purpose, track issues, camera screen issues, driver / commander seat issues, Coms/Bowman vibrating its self to bits and stopping working, engine and automotive issues. The list is endless. It just seems GD don’t care, they pump the half-arsed vehicles out and take the publics money. There is no care for the users Health and Safety and GD just reply with ‘well this is what the army asked for’…
The whole sarga is a joke. And if it continues I doubt the platforms will survive the next 12/18 months and GD will pile in… or someone will be seriously injured and medically discharged yet again thanks the incompetence of GD.’
FYBUK
Professor Malcolm Chalmers appears to be the right man to sort this out:
‘…..whether the UK could field the heavy division which is committed to NATO without an Ally providing a Brigade. Professor Malcolm Chalmers questioned whether any such division could be deployed given that the British Army lacked both equipment and the logistics required to support it.’
Defence Journal 05 Feb 2024
As acceptance manager he presumably accepted sub standard Spanish vehicles with substandard welding, non parallel sides, mounting holes on wrong centres and non square bores…and people should listen to him??
It appears he’s part of the problem rather than part of the solution
Possibly the biggest bellringer since Quasimodo.