BAE receives order from US Army for additional M109A7 Howitzers

I beileve that would be 96 Guns. More would be needed for training.

I read elsewhere the army was considering replacing the AS90 at the same time as the Strike rolled units.

A seld propelled was mentioned. Archer was mooted, as was Ceasar previously.

A letter from the Director RA was published to the effect that there is funding for a replacement of the Light Guns.

I know no more than that.

What would be your best bet? Something mobile not towed surely?

I have heard rumblings in the “office” about a replacement but nothing concrete.

Towed is dead, long live SP. M777 is a great bit of kit but you cant sling a gun and Pinz under a Chinook at the same time like you can do with a light gun thus doubling your lift requirement.

Caesar is a pain in the ass to deal with, its ability to carry out hit and run strikes buy moving quickly using civilian infrastructure is hard to counter, surprisingly not all battlefields resemble the Canadian plains.

I would go for a Boxer module, expensive but strike capable with an awesome gun, everything else would be a compromise.

BV

Thanks.

I know nothing of the ins and outs of this only that Boxer 155mm to a layman like me would seem sensible for commonality and so on.

It certainly ticks all the boxes, good gun, well protected, mobile. I cant think of any other system that can do the same.

BV

You probably have no influence in that department do you, sadly. Psst! Have a word….
Other thing that has just occurred to me is cost. I have no idea how the Boxer module compares to other options.

Sorry, just re read your post futher up that it is pricey…

Ha, not that department no. in fact no departments as I am a 15 year old Chinese kid (and have been for years now) with an interest in defence with impeccable English even down to army slang/colloquialisms (I had to use a dictionary for that one).

Is this the gun you mention BV Buster?

Sadly not on order, but I assume this could be included at a later date. The Boxer is clearly a very sensible choice given the different configurations currently available.

“The fully-automated Artillery Gun Module can hold a Remote Controlled Howitzer 155 mm (RCH 155) capable of firing up to 8 rounds per minute to a range of up to 40 km with standard ammunition (56km with Very Long-range Artillery Projectiles (VLAP) ).”

Forgot to post the link!

https://www.forces.net/services/army/all-gen-boxer-military-vehicle

http://www.military-today.com/artillery/boxer_rch155.htm

That’s the badger!

Since when have we been sensible when it come to procurement?

It would certainly address availability issues, 155 drive module goes down, swap out with a command variant module and off you pop, “fire mission over!”

BV

Cheers! With 523 on order, you would have thought we would add additional capabilities other than just the Command Variant, Specialist Vehicle, Infantry Carrier and Ambulance.

Awesome looking bit of kit with the gun attached.

What was the price 2.5Bn? for 523? ish? I think a steady 5Bn pay out would sort out AS90 replacement, Warrior replacement, HVM replacement, all command variants ect.

BV

Problem solved along with interchangeable spare parts between variants makes perfect sense to me.

glad to hear, make cheques out to BV Buster for £5.1bn and I will get it all sorted (100m admin fees).

BV

Additional question on Boxer

Would a boxer with the XM360 gun be able to give us a replacement for challenger.

If that is the case then shouldn’t the UK ditch tracked vehicles and go for a full boxer fleet with 155mm, mortars and a light tank version to replace challenger.

“Would a boxer with the XM360 gun be able to give us a replacement for challenger”

Now your speaking my language! I am now going to bore you socks off, so the MX 360 as I understand is a 44 calibre gun, that would be a step back from what we are replacing CR2s main armament with its 55 cal, that would mean a reliance on DU ammunition which the UK is trying to get away from. The US are reliant in DU due to the issue of not being able to fit a 55 cal gun as the M1 was originally designed for a 105mm gun. Now imagine, a British tank with a L55 firing American M829-A4 ammunition? I can only get so erect.

BV

I know that an upgraded M1 turret with XM360 gun has been added to Ajax (Griffin).

I assume this can be put on boxer if need be and assume if we went for an all boxer inventory of 5k vehicles.

That would be very efficient from a cost, parts and training perspective and from what I can see Boxer can do at least 95% of what a tracked vehicle can do.

Also at that scale we can probably reduce the cost per vehicle to £4m and build in UK.

Lets face it we dont really use our tracked vehicles and when boxer is in the force there will be less need to do so.

A vehicle with an all up weight of 36 tons cannot compete with an MBT, tank warfare is not a 1 shot 1 kill process, rounds glance off, rounds strike and insane angles causing odd lateral penetrations, its not black and white. The reason why CR2 weighs so much is its ability to absorb battle damage, that’s what we are good at, believe me I know (not in a condescending way).

I am in the middle of an essay on STRIKE!!! most of my facts are checked, referenced and good to go. It basically calls on a strike brigade being able to deploy light or heavy. light being just the Inf battalion on boxer and other boxer enablers, heavy is with CR2 support with the Div arty group and all the bells and whistles. The down side is a chop of other Army resources to enable this. Anyone else have anything to add, ORBAT wise, kit wise?

BV

That’s very interesting as in my modelling of a future land force for the uk I have created 16 battalions (900 personnel) of 5 combat companies and 1 support company of 180 personnel for each of the following capabilities

Commando force
Light Infantry (using Polaris vehicles for speed and load)
Strike (all wheeled 2600 vehicles needed)
HA (2600 tracked vehicles inc c.600 tanks)

This has embedded support and additional Brigade Support of an additional Battalion, also backed up by Divisional (x8) and Command (x4) resources.

SFG etc is separate, and the Commando Force is enlarged and given a wider remit (headcount moved out of RN to allow RN to grow).

I also have checked the figure and the Land forces need circa £2bn annually to purchase the c.40k vehicles it needs.

I look forward to your essay, it seems to be consistent with a lot of people thinking

I personally want 16 mixed force Brigades that can be deployed as a larger single capability corps if required.

This would give us an army of 76k that relies on a joint force HQ.

16 battalions would not get past the cap badge mafia, we have on my last count 33, most of which are under strength. 16 brigades are optimistic indeed, we are struggling to fully man what we have at the moment and most are not front line.

Speaking of your ORBAT, why 5 companies and 1 support per Btn? 3 and 1 has worked for years, what do the other 2 achieve? what is there makeup? interesting stuff.

Agree about commando force, not their block job.

Corps level deployment ended years ago, even with a 100k army we couldn’t do it. you have to bare in mind, half the army cant deploy.

What would your ORBAT be for a strike brigade?

BV

A Strike brigade would be 4 deployable battalions each with circa 120 Boxers, 64 of which are IFV, other configurations would be task specific but I believe it should have air defence, 155mm gun and mortars.

The organisation is alway in 4’s + 1 support

4 x36 combat platoons, plus 1 support platoon= company 180.

This model is repeated 4+1 = Bn (900) and a Brigade (4500).

The other key thing with Strike for me is it needs to be backed up with Apache Helicopter and artillery and when deployed would be closer to 6k personnel including ISTAR etc.

For me each of the battalions must be able to standalone and we should use core logistics to support deployed units.

Given current numbers we should leverage what UK Plc is good at which is logistics and we should concentrate the army on fighting

Each Battalion will need 160 vehicles with at least 128 Boxers, for an all Boxer Brigade that would be c.800 vehicles including things like JLTV’s, this means a total inventory of at least 3200 Boxers across 16 battalions (4 Brigades worth) with my preference being all boxer with as many variants as required to bring either a mass effect or the correct mix.

Lastly and probably not what people want to hear is that by my workings UKDF is circa 20k people short of its current targets (not actuals).

An Armoured Inf brigade usually consist of 3 battalions of Infantry and 1 armoured regiment. That is how we make battle groups of 2x inf Coy and 1 x Arm Sqn with 1 x Hq Coy/Sqn per BG with 1 coy left over for brigade ops Coy/Recce support.

“The organisation is alway in 4’s + 1 support”

Same goes for platoons, 3 rifle platoons per Coy, 3 Coys per Btn with 1 support Coy and 1 HQ Coy. Correct 5 companies per battalion but only 3 rifle companies.

When it comes to battle grouping, a brigade may have 4 battle groups based on the HQs of the 4 units plus or minus Coys to fit the task in hand.

Having 4 rifle Coys per Btn would mean 12 Coys per brigade, much more than 9 (not that I am complaining)

I get if you want to add more combat power to the brigade by adding more units but I is better to just have more brigades.

“The other key thing with Strike for me is it needs to be backed up with Apache Helicopter and artillery and when deployed would be closer to 6k personnel including ISTAR etc” – I 100% agree with this, A strike brigade lacks firepower so the deficit must be made up by force multipliers, AH, drones, 155.

As it is now a Warrior Company stands at 14 warriors, 12 + 2 (HQ), times that by 3 companies is 42. Add REME (any excuse to get them away from kids) we are looking at 50 Warrior platforms for the rifle companies. Then add Btn Hq and support Coy then you get a good number. 128 Boxers per Battalion is punching and although I don’t disagree with it, getting that sized formation past the bean counters would be hard.

The way you have it is Ideal, having an extra battalion per brigade would be great, having an extra platoon per company would be great but it seems a waste when they could be used elsewhere.

BV

Hi BV

I think we need to have a force for the future not the past and actually I personally would ditch tracked vehicles entirely and go for an all boxer fleet backed by 144 apaches. This means trading off tanks (where will we actually use them) for apaches.

The reason for 4 combat units is to have a clear rotation cycle of operational, training up, coming off and rest and recuperation. I am also a big believer in having a reserve and 2 flanks as well as a centre in any deployment and the support and reserve would essentially work hand in hand and allow for rotation even in theatre at the battalion level. Essentially very similar to a USMC battalion.

With the volume of boxers I am suggesting I think the unit can be more self supporting, and we should spend money on close support, but there will be divisional support as well.

As well as the commando’s integrating into my land force I would also increase the Gurkhas to 7380 in a light infantry role, which will help with meeting numbers and keeping it high quality. This helps solve the manpower shortage and with the reserve being directed mainly to combat support and logistics we can expand support when necessary, but maintain a good cutting edge at all times.

I think Boxer with some enhanced armour and more Apaches would be better than Ajax and Challenger as we can get the scale as well as the modules. In an ideal world maybe not, but the more I read about Boxer the more I believe we should go big and surely with some large HGV’s Apaches could land in amongst them for refuelling etc and keep up.

I know its different – but so was Blitzkkrieg and as we are now primarily UK based we need platforms that can deploy quickly and with force.

We can also afford more as they are £2m less than Ajax and probably £10m less than challenger.

Either way the Army needs £2bn pa for its equipment and then it needs to stop dicking about trying to gold plate everything.

I would agree with you about scraping the tracked vehicles but we have just invested an insane amount of money in Ajax and Challenger 2, they just don’t fit with the strike concept but we have them now, this would have been a great decision 10 years ago but we are where we are.

It doesn’t mean CR2 and Ajax are useless, if we have time to deploy, a build up of hostilities where we escalate over time, these forces would massively increase the combat power of a strike formation.

A way around this may be to add a medium armour squadron to every CR2 regiment (we have done this before), say the 120mm armed Boxer you mentioned. This would mean we could still have the same amount of battlegroups but instead of a tank Sqn per BG we would have to make to with a few troops of 120mm Boxer, not ideal.

A brigade of Gurkhas would be a quick way of increasing the number of bayonets we have across the army in a short period of time, 3 battalions, 1 light gun regiment and some light role logistics and engineers. All setup for jungle/inhospitable environment and ready to deploy at short notice.

We should already have 144 Apaches no mater what force structure we have especially considering how much we forked out for Wildcat, the decision boiled my Pi*s. You cant replace CR2 with Apache, helicopters cant hold ground, they are great at blowing stuff up but eventual they have to RTB. They are also incredibly venerable to AAA, we have gotten away with it for years in Afghan but not against a semi competent opponent.

You are right about going big, every platform minus CR2 and Ajax (already paid for) should be on a Boxer chassis, how hard can it be to Sellotape a HVM launcher onto a Boxer module?

It would be interesting to compile a list of useful Boxer modules, everything from APC to electronic attack.

BV

Understand we have sunken costs in CR2/3 and Ajax, but we haven’t actually received any production models yet and my understanding is Warrior CEP is a bit of a disaster with the Turret costing more than a boxer.

Perhaps it is just time to stop, cut our losses and move to a full on boxer force.

I know many people want heavy armour and I am certainly not against it, just think we cant really afford something we are unlikely to use and I think our boffins can come up with armour for boxer that will make it even better.

Boxer with landcepter, brimstone are also options, it really is skies the limit but we need to go big and use the savings on new modules.

160 boxers for a battalion of 900 personnel is a good option imho. I also think Apache can go austere and travel with boxers, challenging, not impossible.

UKlandPower and Think Defence have listed most modules, but there are a lot more possibilities that’s for sure. not everything needs a boxer and supacats can also be useful.

Warrior is a bit of a mess at the moment and is ripe for cancelling, its been one big mess around from start to finish and looking at 3 divs orbat we could be buying as little as 4 battalions worth, not really worth it in my opinion.

I think removing all heavy forces for ruthless commonality will limit our options in a future high intensity conflict, we will only be able to deploy against an enemy that has a limited armoured capability. A strike brigade can be made more punchy but if it came up against a well equipped armoured force it would be wiped out. What do we do if say Russia pushes an armoured Div into Latvia and all we have is medium forces, do you think the politicians would not send anything because it doesn’t match the sort of enemy we are designed to fight. It would be a copy and paste from the BEF in 1940, mobile forces but with no firepower.

I think what is going to happen is we wont get rid of the heavies which will result in a half arsed high intensity capability and a half arsed strike capability, If it has to be one or the other I would like you, go for a full fat strike capability.

BV

Hi BV,

I have been wondering whether, in an ideal world, with some additional cash, we could grow the army back to 10 combat brigades: 3 armoured, 4 mechanised, 2 light/strike, and 16 Air Assault.

The armoured brigade would consist of 1 Ajax recce regiment, 1 CR2 rgt, 2 armoured infantry bns equipped with Ajax based IFVs, and an RA rgt of AS90 guns.

The mechanised/medium brigades would be equipped with one armoured recce rgt with Ajax, 1 light armour rgt with 120mm Ajax, 2 armoured infantry bns with Ajax IFVs, and an RA rgt equipped with the Ajax/ASCOD AGM 155mm self propelled artillery variant.

Then the light/strike brigades and 16 AA brigade would be equipped with a light recce rgt either using Jackal or Boxer recce variants, 2 infantry bns in Boxer IFVs, and 2 air mobile light infantry bns. Brigade fires would come from an RA rgt equipped with a wheeled self propelled gun, ideally based on the Boxer platform, but otherwise could be the French Caesar gun or that South African 155mm gun which looks like something out of Mad Max, the G6 howitzer.

1st Armoured Division could be reconstituted with a focus on supporting NATO operations in Europe, and would consist of 2 armoured brigades and 1 mechanised brigade.

A Mechanised Division could be fitted out with 1 armoured, 1 mechanised and 1 light brigade, with a primary responsibility for the Middle East, and a third, light division featuring 1 mechanised and 2 light brigades could be focused on APAC operations, with a secondary responsibility for ROW theatres and humanitarian operations. 16 AA and 3 Commando would be kept as independent brigades, able to deploy where needed.

I know the largest hurdle to the above would be the need to increase the Army’s manpower back up to 100,000-120,000, which would be a colossal task now, and the growth of air mobile troops would probably cause problems with the RAF (I would imagine trying to wrest control of troop transport helicopters from RAF and into AAC). But in terms of equipment it would be a case of consolidating brigades around 1-2 vehicle types, which could reduce the brigades’ logistics, save money on purchase and maintenance, and reduce the time taken for mobilisation.

I understand that the mechanised/medium armour brigade concept might raise a few eyebrows, with the inclusion of the 120mm Ajax, but it wouldn’t be my intention that this was trying to get a tank rgt on the cheap. I wouldn’t expect these to go up against enemy tanks but their use would be to support infantry by attacking enemy defences and IFVs, as well as the ability to give fire support in conditions that are unsuitable for large and heavy MBTs. But I suppose there would be an argument to just use the Boxer as the platform for this, but I feel like having this medium tracked force gives another option in the event that greater offroad capability was needed, without resorting to deploying an armoured brigade to support the strike brigades.

Obviously this is all fantasy fleets and it would be impossible to do now, but back in the late 1990s it wouldn’t have been such a struggle, when we still had the manpower and the resources…

I agree with that speculation.

Seems pointless to replace the light gun when budgets are overstretched. Where does the warrior upgrade fit in with strike brigades when boxer is more suitable ?

Morning Peter.

Warrior has nothing to do with the planned Strike Brigades. The current Warrior and its WCSP upgrade sit with the Armoured Brigades, with the Tanks.

Boxer goes with the Strike Brigades, with Ajax, which is a major issue as Ajax is tracked.
Ajax ( Scout ) was procured to provide armoured recc for the Armoured Brigades. By moving these regiments to the Strike Brigades, the Armoured Brigades are left without a dedicated recc regiment.

There are many other issues regarding the current planned Strike Brigades well documented here and elsewhere.

Light Gun is a very poor fit for the Strike Brigades. What must be remembered here is that the two regiments on Light Gun supporting the Strike Brigades were until recently AS90 gun regiments. So their poor equipment fit is a result of cuts.

These two regiments ( based currently at Topcliffe and Ouston ) will hopefully get a SP 155mm replacement. It has been planned for.

Cheers.

So if we move Ajax back into HA and order an Ajax IFV replacement for Warrior, we can reinstate a true HA Capability, once CR CEP happens.

We then need to order a further 1k+ boxers and create a true Strike capability whilst resolving the artillery problems we have had for some time now.

This is clearly a 10 year plan and can be brought online within the £17bn budget for this capability. If not questions really should be asked.

Ajax – £7m each (£8bn allocation)
Boxer – £5m each (£7.5n allocation)
CR3 CEP – £3m each (£1.5bn allocation)

Greetings all,

This problem of vehicles not being the correct spec is systemic of our procurement process moving at a glacial pace. 10 years ago, Warrior 2, Ajax, CR2 upgrade all made sense and they all fitted into our orbat. Not times have moved on we can cut our losses of just take the hit and fit them in somewhere.

The problem with having an Ajax IFV is it will be too similar to Warrior2, people with thick rimmed glasses and pocket protectors will say it wont be worth the cost or delay. What does an Ajax AFV have over Warrior2? same gun, same turret protection, hull about the same. We already have the hulls paid for, just plop in a new turret, how expensive can it be? ……… O wait.

BV

About the same as boxer if reports are to be believed

Have to say the Aussies land 400 has been a very good example to all as is there strategy documentation

Personally I would cut our losses but am aware I m in the minority

More apache, lots of boxer artillery, mlrs, area defence, etc

The Aussies have done well with land 400, Boxer with a lance turret could easily supplant Ajax in the brigade reconnaissance role.

I do see you point, why pay for something what we may not use as the world has moved on.

BV