The chair of the Defence Committee said the Army’s troubled armoured vehicle programmes now amount to “an absolute shambles”, as MPs pressed ministers over fresh injuries sustained during Ajax trials and wider concerns about land readiness.
Speaking in the Commons, Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi MP criticised the state of key Army platforms after more than 30 soldiers reported sickness and hearing issues during an exercise on 22 November involving the Ajax reconnaissance vehicle. He argued that the renewed problems raise questions about whether the programme is viable at all.
He highlighted multiple pressures across the Army’s fleet, pointing to delays in the Boxer mechanised infantry vehicle and issues with the MAN support vehicle fleet. He asked whether “a wider systemic problem with land vehicle procurement and sustainment” now exists and what that means for Army readiness at a time of heightened international tension.
Defence minister Luke Pollard said he shared MPs’ concern, stressing that he would not speculate until three separate investigations report on the cause of the noise and vibration injuries. “It is not good enough for our service personnel to sustain injuries in this fashion on a platform that they were reassured was safe. Getting to the bottom of this issue is a priority for me,” he said.
Pollard told MPs he had ordered external expertise to be brought in, stating that the Ministry of Defence is assembling “a team of experts from a number of organisations outside the usual GD production line to add expertise and external challenge”. He confirmed that General Dynamics had apologised for a staff member who publicly mocked injured soldiers.
Addressing the broader concerns raised by the committee, the minister said the MAN SV issue was being handled through standard processes for an ageing fleet, with rectification work under way and full capability expected early in the new year. He nevertheless acknowledged shortcomings in how land equipment has been procured and sustained. “The defence procurement system we inherited is in need of quite significant reform. We have started that process already, but there is more work to be done,” he said.
Pollard added that moving the entire force to a warfighting footing will require resolving “significant issues with a number of platforms”. The department expects to provide a further update in a written ministerial statement before the Christmas recess.
No fears… The Germans will defend us…. If not what about using horses??
Brilliant idea! Why could our politicians think of that? Oh wait!
Brilliant idea! Why could our politicians not think of that? Oh wait!
It’s across the board, a total lack of planning to fight a long peer war.. even as everyone says we will be fighting one… army formations and vehicles, navy mass, airforce mass..even the basics of civil defe
Rusi’s Hamish Mundell said it best…”Medical capacity is limited. Reserve regeneration pipelines are slow… The British plan for mass casualty outcomes appears to be based on not taking casualties.” With classic British understatement, he says: “This could be considered an optimistic planning assumption.” From the BBC ( who are really turn on the war talk).
Completely agree Jonathan, it’s absolute madness, it’s hard to even get an idea of just how bad things really are.
To be clear, this is not just the result of poor investment and planning, a lot of it is to do with the “no-fail/make do” attitude and a general unwillingness to pass bad news up the CoC. I think as a result we end up with the worst of the officers going to the top these days, as the ones with more integrity punch out.
I remember years ago reading about how the Kursk submarine crew might have been saved if the personnel who received the reports from those who had initially detected the explosions had raised the alarm to the senior leadership, but they didn’t because of an attitude that it might affect their career prospects. I read this before I joined and thought “at least we’re not like that”, then I did my ten years and realised it was exactly like that here too.
To be fair it’s been a problem with British military since year dot. Over reliance on toffs back in the day caused us to be totally unprepared for two world wars. A country that had an empire that spanned half the world should have had zero issues with dealing with both wars but issues/warnings were ignored and lessons weren’t learnt.
It’s easy to see the likes of Boris being a general in days of past, too busy partying and coming from a life without consequneces for mistakes, to actually do the job.
Jonathan, had you heard that the MoD has no plan for the defence of the UK home base? Revealed last week.
GM,
Please provide additional detail re your post. Reasonably certain USAF would be disconcerted to learn their largest MOB in European theater had already been occupied by the opposition. Damned inconvenient, that. 🤔😱
Ha! Pretty much the only plan seems to be hoping that you guys quickly deploy your GBAD systems to Lakenheath, Mildenhall, Fairford, and Feltwell in time.
With a russian asset in the shitehouse that’s one thing that is guaranteed to not happen!
Literally as we all suspected 🫣
Still complete lack of detail on how we ended up with the mess and who’s heads have rolled because of it.
If there is massive corruption, I would also like to see people in prison.
Just vague statements about fixing things isn’t useful. We need details of what went wrong and why.
How many times over the last few decades have we heard PM say they are fixing things but yet the issues just continue. Just nonsense that a public enquiry hasn’t been held.
Agreed.
We Sihk answers.
Well done Halfwit
We can only cry laughing at what a dire position most of our defence forces find themselves in
Underfunded under armed and unundermanned
I hope the specific defence plan spending which is overdue as winter is upon us will enlighten us
Ha Ha Ha What bet we see see lots of BS
The Treasury say no We have to pay for our master’s pet projects
Chagos deal £5 billion plus Nationalisation? Welfare plus? etc etc etc
Ajax is going to put a match to the current state of the British Army. If I were in a position of influence, I’d be looking for an urgent alternative to be ordered within six months and be capable of regimental strength within three years. Whether it’s from a European source or elsewhere doesn’t concern me greatly; the Army needs the best mobile armoured kit available. The prospect of the US detuning its forces in Europe is now a real one, and that will require the remaining NATO members to make up the shortfall. Sadly, for the UK Treasury, the costs will have to come from the taxpayer; however, as the smoke clears and the realisation that we in Europe are without US clout will help to get the seriousness of the situation over to the public.
Trouble is we can ‘order’ what we like but then we will join a long queue for anything that we do! The prospect of getting AFVs through tests and more tests and in service in 3 yrs will be impossible😟
Jacko, you are correct about demand for AFVs, but the UK is in a hole and can’t hope for a timely transition from one piece of kit to another as Europe moves inexorably toward conflict with Russia. What is required are wartime procedures that bypass peacetime practices and get industry moving. One possible route could be acquiring Bradleys from the USA, but they would be early MKs, as updated versions are on order for their forces. Another route could be financing a plant in the UK to build either South Korean or German designs from an established product. Once the short-term issues are addressed, then a ‘Build In The UK’ policy needs to be established, so we can determine our future kit without too much reliance on foreign designs.
Yep Bradleys are already built and sitting in the sun,could we actually put any trust in trump to deliver though? All his ramblings are oriented towards pootin so who knows🤔
M2A3 at todays prices approx $5.8m.
Could it be that some hostile power has infiltrated our defence procurement process and sabotaged it?
I have watched this develop for decades. Pass the buck is the practice, no accountability see. From the Mod, to politicians to industry. All a shower of shit.
And the worst aspect? We feed the MIC with taxpayers money for no visible results. Lobbying and corruption.
Someone else here who sees the power of the MIC and how they profit over the misery of the military…
Aye Daniele, started with SA80 trials for me. We told them it had serious shortfalls and we were ignored. So failures happened on ops that could have cost lives. Same in the US, look at Booker recently. They knew about Ajax years ago so no excuses, the list is endless and its carry on as normal.
No one EVER gets held to account, and yes men in the military are to blame. Those that will not pass it up and those at the top who do not want to hear it. This is what weak leadership does. Keep quite get a better CR and crap on up any one below who says any thing. That is the real Army the one lots know about but few ever talk about.
Once upon a time the army trained with broomsticks but it was a long time ago…wasn’t it?
“Who do you think you’re kidding Mr —— ” ?
Lol, broomsticks is all we could manage back then, things never change.
roomsticks….and not a Pike to be seen between them.
A snowball effect of decades of incompetence, u turns, and lack of money due to a pause in most replacement programs, carried out by Labour no less when they were last in power, which resulted in the Army needing to replace several types as they aged at the same time rather than a staggered, sensible approach where one issue is dealt with then the next.
This goes all the way back to Blair and Brown, at least the blasted Tories started replacement programs, albeit maybe not the right ones.
On the military side, I believe the Army themselves dropped TRACER, then pissed a billion up the wall on FRES ( the MIC keeps the money of course ) then settled on Ajax and look how we are getting on here. How many decades is it now they have been trying to replace CVRT?
And posters here complain about the RN’s Carriers….
Hi M8, As someone who was fomally involved with part of the UK MIC since 1979 I just need to correct you about the History some of us had to actually live through !
It wasn’t Blair or Brown who started this process they just continued it and also completely screwed UK NATO forces due to their Sand Box Wars sucking the living daylights out of what was left by Major.
It all goes back to the First Post “End of the Cold War” Defence review in 1990 which started the process of “The Peace Dividend” it was actually instigated by the Rt Hon Margaret Thatcher and then delivered by John Major when he took over ! You may want to have a read of “Options for Change 1990” which was then followed up in 1994 by “Front line First” those 2 are the First 2 Tombstone Blue Prints for every other cut that followed.
TORY 2 (inc 1 Banker), LABOUR 2 (1 murdering deluded intervensionist), TORY (Lost count but all useless), LABOUR 1 (useless so far !)
Hi mate.
I was referring specifically to land systems regards Blair and Brown, so 97 to 2010, not cuts in general!
Yep, well aware of OFC91 and FLF in 94, with Portollo at the helm.
The Sandbox wars caused cancellations galore in the Land domain as not needed for COIN.
All post Front line First.
Overall, I agree.
Buy some Toyota pickup trucks, and mount a machine gun on the back ….
Who ever said ‘Leave this to the accountants!’?
John Major in 1990 !
Sorry, Rodders there’s no prize!
As a long time ‘sensible’ around here you might agree with me: There is no timescale in which any of our enormous defence gaps can be rectified in the face of the immanent threats. We would be better advised to help finance neighbours such as the Scandinavians who will fight (believe me) than hope Putin waits until we are ready sometime in 2035.
It’s a very old tradition of the UK to have sod all army worth writing about and then hand over a shed load of gold to whoever is actually doing the fighting.
Scrap Ajax, form a mounted horse unit with troops with LPI radios and target designators. More mobile, more covert, more servivanle – less espensive and low risk. AND the Army gets its beloved cavelry back.
Bin Ajax. Spend some short term cash on keeping Warrior and other vehicles going while we invest in CV90, 600 to 800 of them. Get some more Archers too while we are at it, but still get the Boxer RCH155.
Boxers ordered to fulfil mechanised infantry roles. Get another 100 CR3s using the hulls we now know they have.
Increase army to about 80,000 to 85,000.
Job done, move on. Even if this does take another 5 to 8 years, at least we’d know there was light at the end of the tunnel.
Hi RobW I agree with you on CV90, more Archers ,CR3s and definitely more troops but I do have a bad feeling about Boxer RCH155 .For me just buy more Archers . 👍
I said that as the MoD will want UK industrial work share, so making the RCH155 here at RBSL in Telford. It is another big risk though, so perhaps we should just stick with proven kit until the army is finally adequately equipped.
Not necessarily the thing about UK Politicians is they fundamentally neither understand or comprehend how industry works or how it can react when challenged to do so.
If they decide to buy something they will spend ages trying to form a harmonious traditional multi nation partnership where no one is in charge and no one is accountable.
If they just decided that they want say the CV90 and PDQ and asked U.K. industry to get creative about producing them I am willing to bet BAe would either put in a ridiculously silly tender knowing full well that it’s a one shot deal with no further work at the end of the contract. Or look round for a UK owned company that has existing suitable plant, infrastructure and experience and a workforce that can be adapted to build large land vehicles.
So call the company who proudly put a Big Union Jack on everything they build and ask them how they feel about using Green Paint instead of Yellow ? I think most folks forget just how massive a company JCB are and the level of expertise they have in building big mobile lumps of metal.
I am not surprised the whole thing is a shambles…Our armed forces have been treated as a back up piggy bank for all government failure since options for change in the early 90.s..
Problem with Whitehall is too many chiefs not enough Indians. and the continual move the goal posts because this needs to be fitted no changed our minds how about this, then costs go up, then delay after delay by the time something arrives it’s not fit for purpose out of date or needs a ton more money spending to put it right.
Perfect example for one type 45
The whole procurement system is a sh?t Show
Its all just a money making scam
The personnel who need this kit are the ones I Feel sorry for .. Let down time and again with crap and defunct equipment always having to just make do
Hi Andy very well said your post is spot on. 👍
Its a pity because that Blackjax Ajax variant looked incredible.
Its just a mock up though. Supposedly has rubber tracks to help with noise and vibration but who knows whether that is enough. It would be another very expensive risk, when we could order the proven CV90 instead. A good number of IFV MKIVs, recce variants, and Armadillos in various variants i.e. mortar, APC, C&C, Ambulance, Recovery.
We have to de-risk the next big purchase. Buy existing variants that work, with a future program to add capability in conjunction with BAE so we do not make it too heavy…again.
Ajax should be cancelled immediately. Any finished vehicles should be converted to remote control and sent to Ukraine.
When Ben Wallace was in government they was a crunch time wether to carry on with Ajax or Scrap it he took the gamble to continue but unfortunately looking like it’s not paid off .This Ajax surely must stop now ,has hard has it is with Vechels coming off the production line and money spent .BAe CV90 looking like to he Answer . 😟 🤔
Videos on BFBS news showing brand new Ajax with bits hanging off and believe it or not WATER in the bottom of the hull😡