Armoured mortar, repair and recovery, and mounted close combat overwatch capabilities are no longer being pursued within the Mechanised Infantry Vehicle programme, and Boxer will not be used in the armoured cavalry role at all, according to answers given in Parliament.
Ben Obese-Jecty, the Conservative member for Huntingdon, asked what elements had been cut from the programme as part of the funding removal and budget reprioritisation recorded in the National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority’s Major Projects Annual Report for 2025 to 2026, which logged £1,858.38 million coming out. He separately asked how many of each Boxer variant would go to the armoured cavalry role and how many to mechanised infantry.
Luke Pollard, the Minister for Defence Readiness and Industry, said: “As part of reprioritisation within the Military Strategic Headquarters, the Armoured Mortar, Repair and Recovery and Mounted Close Combat Overwatch capabilities of the Mechanised Infantry Vehicle programme are no longer being pursued.
“The Army is considering how the underlying capability requirements will be addressed.”
On the cavalry question, Pollard said: “Boxer vehicles will not be used in the Armoured Cavalry role. Boxer will form the spine of the Mechanised Infantry force. Under current plans, Boxer is being fielded in supporting roles across 3rd (UK) Division, including Command and Control, Specialist Troop Carrier and Medical functions. Detailed fielding plans and vehicle allocations remain subject to refinement.”
The requirement survives the first decision even though the Boxer-based route to meeting it does not, which leaves the Army to find another way. In practice that means an existing vehicle takes the task on, a separate procurement follows, or the capability thins.
Each of the shelved functions does a job the mechanised infantry brigades still need done. Armoured mortar gives a battlegroup indirect fire of its own, able to move with the vehicles it supports and put rounds down without waiting on artillery allocated at a higher level. Repair and recovery keeps a wheeled armoured fleet running and drags disabled vehicles off the battlefield, which matters because a vehicle of Boxer’s weight that loses mobility cannot be moved by anything smaller than a purpose-built recovery variant. Mounted close combat overwatch is the anti-armour role, carrying a missile system that lets the infantry hold tanks at a distance.
Armoured cavalry is the reconnaissance and screening job the Army is equipping with Ajax, the tracked family built by General Dynamics Land Systems UK and fitted with a stabilised 40mm cased telescoped cannon. Ajax carries the sensors and the gun for that work, while Boxer is wheeled, has no turret on the British variants ordered so far, and is built to carry infantry and the things infantry need. Ruling it out of the role closes off a line of speculation that has followed the vehicle since Britain rejoined the programme.
Boxer is a modular design built around a common drive module onto which different mission modules are fitted, the feature that was supposed to make adding variants straightforward. Britain rejoined the programme in 2018, having left it in 2003, and the order has grown past six hundred vehicles across infantry carrier, specialist carrier, command and ambulance types, built under licence by Rheinmetall BAE Systems Land at Telford and WFEL at Stockport.
All this makes ement sense as we face unlimited threats against our country. Stopping Army exercises to save money, turning the other cheek regarding Ajax and now the only programme showing any progress Boxer, is about to be substantially cut. To compound matters, it’s becoming clear that CH3 is turning into another mess, with a predicted weight increase and no engine power increase! Rest easy, friends.
Well the only weight issue I can find on CR3 is the turret gearbox is not strong enough for the upgraded turret!If you have more please share👍
Which seems weird given that Challenger 2 could operate with TES up to 75 tonnes.
Maurice, RBSL has always said that CR3 is only 1t heavier than CR3. As with CR2, the greater superiority of the suspension allows for a smoother cross country ride which offsets less engine power than, say, Leo2.
Whoops ’eminent’
You have to despair. It feels like no one’s at the helm in the defence ministry/MOD, it’s just a rudderless ship. It’s the guys on the ground I feel sorry for, not having the kit of sufficient quality and continually getting push back in critical areas.
For me, old news, I’d read long ago that most of Boxer batch 2 was effectively shelved, it stopped appearing in the Companies financial projections as well.
I’ve read that a CAVS variant is being looked at for the Mortar role. The Recovery role will have to be fulfilled by sonething, as the REME will need a vehicle.
Armoured Cavalry? News to me, as far as I was concerned Boxer has never been destined for the Armoured Cavalry or Armoured Regiments of the RAC, those are filled by Ajax variants.
The units due to recieve Boxer were listed in a FOIA request a while back, cannot recall all but they included the 4 Warrior Battalions, the two Armoured CS RE Regiments, 2 REME CS Battalions, 2 RAMS Medical Regiments, some RA Regiments, and elements of the Royal Signals.
I don’t mind this at all, the vehicle, however capable, is ruinously expensive, buy something in bulk cheaper to complement it and spend the saving on more artillery, GBAD, and Drones.
Yes completely agree, it’s a bit of a none story, other than to confirm the army is not going to spaf even more money on the most expensive APCs in existence.
Although bizarrely the one area I think boxer would have been worth moving forward on would be a 120mm with direct fire capability.. as is so well protected it’s perfect for direct fire support.
Yes, the irony.
Agreed, I think a lot of those cancelled ones could be even on Patria instead without a major loss of operational capability.
It may also be that mortar carrier and Mounted Close Combat Overwatch is being given a second thought in terms of what could be delivered by boxes of drones instead- which I frankly think is probably not a terrible idea. Boxer is a very expensive way of moving a mortar around, even a 120 mm one…
I still think an unmanned turret/ RWS with a 40 mm gun on it makes a lot of sense though- for the same reasons you give about the 120 mm gun.
Boxer with just a RWS GPMG on it is criminal, given the costs of the vehicle and CGS lethality comments, we need to up arm not buy the most expensive APC known to man and put a machine gun on it while others provide real firepower.
Joe, the problem with cancelling those Boxer variants is that there now needs to be endless studies into how to replace that capability, bids run, contracts drawn up, design and development work undertaken. Years will be lost and the Boxer fleet will have no REME support, mortar support etc for a very long time. If it is decided to use Patria, then the REME variant(s) needs to weigh the same or more as the heaviest Boxer being procured for recovery purposes.
Hi mate, thanks for the update. Much as I suspected, I dare say the patria 6X6 can take on many of the roles at 20% of the cost of boxer. The National Armaments Director just gave an interview and talked about procuring equipment that was good enough rather than exquisite. Seems like that is squarely aimed at the army vehicle program. So much money wasted on very bespoke vehicles for little benefit.
Morning mate.
Yes, I for one agree. Though Boxer will be a great vehicle, that I don’t doubt.
Yes I agree, I think it will be awesome in the right role but it should be focused on the fighty stuff.
Exactly this.
Jim, does this update mean fewer base vehicle platforms (600+) or just the interchangeable packs?
Options i guess for the REME variants are either to retain the 512 and 513 variants of Warrior or go for a bespoke option. In this case i sort of see the logic as the Recovery/Repair variant of boxer is probably financial overkill for what essentially needs to be an oversized offroad Wrecker.
Exactly.
BigH, The US term ‘Wrecker’ as I understand means a recovery vehicle – we don’t just need that.
At rifle company level we need either a repair vehicle and a recovery vehicle (you allude to 512 and 513), or a vehicle that combines both functions as has been the case so far with the REME Boxer variant.
The REME Boxer variant must by now have been designed and developed, so the cancellation means money wasted. Contract amendment on the Boxer order will cost the MoD big money. Is there money for more and more Patrias?
It would be odd to retain tracked 512 and 513 to support the Infantry’s wheeled Boxers, (mix of tracks and wheels) but it would ensure avoidance of capability gap and would be cost-effective.
Patria as an alternative for REME is a possibility but the recovery variant would have to have equal or greater weight to the heaviest Boxer to be recovered.
Recovery will mix of GREENRACAAFLAG equioment
A reasonable supposition, except that I have great doubts the program is being reduced to buy something else. I am confident it’s not to buy anything else at all.
Agree . Thanks to its modular design of the Boxer , i think the chassis is better suited to speedy niche designs that can be quickly added on to the chassis. . Especially air – drone defence,example would be Sky Ranger the Germans are doing with their boxer . Thats a good 50 vehicles alone , and perhaps some missile launch variant . Patria looks much more standard and cheaper and as the new buzz word goes is Good Enough . Drone warfare will make mince meat out of any close to the front vehicles .At first glance looks a horrific cost cutting measure , hopefully its more like quick decision making on what the British Army needs today and tomorrow
Daniele, is it old news that these particular variants are being cut? All these cut variants were in the 623 orders. The REME variant does both repair and recovery, not recovery alone. The REME variant whether Patria or whatever must be in service at the same time as the section carriers…standard ILS practice…however I hear that a fair number of Boxers have already been fielded to units. If so then a major gaffe has occured and fielded Boxers are unsupported.
The REME variant must be similar or greater weight than the heaviest vehicle requiring recovery. Is Patria heavy enough?
Morning Graham.
I read that the REME will acquire another heavy truck type for the role.
I’m not aware of changes to the original 623, only the planned 400 more which also included Serpens radar and Bridgelayer types, which I hope are also in the bin.
Reality is dawning. We are cutting our coat according to our cloth. Time is the enemy now. The BAe CR2 lifex was the way to go. What are our options now? Re-instate WCSP and use Patria and Supacat for everything else?
Or some common sense?
Who at Andover thought that having one of the, or the most expensive APC out there for numerous roles that could be fulfilled by cheaper but good enough was a good idea?
In a cash strapped military.
In the 80s, MCV80, so Warrior, could not be bought in sufficient quantity for all roles, FV432 and Spartan were retained, and the 432 still is.
Why should this be any different?
Yeah it was beyond me why anyone thought we needed £5 and £10 million state of the art armoured vehicles providing recovery and ambulance variants.
Is it time to go public with both the British people and our NATO members and render the Army a rapid, light force, leaving heavy armour to Europe’s mainland MBT units, which is not insignificant? The latest CH3 news is also depressing, as additional top armour is making the vehicle very heavy and with no engine power upgrades in the pipeline, moving 75 + tonnes could be a ‘challenge.’ To add insult to injury, any turtle protection could make it inoperable. New Ukrainian land tactics have had some success using turtle tanks combined with a network of protective drones. Is it conceivable that CH3 could do the same, knowing it is right on the edge of its optimum capabilities??
Everyone said challenger 1 was shit and underpowered.
Everyone said challenger 2 was shit and under powered
Hearing the exact same about challenger 3 now.
It amazing that every British tank since Cromwell has been underpowered and every tank before Cromwell was supposed to be under powered and everyone said Cromwell was shit because it was too powerful and under armed.
Everyone being the British because most of the rest of the world seem to think our tanks are pretty good.
That being said as we can see in Ukraine heavy armour is a pretty niche capability now. I have no doubt CH3 will be one of the best in the world and I have no doubt I will hear endlessly about how shit it is until it actually goes to war and likely breaks even more records. Then I’ll hear all about how shit it is again.
This is the British way of war 😂
Yeh, we hold the world record in running ourselves down. Interestingly though the difference in cost between the Rheinmetal smoothbore CR3 and and the BAe proposal = about 500 Patrias: the ( political) cost of gaining a foothold in the next European MBT?
C3 is under-powered in some ways but a better HP etc. could have made the tank cost 3 times more.
Spending ridiculous sums of money now on a high HP tank would have been a waste of money, especially when depreciation of assets is taken into account. Wait 10 or so more years and a high HP tank will be as cheap as a C3. There will also be plenty of other countries wishing to get rid of high-HP tanks in 10 years time.
But for now; buying three lower powered tanks for the cost of one higher powered tank was a good deal for the MIL.
And yet this ‘underpowered’ tank still has an equivalent X country speed of the Leopard and Abrams🙄👍
Maurice, our remit is to deliver a Corps HQ, support units and two divs to the ARRC, one of SACEUR’s two strategic reserves. A significant amount of armour is implicit in that remit. We cannot choose to go totally light.
Totally it’s what they should have always done.. in my view boxer was and is a complete money spaf.. its five times the cost of the apc france is purchasing and low and behold France has purchased about 5 time more.
They should have always kept WCSP and it should be immediately re instated and yes a 1000 Patria and a 1000 supacat for the protected mobility role.
Or perhaps the Army should just be honest and say – We got it right the first time this vehicle doesn’t meet our requirements…….
Changing views seem so common it’s probably difficult to know what and when the ‘first time’ ever was.
The UK was part of developing Boxer so by definition, it fit the UK requirements.
Turrets on wheeled AFVs are always very nervous making for the crews in challenging terrain.
Aussie Boxer programme:
‘Military insiders say integrating the Lance turret is proving far more complicated than first anticipated because crucial anti-missile and anti-drone countermeasures are making the weapons system too heavy and unstable’
“Army is equipping with Ajax”… really?
The Army is equipped with Ajax and it’s using it now. It passed IOC in 2025. The suspension has been lifted.
Sorry, lost track on the Ajax saga, last thing I remember is that it’s still undergoing evaluations, if all it’s variants are still in the works than I guess no need to fit the Boxer with anything, mind you my overall impression of the Boxer project is positive, unlike the Ajax, I don’t recall any dramas
Yeah I held back a laugh myself. Hopefully Jim is right though I remain to be convinced this vehicle will be majorly fit for purpose in a true conflict scenario. I guess as in all conflicts peacetime standards will simply be ignored for the ‘greater good’. But hey maybe I am being too cynical, either way it was never going to be cancelled whatever its true state.
It is not fit for purpose and very difficult decisions are coming, if those with power listen.
Perhaps it is fit for purpose when the vehicle works well…
When it breaks down – then no good!
If the purpose is gate guardians then yes it is 🙂
Honest to god I don’t know why the army fucks this up so much… work out how many vehicles need then how much money you have.. then. Buy the vehicle you can afford in the numbers you need.. stop going but we need Aston Martins so we are going to buy 5 and then worry about the other 15 cars later.. just buy 20 fucking Fords to start with.
France can manage it.. they buy cheap or what they can afford and they buy the number they need.. so now France has ordered about 3000 armoured vehicles and we have ordered 600.. because France buys the Ford.
Gold plating at all costs has permeated the military for some time, it, along with the incompetence and constant chopping and changing of priorities is making things worse.
I can sort of understand to an extent and if I’m going out there I would say I think the British army actually suffered a level of generational trauma in WW2… because essentially they marched out with a shite ton of fords to face an army with Aston Martins… the thing is the Aston Martins lost to the fords, but the memories of the pain to get the victory I think scarred the armoured establishment hugely, tiger terror was a real trauma in allied armoured fighting vehicle crews. In fact it’s well reported that essentially tiger phobia became a real problem in the Normandy campaign and beyond.. with phycological dread meaning that about 80% of reported encounters were “Tigers” when infact they were a tiny minority.
I think that trauma led to a reaction in the British army.. they were never going to fight against without the best armour and best guns.. essentially they went on a bit of a AFV gold plating exercise… which you can see rite large in the British MBTs.. every British MBT post war was a lesion not in numbers win, but in tiger terror and bigger guns and gold platting ( represented by more and more armour).. essentially the British army became incapable of doing what the French did and buying any old cheap shit in the numbers needed to win.
You can see the same “ lesson” or trauma played out in the Navy but this happened a lot later.. the lesson the navy leant from WW2 was the one it always really knew.. mass matters more than the quality of the ships..( the flowers corvettes were an unmitigated heap of shite.. but we could build huge numbers ) its better to have a load of cheap shite that can just about do the job, then Practice a lot and be very good at using them than have one HMS massive that’s in port half the time so you don’t practise as much .
Then came the Falklands war.. and a navy with a mass of cheap ships still did what it said on the tin and won. The problem was the trauma of losses and essentially the fear of the fast jet and anti ship missile. The navies answer to this trauma was to gold plate the hell out of its AAW destroyers and strap more anti air weapon systems onto its ASW frigates.. it had to have a very very best AAW money could buy.. but then it only got 6 it has added more and more capabilities to its ASW Frigates and essentially scrapped the whole concept of a cheap and cheerful patrol frigate.
So I think gold plating could essentially be a form of post conflict trauma reaction to losses that embeds in peacetime forces… a thought.
The Matildas did well at Arras 1940 but, as usual, not enough of them.
Sherman Firefly did well in Normandy.
The Centurion was the first true MBT.
Chieftain worked well when fitted with a RR 800 HP engine. CR2 is said to be a good tank. CR3 should be likewise.
Dont forget the Churchill, it was into its own way actually a very good tank for most of close engagements during the fighting in France, its ability to manage terrain was probably unmatched ( as the Germans had discovered to their horror in Tunisia) and was not a bad vehicle to be fighting in against most German armoured fighting vehicles. At long ranges ( beyond 1000ms) the early and mid war churchills could survive a 75mm Pak 40 ( the standard late war German antitank weapon) the and the late war Churchill Mk VIIs frontal armour was essentially immune at all ranges.. the churchills guns either 75mm or 6pdr could manage normal German tank ( panzer Mk4 etc ) out to 1000ms. But it still had the tiger problem..
But the Sherman essentially was penetrated at almost every range unless it got really lucky with physics and the standard. Also the Churchill had a far better crew survival rate on penetration over the British issued Sherman’s ( Britain go almost no wet storage Sherman’s as the U.S. issued them almost exclusively to their own units and most of those were the 76mm armed Sherman’s) .. and the majority tank in the British army in France were Sherman’s, about 75% and of that 80% were 75mm armed and 100% were dry stowage tanks that went bang.. and the 75mm Sherman was essentially utterly incapable of fighting a tiger as even the side armour needed a close range (500m) and 90 degree angle shot even at 60 degrees ( the more practical angle to get as you manvouver ) a 75mm failed unless it was a point blank shot ( the British had a depressing chart )
But the biggest issue that really embedded tiger phobia in British tank units was pure bad luck essentially in Normandy due to deployment, pretty much every tiger in theatre faced British units and they causes some catastrophic destruction.. but essentially the 75mm Sherman mixed with that tiger phobia created in France did created a deviation in UK tank design to need for bigger and and more armour than anyone else.
Essentially the centurion was the start…. the spec was utterly uncompromising, a gun that could kill any German tank ( 17pdr) was as agile as a cruiser, has a great reverse speed and had the frontal armour to sit in front of a tiger ( essentially survive a close range 88mm anti tank gun)… and the army never really backed away from that concept of agile, take any hit at battlefield ranges and kill anyone… the Tigerphobia had baked it in the need, the centurion was better armoured than its western contemporaries.. they kept up gunning it just incase it could not kill a soviet heavy tank. The chieftain just pushed that our further far greater protection than any peer and a bigger gun…
You can argue that Cheftain was the Tiger for its time: it was not agile. So it was a significant change.
What changed is that BA realized that crew survival was now essential, maybe somewhat influenced by Israelis that were on the project initially,, but i also think it was concurrent with society changes.
Indeed, although Germany and France went down a profoundly different route, so I’m not sure it was societal changes in the 50s, 60s 70s as essentially everyone pretty much understood all armies in WW3 were going to essentially die en mass just before the world ended.. and essentially in that time frame especially the US was still locked into mass casualty wars.
you can definitely say there was a shift socially in the later Cold War when the west started to think it could actually win a conventional war with the Soviet union.. and you can see that in the development of 3rd generation MBTs in the west.. cemented really by gulf war 1 and that sudden view you could have a quick war with limited pain.
Great stuff. CR3 120mm smoothbore will accept Leonardo Vulcano 120mm guided munitions with ranges out to 30km so the panzer has an interesting future. We just need more of them!
Yep, personally I think they should convert every CR2 to CR3 .. but that’s just me.
Hence Conqueror, worth a mention here.
Yep, personally I think they should convert every CR2 to CR3 .. but that’s just me. Indeed who builds a tank with turret armour over a foot thick… it put some battleships to shame.
The German tank force disposition in France prior to the Normandy landings, were placed closer to where they believed the invasion would take part, i.e. Calais. I don’t know who decided which beach each force should land on, but the British and Commonwealth forces by landing on the eastern part of the beaches, would then meet the main panzer force coming from the east. There was only one panzer brigade in Normandy, which was south of Caen. So the “British” forces, were met on two sides. Whilst the US forces faced very little German tank forces. Part of Monty’s plan was to engage as many of the panzer force as possible and fix them in place, leaving the US the freedom to manoeuvre with a right hook. But this did mean the British tank force had significantly higher casualty numbers. The battles around Caen made for a very sobering illustration of how poorly armoured the Sherman was. However, they were almost immediately replaced due to the numbers held in reserve. Which eventually overwhelmed the German forces, as they couldn’t keep their tanks fuelled (thanks to Typhoons) or maintained quickly enough to stay in the fight.
The justification for going heavier on each MBT iteration, was crew survivability. The armoured triangle of fire power, mobility and protection, was heavily skewed towards fire power and protection. The reasons for this were two fold, the time and cost of training a crew. But also it was expected that Chieftains from BAOR period would last 10 tank engagements against Soviet armour, as the L11 gun had a range advantage over the then 115mm used by Soviet tanks. Lessons learned from when Iranian Chieftains fought against Iraqi T62s and T72s, was that the T72 tank of that era was better protected, had better manoeuvrability and its gun was on par with L11. The Chieftain was found to be easily penetrated by the T72 and that it suffered really badly in the mud due to a lack of engine power. This led to the development of the Chieftain’s Stillbrew” applique armour and a new APFSDS round. It also led to a program to make the L60 engine more reliable. However, the solid armour could never meet the protection offered by the composite Chobham being developed, which could be made effectively thicker, but at less carried weight.
But you are quite correct MBTs have become too heavy. Anything over 55t faces problems crossing the majority of bridges. Composite armour has gotten much better in the last 20 years. But could its overall mass be reduced by using an active protection system (APS), that effectively stops the tank from being hit in the first place? APS like Trophy have demonstrated they can stop anti-tank guided weapons. Though Hamas did find its weak spot, which was dropping an anti-tank grenade directly from above, which is in its radar blind spot, plus I don’t think the effector turrets can elevate that high, but this is being addressed. Trophy at the moment cannot defeat main gun rounds fired from a MBT. Whereas, the Iron Fist APS, has shown it can defeat High Explosive Anti-tank (HEAT) rounds, but also can deflect armour piercing fin stabilized discarding sabot (APFSDS) rounds. Which is being further developed,. If it can reliable deflect a APFSDS round, this would be a game changer.
But we still have the simple fact that in the 1945, 50s, 60s Britain went a totally different way to every Single other western nation… and we know that the design of British tanks active in the post war period were very focused on the tiger problem…infact the entire spec of the centurion was based around countering tigers… it’s why it to so long to develop it.. in late 1943 early 1944 they rewrote the spec…
Davey, which tanks have Hamas attacked by dropping an anti-tank grenade from above.
That’ll be the Merkava. Prior to the Hamas attack on the Israeli border. No Merkavas has been lost to attacks by anti-tank guided or unguided weapons thanks to the Trophy active protective system
Michael Wittman at Villiers Bocage had a lot of responsibility there.
Some of the Waffen SS Tank units came from the Eastern Front, and were operationally experienced. Our Tankies were easy pickings even with PzIVs.
Ive just been in bovi for a while and troubling comments from the guys training on boxer aboug brakes burning out every 300km and some setting on fire when dry grass gets caught up around the brakes how. If this is more then smoking area stories then for price of tgese vehicles tgey should scrap as many as possible
Ben, scrapping Boxers for a brake overheating problem is extreme. Just re-design the brakes. MoD would lose a fortune by scrapping very expensive vehicles for that reason. What would you replace scrapped Boxers with and where would you get the money from?
Don’t you mean the Renault rather than the Alpine.
Whichever way you look at hths and we can dress it up with whatever we want, BUT, the army is a shambles. Problems with integrating Challenger, with Ajax and now Boxer; no artillery to speak of and helicopters being scrapped. Decisions still to be made (postponed?) on everything else. It may be that reasons can be given for individual situations but it’s the overall picture. Add to all this the Healey budget and probable lack of real money for defence, and we might as well write the army off as a fully balanced force.
Can I just point out that the Army doesn’t set its budget; the Army has though repeatedly balanced it’s budget on the promise of being rewarded to have it slapped back in its face with more cuts. I’ve literally been in the meetings.
I was also in the meeting where the RN offered up the entire Royal Marines as a saving…. to preserve the carriers.
The blame for all of this has to lie at successive governments over the last 40 years. To put into context, the Army was very clear what it wanted as far back as 2008. An Armoured Division based on WR2, an updated MBT, AJAX and protected long ranged fires. In addition a mechanised Division of 2 Bdes plus 16AA based around MIV. It’s acquisition costs were promised to the Army and then successively reduced, which led to them taking money from the Ops Budget.
The big bit of self destruction was A2020, but even that was answering a question – what can we afford with the budget that’s been set. It’s very easy to blame the Army for it constantly changing its mind, but that’s against a background of both shifting budgets AND changing operational landscape.
Well said. Indeed, even in 2010 3rd Armoured Division was a better formation than now, with 3 full Armoured Brigades, plus the CS and CSS existed for 2 other Brigades in 1 Division, plus the RM, plus 16AA!
7 deployable Brigades. All the replacement programmes were set in motion post sandbox.
I think Carter and his A2020 “Refine” did great damage by bringing forward Boxer, then just the MIV programme for post 2027, while Challenger, CVRT and Warrior replacement were all ongoing.
Not enough money, something had to go.
Neither the Conservatives or Labour have a leg to stand on regards Defence and I vote for neither for the damage they’ve done until words became real action and real regeneration.
You’re going to have a long wait Daniele, given recent “leaders. “We’ve had Blair/Brown; five Tories and now two more disinterested socialists. That leaves the other three defence orientated parties ! 🫣
I’m in no hurry. At least the industry side is on the up, pity it’s not the military as priority in that in HMG mind. But hopefully it means more SSN by 2040 and a great plane for the RAF.
I said that the army was a shambles Bob. I never said it was their fault. I am aware of the problems of successive governments. I have been saying it here for years. We are never going to have a balanced force in any service whilst we have governments cancelling, delaying and prevaricating on pretty well ever programme. All three services are under threat.
To be far the army had a fairly big capital AFV budget, infact its spent more than the French army and yet they have got more. It’s pissed away a lot of of money on expensive programmes that have not delivered or will not deliver as much as could have been purchased.
FFLAV (Future Family of Light Armoured Vehicles) Failed and and fractured into multiple smaller projects, Tracer, MRAV ( that 30 years later turned into boxer), ABSV, FCLV… essentially a programme that would provide a few thousand vehicles ended up 30 years later providing 600 APCs. But also the failure of FFLAV lead to the need for UOR procurement of vehicles that were not needed long term..
FRES Failing and failing into AJAX and the monster it became…
WCSP Failing…
Every one of these things has slowly and surely spaffed away the money 600 million there 600 million here… an armoured cavalry programme of 500 vehicles for 6 billion.. enough to buy the army 6000 APCs…the boxer program at 2.8 billion program for 600 APCs that could have procured 2800 pretty respectable APCs.. and that is a fundamental an issue of choices that were made that were not pragmatic… the army had a good 12-13 billion pounds of capital expenditure in that bank and its managed to buy very little for that money… I don’t think we can and should blame the political classes for all that.
I’ve always wanted to know if the Army board chose those types or whether a Minister had their dirty mitts in the mix. And the boards of the 3 Services have Ministers on them.
Was there a Sunak RCH155 element or was Ajax and Boxer an all military choice?
We’ll never know, whatever, I despise the lot of them.
Unbelievable. Or is it? When in doubt cut the ‘teeth’. Another monumental sum spaffed up the wall. I give up.
I know how you feel Bill. It’s all just getting worse.
Geoff, what is the problem integrating those three AFVs?
There are delays with CR3, Ajax is apparently still not liked by the crews and the Boxer order is now in jeopardy.
I really do despair: For once we order an armoured vehicle which really is a world leader in its class. It does everything it says on the tin.
So what do we do; we cut its capability by shelving very useful variants with no idea of how we compensate for these deficiencies.
I guess the PBI will now have to get out and dig a scrape for their mortars.
REME will have to make do with some hopeless unarmed trucks to effect repair and recovery (or will they keep the REME warrior going for another 30 years?)
And goodbye to any decent Anti Tank capabilities.
Keith, the loss of the REME capability is absurd. It must have been designed by now and in an advanced state of development. Funding for the entire 623 orders was surely ringfenced. Unarmed wheeled repair and recovery trucks are not the answer. Each rifle company has a REME fitter section which operates just a tactical bound behind the APCs. Its vehicles must have the same mobility and protection as the Boxer APCs.
It would be bizarre to keep the Warrior FV 512 and 513 in service for another 30 years to support Boxers but it would have to be considered.
Sounds like Babcock/Supacat are going to get the mortar, overwatch and mobile light gun contracy based on closed cab developnents of their latest Jackal3 platform given what Ukraine got
Yes, it’s possible. There’s a 120mm variant as well.
The US tried to make Stryker brigades work and they failed.
We keep trying to copy the btr without understanding how it was designed to fit into a structure as just a small part.
The cvrt was the best program for us it just needed a newer variant.
What’s all this shit about Boxer being the most expensive APC??? The UK models cost about 5 million pounds each. That’s not expensive for the level of protection. Go find an equivalent for less.
BTW CAVS has much thinner armour and a lower all round specification.
“A total of 7 countries have confirmed orders or purchases of the Boxer armored vehicle family: Germany, the Netherlands, Lithuania, Australia, the United Kingdom, Ukraine, and Qatar”
I guess none of these countries know what they’re doing either (eyes roll)
Ok find me a more expensive APC … go on.. 5 million a pop is bonkers money unless your rolling in it . Because you can get a perfectly good STANAG 4 level APC for around 1 million a pop.. then if you need to up armour from STANAG 4 to 6 you buy a kit.. you don’t have to wander around and buy every APC you have for every purpose with the capability to charge into a 30mm cannon firing 30 mm APFSDS… it’s not a tank, it’s not a direct fire platform… and we cannot spaff the 10 billion it would cost to buy the real numbers we need.
The only reason for Boxer Batch 2 being cancelled is Labour doesn’t want to spend on Defence. Pure and simple.
“Cancelled” and not “shelved”. We don’t need weasel words here.
So, if I understand Pollard correctly his statement refers to the 200 ‘specialist carriers’ of the 623 in the batch 1 order. Of these, I assume some will now be allocated as RCH SPG chassis. But if the 623 total still holds, there might be almost a doubling of the ‘infantry carrier’ version. Have I got that right?
Makes sense to MP’s because…
1. We have very few Infantry.
2. MP’s think drones are a cheaper way of doing anything.
3. MP’s think drones may do everything.
4. MP’s think drones can do everything.
5. MP’s think drones will do everything.
So we’ve just spent the thick end of 5 billion for an underarmed support vehicle. An FV432 replacement. Not even a RWS for a 30mm cannon
Most expensive ambulance in the world
BTW – where’s the Warrior replacement coming from?
Jacko, go to the Defence Eye website and click on ‘Armour Round up.’
Had a look👍 no idea where they are coming from on HP, CV12 uprated to 1,100? CR2 is running at1,200 with theCV12 6A!
The CV 12 9A going into CR3 IS restricted to1,200 but it is capable of going to 1,500!
Another site to keep an eye on,thanks
It’s interesting to note the scale of the problem facing the army around armour vehicle procurement..
Essentially what it’s actually achieving so far is the procurement for the 3 heavy brigades of the armoured division…. Challenger3, Ajax and boxer… and for various reasons over almost 30 years to do this it’s spend the entire capital budget it was given.. about 13 billion in total.
Now the problem is the army also needs about 2000 lighter armoured vehicles ( 10Ton range protected mobility/APCs) and around 1000 more Medium weight APCs ( over the boxer order which is essentially replacing warrior )… so it’s spent its whole budget on about 1200 AFVs but needs another 3000 is
While massacring CS and CSS and the 3 Heavy Brigades originally in 3 Division when these programs began are now but 2.
👏 👏 👏 👏
So no tanks, no armoured fighting vehicles, I guess budget cuts mean no bullets either, perhaps we are supposed to use water pistols?
Part of this Boxer re-jig makes sense. In the same way that we couldn’t afford enough Warriors to fulfill all the roles needed, we ended up with Warrior as the AIFV and used the FV432/Bulldog as the ‘Armoured Battlefield Support Vehicle’ (ABSV). The FV-432 was fine as a mortar carrier, field ambulance, engineer and signal section truck etc.
The same applies to Boxer. An unarmoured Patria could certainly provide the mortar carrier and close combat overwatch aka anti-tank vehicle, as well as infantry fire support recon, MG and assault pioneer sections, and also transport engineers, REME repair, signal squads etc: no need to have a £5m Boxer for every conceivable task, when an unarmoured Patra would be a good replacement for the FV-432.
However, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to cut Boxer from the Arm Cav tole or the REME recovery one.
The arm cav one is debatable, because Boxer is a poor and erroneous replacement for Warrior. To keep up with tracked vehicles off-road is a pretty forlorn hope for a wheeled vehicle, particularly when the ground is muddy, watetlogged or snow-covered, as often happens in Eastern Europe and Scandinavia. Then Boxer has no cannon.and cannot provide fire support for the infantry sections it carries. So we basically have a rather expensive battlefield taxi that can’t manoeuvre off road and can’t bring anything to the firefight.
And it a bad idea to mix front-line wheels and tracks in the same formation, as one can’t keep up on road and the other can’t on cross country. Far better to put all the Boxers in one wheeled brigade, which operates primarily by road and can act as the division’s quick-response force.
Rather than running tracked Ajax in the recon role, far better to have a Boxer recon vehicle with a 40mm CTA cannon, keeps the formation all-wheeled and saves on maintence, spares stockpiles etc.
Then the REME recovery job poses a problem. Boxer is a heavy armoured vehicle, will almost certainly need a Boxer-equivalent vehicle to recover it. Warrior 512/513 are much lighter vehicles, rather doubt they would be up to the recovery role needed. If we can afford £6bn carriers and £8+ bn SSBNs, we can surely afford 100+ recovery vehicles for the army?
For ‘unarmoured Patria’, read ‘UParmoured Patria’. Curses on auto correction…