The Ministry of Defence has confirmed plans to upgrade and expand its Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) fleet to 85 vehicles from around 40.
The information, confirming earlier plans, came in response to a question from Conservative MP Mark Francois regarding the specifics of the current fleet and future enhancement strategies.
Minister of State for the Ministry of Defence, James Cartlidge, revealed that the Ministry manages an operational fleet of 26 MLRS units, with an additional 50 systems held in reserve. The upgrade plans encompass 69 of these systems at a projected cost of £481 million. Moreover, an additional £158 million has been earmarked for enhancing 16 further systems. This phase includes the acquisition of surplus units from international partners, aiming to expand the operational fleet to 85 systems.
The upgrade process, structured in four tranches, is scheduled to conclude by 2030.
Cartlidge said:
“The Ministry of Defence has an operational fleet of 26 multiple launch rocket systems (MLRS), comprising launcher and repair and recovery variants, and owns a further 50 MLRS, all of which will be upgraded.
To date, approval has been granted to upgrade 69 systems at an estimated capital cost of £481 million (using current exchange rate assumptions). Funding of £158 million has been allocated for the upgrade of a further 16 systems, which includes the purchase of surplus systems sourced from other nations. This will lead to a total operational fleet size of 85 systems.
The MLRS fleet is being upgraded in four tranches with the final deliveries estimated to be complete by 2030.”
The UK previously operated 4 of an M270A1 variant called M270B1, which includes an enhanced armour package.
Blink and you’ll get a Boxer MLRS variant…
Or… imagine a 432 MLRS variant.
Apparently they’re buying up old M270s from other Nato countries who are moving to new systems, and then upgrading them obvs. Seems sensible enough, especially with the increase in numbers.
We have a number of Norwegian ones at the rsa
I find the number 26 curious.
26RA and 3RHA I have both with 2 Fire Batteries. Then you’ve got 101RA, with another 2.
I thought the regular Batteries had 8 launchers each…I’m obviously wrong there.
And that 26 include recovery vehicles.
Going forward, assume both regular Regiments will stand up another Battery.
The 2023 MoD spreadsheet for kit on the active list had 35 launchers which reduced to 29 launchers in 2022, so it may well be 26 in 2024. I didn’t know a AR unit (101RA) had MLRS – unusual for AR to have major battle-winning offensive combat equipment. Thanks for the info. In the back of my mind, I thought there were 4 launchers per Bty, as there had been 4 x M107s back in the day. That would at least fit with the 26 figure, but it means that there are only 2 launchers to share between the Trg… Read more »
Yes mate, 101 has been in that role for years. If M107s were 4 you might well be right. 39 RA, the old Regiment, did have 3 Batteries, each with an Exactor Troop too. From memory, when 3 RHA had it’s Light Gun role upgraded to MLRS one of 26 RAs 3 Fire Batteries was disbanded, so they both have 2 each. The usual musical chairs and hidden cuts as 5 or 6 Fire Batteries, 3 of MLRS and 2 or 3 Light Gun become 4 between the 2 Regiments. Odd number as again I recall when 3 RHA lost… Read more »
I think the logic of a M107 Bty being only 4 guns was that it had hugely more firepower with its 175mm guns compared to 155mm and 105mm batteries.
Much musical chairs over the years such as when armoured regiments were cut to either 44 tanks or 38 tanks!
Given nuclear capable, I suggest ‘hugely more capable,’ is a tad of a mite of an understatement.
My late father would have thought so, he served on them.
Yes, I should have said that. A friend of mine in the RANGLIANS once did nuclear munitions escort out to the guns.
Actually there were 6xm107 howitzer per gun battery i served in 5regt in hildesheim for 14 years with the regiment
Hi M8 Army isn’t my field (forgive the pun) of expertise but you and Daniele most certainly are. So perhaps you can enlighten me about part of this announcement, I find a part of it baffling. If the Army has only 26 operational MLRS, 50 in reserve (storage !) would I correct to assume that’s what they can man ? I know MOD do some strange creative things but given that we have also donated 50 AS90 to Ukraine, what are all those spare gunners doing ? So unless we have hundreds of troops litter picking a Lulworth where are… Read more »
Many of those are recently acquired, such as plucked from the deserts of the US or Norway so stored pending the new armoured cabs. There will need to be some reshuffling of manpower to create additional Batteries for 26RA and 3 RHA, or maybe fire units per Battery may increase with establishing additional Troops? Internally, Batteries, Squadrons, Companies, within the Regiments and Battalions of the army’s various Corps can and do re role as priorities change and capabilities wither or in this case are expanded. As I mentioned earlier, some Batteries are TAC Groups, and do not have guns, but… Read more »
Germany had over 200 at one point
Further to my earlier reply… MoD spreadsheet shows 89 AS-90 up to and including 2022, then 57 for 2023 ie 32 equipments donated to UKR (20 complete and fully fit and 12 less so). [Not sure about the accuracy of the 50 figure]. 14 Archers coming in, so we will have a 155mm fleet of 57 AS-90 and 14 Archers ie total of 71 guns. Archers have smaller crews than AS-90s but I guess a former AS-90 crew now with an Archer will put 2-3 men on ammunition logistic effort. So reduction is of 18 platforms (-32+14) – those 18… Read more »
The 50 AS90 donated to Ukraine was part of the written answer by MOD to John Healey, he was asking for info on what had been donated. It was somewhat of a surprise as its way more than most thought !
Source UKDJ 30/04/24 🤔
Indeed. Previous info said 32 (20 fit and 12 U/S). 50 guns is a very high percentage of our AS-90 fleet.
It was rather surprising give that certain quarters had claimed just a month or so before that the Army had zero AS90s actually operational.
Who were these ‘certain quarters’ Matt. It would be beyond belief that an entire fleet of equipment was totally non-operational. It would reflect incredibly badly on the User and the REME.
Ol’ Gabby Molinelli, who shortly before Ukraine kicked off twitted disbelief that the Army had so much as twenty operational AS-90s, on the basis that none had been publicly seen driving around for some time
Thanks Matt! Words fail me! His credibility is in tatters. Default is to assume that typically 70% of a fleet are fully fit for task – some euipment may be higher than that, some lower. [Does not mean that 30% is sitting in a hangar rusting away, unloved and unwanted].
101RA deff in the mix, proudly so, per briefing for Asian Business Connexions curry club a few months back…..
WFM means we can have less launchers than the number of batteries times their full strength. The Stormer HVM fleet is like that. MLRS batteries are 6 launchers. 101 RA has 4 batteries but is meant to provide one each to 3 RHA and 26 RA on deployment to bring each reg to 3 batteries. With 75 launchers, I’d imagine you’re right about the two regular regiments standing up a third battery, and I’d imagine each battery would increase to 8 or 9 (historically RA MLRS batteries were 9 launchers but US is now using 8 so maybe we’ll go… Read more »
Ah, 6 per Battery.
Thanks Louis.
Yes, I know 101 has 4 Batteries but I thought only 2 actually have MLRS?
Pretty sure all 4 have MLRS. As with a lot of AR units that doesn’t actually mean much. They had to form actual whole batteries in the previous plan, with MLRS numbers to grow to 44 launchers. Now MLRS launchers are growing to 76. If the regulars have 2×24 then there should be enough for the reserves to form 2 batteries of 8 for deployment, if the regulars go to 2×27 there would be enough for the reserves to form a battery of 9 or two batteries of 6, or more likely would just augment the regular units. Just another… Read more »
Interesting, my file is out of date as I only had Blyth Battery and one other with launchers. I’ll check when home. 38 with 5? Wow, how we’ve fallen. I’d long forgotten that they had that many, easily done as as the ORBATS change I update my file as and when I learn new details. Makes sense though with 7,20 Armd and 1,2,12 Mechanized Bdes at around that time. Were there ever 6, when 19 was Mech? My 39 3 Fire Batts was based on the 2010 model when 3 survived the Regiments disbandment, were split between 1 RHA, 19,… Read more »
Before the the 2003 SDSR, the army was focussed on fighting at the divisional level. There were 2 regiments, 32 and 39, one each for 1 and 3 division. They had 4 batteries each, 2 with 9 MLRS and 2 with UAVs, so effectively a battery of 6 per brigade.
After that the army focussed on a rule of 5 for roulements of Iraq/Afghanistan.
I recently started phase 1 so not really in the army just yet. Most of my family were in the army though.
Thought so.
Good luck with Phase 1, Louis!
The army still intends to be able to deploy 3 Div as a warfighting Div for a one-shot (ie non-enduring) operation.
You are right that for an enduring operation (something totally different) the rule of 5 applies so that roulements can conform to Harmony guidelines of tour intervals.
The number is basically back where we started before donating and mothballing units?
There were 3 Regiments of MLRS back around GW1 I recall. Since then through the modern era there has only been 1 regular Regiment and post 2010 for several years no Regiment at all!
Yes 5th 32 and 39
5th regiment replaced 32regiment in Hildesheim in 1972and was equipped with the M107 until around 1980when the regiment reroled with MLRS
I served with P Battery(the Dragon Troop)from 1969-1984
They were behind us on 5he first day of the ground offensive in gw1 I was 2nd floor M109
2nd fld
Hi M8 I do wish it was possible to ask a question to bods, but I’d appreciate your input on the question I’ve posted to Graham.
Oh happy Friday 😉
I’ve tried. I might be talking cobblers but it’s how I understand it. Need a genuine army bod to give a definitive answer like Graham, Dern3, or BobA.
Hi Daniele. Interesting debate from you guys with more knowledge of how the brown jobs organise themselves than I have. Assuming that this means a real increase in capability is there any way of knowing that a decent supply of ammunition for these things is going to be available. Looking at the current difficulties in Ukraine I would hope that we are contracting for a large stock.
That’s beyond me, but I have read of various new precision types we are buying, no idea on quantities though.
Excellent news especially with the other advances Such as deployment of Freefall Multi-role Missiles possibly PRSM. It will be interesting to see with Hyper Velocity Projectile seemingly going ahead in the US & then potentially Nammo Ramjet what Archer & RCH155 get. Deep Fires could be a really good capability for the Army.
I’m pretty sure we have PrSM on order for delivery this year or next- may be wrong though.
Brill fingers🤞 the capability will be essential to provide the firepower & force multiplication we need. It’ll be interesting what else maybe in the pipeline
Yeah, I was pleasantly surprised to hear we’d been so proactive in procuring an upgrade in offensive capability
You dont, neither Australia or UK have ordered PrSM. Australia is expected to order a few and once GMLRS production is locked down evolve it into PrSM.
The mobile program is expecting the announcement about the purchase of PrSM. But officially its not a thing yet
My mistake, you’re right- not sure why I thought it was already in the bag. British Army website says they ‘are’ going to get it, everywhere else that they’re possible operators, I guess we’ll have to wait and see!
They do have GMLRS-ER on order apparently, alongside developing a drop-in warhead for it that dispenses a few free fall martlet/LMM, something I’ve heard no announcements for at all. Not sure where that is in the order of things…
85, just 85… What the hell is wrong with this country, we apparently can afford diversity managers in schools, 35000 for half a dozen trees, months and months of civil service time to check which pencils we should buy but we can’t afford to give every regiment in what we call an army 40 or 50 of these systems that would help stop Russia when they invade (not if any more). Time this country stopped scrapping tens of thousands of vehicles (not even sending them to Ukraine) and rebuilt our defences. If we rebuilt with British kit we would also… Read more »
That would cost 3 billion pounds before you even thought about buying ammunition
So? You want a tax cut while we wait for Putin or do you want to stop Putin arriving? The choice is pretty blunt. Would you rather spend billions more on diversity managers and illegal immigrants or on protecting ourselves against Putin? Frankly slap a 1000 percent tariff on imports of Chinese made goods in retribution for the help they are giving Putin in his invasion first of Ukraine and later us and get the money that way. It doesn’t matter how it does matter that we stop Russia now, we defend against him in the future, we stop funding… Read more »
If you’re talking about deterring Putin now then this is a better way of quickly getting MLRS than waiting 10 years to make our own.
We designed spitfire, hurricane, Lancaster and mosquito in a lot less than 10 years, we built the Glasgow merlin engine plant from breaking the first sod to the first engine in under a year. We don’t need to spend 10 years on a rocket. Frankly we could start the system as a ww2 style fire a shed load in roughly the right direction set up, at least that would be less susceptible to russian GPS jamming. Once we have launchers we can modify and improve, adding to the number we have rather than upgrading.
Ok youve got no idea about the amount of time it takes to design Modern equipment…. and no were not going to build it in a shed or fire dumbfire rockets.
Yes I do, it’s what I do for a living. More time is spent on paperwork than in doing. And frankly if I am sitting in a trench, even an armoured car, I don’t much care if the rocket exploding on my head is dumb or smart it hurts. So start with dumb then create some smart ones and build them next once we have a load of things tingling at the enemy. After all Russia are happily throwing police issue riot gas into trenches to clear them for the simple reason that it works.
And look how wonderfully dumb munitions have worked for the Orcs in Ukraine; over 400,000 of their own dead and wounded.
Is that what you want for us if we get into a scrap?
Sorry? The Russians are using dumb munitions as well as smart ones from Iran, china, north Korea and themselves, for the Ukrainians it doesn’t matter if the shell is dumb or not when it hits them. How many Russians have died because a dumb shell they sent to Ukraine landed on then? I doubt more than a handful (unfortunately). I bet if you offered the Ukrainians the choice between the nothing they have left now and a pile of dumb artillery shells to fire from their guns they would take the shells. We need to start to understand that the… Read more »
Dave, what do you do? Programme Manager?
The difference is that one smart-rocket is used that hits you on your head. With dumb rockets it could be dozens fired before one hits you.
We’re never going to be able to compete with the Russians on numbers; that’s the whole reason smart weapons were invented in the first place.
I know the smart rocket is most likely to take out what you want but then if you have thousands of dumb ones and something the size of the russian army to aim at then dumb is more than good enough
“We designed spitfire, hurricane, Lancaster and mosquito in a lot less than 10 years.” And if you want more Spitfires, Hurricanes or Lancaster bombers then we can get hundreds build in very short order. Unfortunately they’d be worth bugger all in a modern conflict. Modern equipment is infinitely more complex and takes time to design and build. How about rather than moaning, you see the positives in doubling our operational MLRS? If the Army grew to 100,000 men and 300 tanks, would you then complain that it’s not 200,000 men and 500 tanks, or be glad that we had such… Read more »
Frankly those planes would be more use than the no planes we currently have. But more importantly they were complex Nd done before modern computer design tools which are there to make complex machines easier and quicker to design, with computers the designs can be done in fractions or f the time it takes by hand.
We also need to grow our army, look at Russia’s losses, more than the entire British army
The fact is that all modern military equipment is complex. Not just in the building or designing but in the supply chains. There will be components coming from other countries and we have to wait for them to arrive. Even a fully-British designed and built vehicle or aircraft will have components from probably a dozen other countries. Russia’s losses are so high because they’re barely-trained, using outdated dumb equipment and they’re shit at war. If you want our own losses to be high then we can go down the cheap, dumb weapons route. But we’ll still never compete with Russia… Read more »
Yes it’s complex but that does not mean we can’t design and build it, south Korea does, France does, Sweden does, Germany does. As for relying on others didn’t you read ww2 history where we couldn’t get ball bearings and the effects it had. We HAVE to build up the skills and equipment that means we can build what we need if we have to, maybe today we don’t but when the country we need supplies from won’t support us or can’t (can you imagine with what 20 f35s when we need to defend the Falklands and the USA turns… Read more »
And I’m sure we will start building a lot more of our own equipment, but it won’t be overnight. For example: even if we had the money to place an order for 100 Typhoons, it would take years to build them all because the industrial base has gotten so small that we can’t build them quickly enough. Even with a bumper order, the manufacturers need to hire and train more staff, order more components, perhaps even build additional space to enable increase building. It’s sad but that’s the reality of our defence industrial base. All of this takes time, so… Read more »
Yes, I hope we do, we have destroyed too much industry buying chinese, German and other foreign crap, we need to start from basics like steel works and recreate the industrial base we need. But the sooner we start the sooner we can sort it out. We did manage a complete aero engine plant from field to production in under a year so it is possible to move our collective arse
IMHO the overall cheapest way to deter Vladimir Vladimirovich is for U.K and France to both add a 5th SSBN to our updated CASD.
Its not sexy but it is the one thing that we really add to ensure European security 🤔
I do agree, we really cannot depend on the US nuclear umbrella ( I for one don’t think the U.S. would risk MAD for Europe). I also think the SSBNs should now have full silos and the Missiles maxed out warhead wise….14- 16 missiles with 8 warheads each…not 8 with 4 warheads which it was suggested it was at one point. We should be working with the French to ensure there are always 3 European boats on patrol…3 maxed out boats is a MAD level deterrent even if the U.S. tried to back out ( and if Russia faced a… Read more »
I asked deep32 about this very idea last year. If RN and MN coordinated their existing 8 SSBN refits, training, refuels etc could we operate 3 ? Yes it would be 2/1 then 1/2 but doable with 10 it could be 5, which means we would actually have way more at sea than Russia.
Cost for a 5th boat would be @£2.5 billion as the design and R&D is already paid for. Nice thing is you don’t need any extra missiles due to cut in Tube numbers.
Only down side is it could kick SSN(A) back 15/18 months.
One of the most sensible suggestions in this string
Would that guarantee that we could have 2 bombers at sea, rather than one? Not sure Vlad would change his mindset that much.
With 8 properly coordinated boats 3 between us a France is doable, so 2/1 then 1/2 and so on. There was always a sound reason that the original Polaris programme was for 5 boats, its the optimum number to allow for operations, refits etc. Unfortunately Politicians then went for the bare minimum and crossed their fingers. It’s more of a problem when the boats get older and require refuelling and refits. Which is where are right now and MN is just a couple of years behind us. As for Putins mind set he is fundamentally a Gambler and he bet… Read more »
I can see the merit of enhanced nuclear deterrence by co-operation woth the French. I am sure that the decision to launch would still be on purely national lines to a particular nation’s at-sea boat or boats.
If the French did the same then that’s 4 bombers at sea, rather than 2. That might do.
One… hell we should add at least 3 or 4 each plus a good deal more missiles and perhaps even some nuke capablre storm shadows and maybe even some vulcans (we know they managed to get through a lot of air defence on more than one occasion)
Dave well said,your hammering home the consequences if we don’t ,you get woeful people who think oh we have to spend money on defences and start crying when they don’t get a tax cut ,our country’s defences are a shambles, big ears and Co sunak will be gone soon thank god ,labour if any better has a mount everest to climb ,
Yes, it’s a mountain but Russia for better or worse have made it easier to justify the climb particularly with china, Iran and North Korea joining them. At least if labour bother to read all of Keynes they will understand that betting up factories to build the machine tooldz the machines, the raw steel etc etc and mines for the co and cracked gas, nuclear plants where we can here by ourselves Nd not importing foreign crud will increase the tax revenue, will increase employment, will increase exports and get the economy functioning
Dave,reading some of the replies you have had to deal with,don’t these people understand that what happens if we do nothing ?you put everything in a nutshell that what is happening and what we need to do ,have a great day mate 👍 👌 🙌, it’s good to see a knowledgeable person ram home the implications, all the best 👍
He is not knowledgeable.
I can’t answer as to his knowledge, but after 22 years serving including 6 years in various procurement related jobs and another 10 years working in the defence industry, I’d say he is more right than most here.
Bamb,good person like yourself has better insight than a lot of people you’ve done the job ,worn the t shirt and know the job,god bless for your service,true British ex service 😀 😊 😄
He recommends we spend 20% of GDP on defence. Do you still think he is knowledgeable?
👍
Yes, but he has a point, in the short term we can buy equipment and start a recruitment drive. In the long term, NATO countries need to reindustrialise and all will need to have some local military-industrial capacity. But I fear we have woken up too late the current conflict is already upon us. The lesson from Ukraine is that this is really a war between the autocracies of Russia, China Iran, and North Korea and the West. Attrition is a key tactic. Collectively NATO must be able to manufacture, repair, recruit, and get fresh troops and equipment to the… Read more »
This is indeed the thing, china especially is planning and developing for a long war in which it will hit the west via all domains..political ( make the public suffer, subvert them as well as political leaders), access to resources ( it’s why it’s going so hard at the third and second world as well as restricting sales of some key rare earths to the west), economic ( creating sovereign debt and buying into key western businesses) industrial ( using dumping and other mercantile strategies to destroy western industries as well as develop its own…look at shipping its now producing… Read more »
Ah yes, build the non existent British MLRS, I’m sure that’s not totally infeasible.
Of course it’s not, get a pen and a piece of paper and design one then build it. Ffks we didn’t buy the spitfire, hurricane, Churchill tank, mosquito, Lancaster, tall boy etc etc etc from aboard we designed and built it.
And you want to wait how long? And then get half as many as this.
I don’t see that it should take more than 6 months if we stop blathering with the bullshit civil service stop us doing nothing paperwork
The civil service doesnt design equipment, and neither does the MOD, we would have to put out a contract to defense corporations and they would more than likely suggest building existing designs in the UK. Requiring a brand new UK design will only result in too few being bought and lots of money wasted.
No the civil service and mod DO specify the paperwork requirement and the other problems that hold back building, they also take years to go through a ridiculous set of purchasing hurdles where in fact just saying to company a do this and company b do that could be donr in an afternoon
It’s not rocket science 😅
As a matter of interest what sort of vehicle would you mount it on ?
Well we have a load that are apparently about to be scrapped which seems insane in the current situation. But probably need something like an all wheel drive chassis or tracked might have advantages. Either we have built before so not an issue
You don’t need to invent or design anything it’s already been done and was trialed. Look up LIMAWS (R) for details, it’s lightweight and air portable but cancelled in 2009. It worked fine just couldn’t be afforded.
That’s brilliant just make some
It’s more important to buy the missiles than to have hundreds of launching systems. 80 systems is enough to devastate the Russian army on their own if properly supplied with missiles.
Pretty sure Ukraine only have around 20-30 HIMARS and they were kicking the shit out of the Russians until they ran out of ammo.
It’s not because some will not function, won’t be viable or will get destroyed. But of course I expect that if e have tanks, rifles, rocket systems we will lso make ammunition for them, and we should have large stockpiles of it in case
No matter the budget it always has limits, MLRS systems can fire literally hundreds of very expensive missiles very quickly. It’s a trade off between how much you spend on launchers and how much you spend on missiles but as Ukraine has shown it’s rarely the number of launchers that is the limiting factor.
Agree, that’s why they are so damned effective, if they can fire hundreds of cheaper dumb missiles then they destroy large areas without as much expense. Frankly destroying large numbers of russian troops cheaply sounds a damned good idea so what I would have is lots of launchers stuffed with cheap missiles and a smaller number with more expensive more accurate missiles with longer range for when I need that
Have you not seen how the West fights wars? with precision munitions, since like the first gulf war. You are talking about WW2 technology. If NATO was fighting Russia. It would be a very different conflict.
Of course I have seen the complete defeat in Afghanistan to a bunch using rusty ww2 soviet guns and the defeat by Hamas of Israel helped by our government and press. The Russians are not Iraq they are prepared to throw people from the rest of their federation at a front line again and again until the Ukrainian ammunition is used up. We need to understand this and be prepared with enough ammunition to defeat it
And after all the effort Russia has put in. Thousands dead, national mobilisation, using inmates as soldiers and using private companies as mercenaries. They have achieved absolutely nothing. They have lost warships to a nation that doesn’t even really have a Navy. Zero air superiority. All that talk of mass has got them know where. They have just shown the world how bad they are. They wouldn’t last 5mins against NATO and American forces. And comparing Afghanistan to this kind of conflict is a very poor comparison. The Taliban wasn’t a conventional army. The military didn’t lose in Afghanistan, the… Read more »
Not true. They occupy a swathe of land and are grinding their way forward. The Americans are as normal not willing to support for long. The British civil service so riddled with russian sympathisers is holding up the support the government broadcasts (and sadly equally similar in other parts of Europe). Let’s be honest it will have cost more than Putin hoped but the win when he gets it (not if) will be even more convincing because it will show china, Iran, Africa, south america that ‘the west’ is a spineless spent force able only to be politically correct. Then… Read more »
Not one part of that comment can be taken seriously when you think we should spend 20% of GDP on defence. And the US has just signed off a 61Bn military aid package for Ukraine.
They signed off a package after taking near 9 months because the person likely to be the next president and his supporters are Putin’s bum chums. There will be no more and that’s going to leave Putin to win. We have destroyed our military totally,look at Russia’s losses just this year, never mind the rest, and compare that to our total military. Russias economy is a fraction of ours and they have dozens, sometimes hundreds of times more kit. We have a mountain to climb and the odd quarter of a percent is not going to cut it. If we… Read more »
Dave. NATO abd American forces would wipe out Russian forces. After Russia’s performance in Ukraine, that much is very clear. That is why Putin won’t attack any NATO member nation’s. And we have something called a nuclear deterrent. That does exactly what it says on the tin. Don’t worry, we won’t be speaking Russian anytime soon.
First do NOT count on the yanks coming in, they have let down Ukraine, they ran from the tribesmen in Afghanistan, they held out of coming into ww2 until the Germans stupidly declared war on them, they will NOT come in whatever promises have been made, especially if Trump and his pro russian cronies are in place. That leaes the rest of NATO. The only one that might slow them down is Poland – after all they (with a vastly smaller economy than us) have just ordered a thousand tanks (yes, ten times the number we apparently can afford from… Read more »
Well me Dave. How affective have those 1000 Russian fast jets been over Ukraine? Hows achieving air superiority going for them??
Ask the Ukrainians whose electricity isnt available, whose dams have been burst whose cities destroyed. Look, I am far away from being a putin fan, the guy is a turd, I support the Ukrainians, I have family connections there. What pisses me off is people sitting and scoffing and thinking our 5 men, 1 plane and a rowing boat are any level of defence. We are underfunded and under defended, the cuts occurring every damned year rain or shine when faced with the fact we are already in world war 3 – the russians attacking the, Iranians attacking (through proxies… Read more »
You are vastly underestimating our Armed Force’s and NATO as a whole. I served in the RN. I know what we and allies are capable of. Cuts are disappointing, but capability has vastly increased. Russia is not the threat you think it is. Yes, they have done huge damage across Ukraine. But with there on paper military might. It should have been job done in a couple of weeks. They have failed miserably. They will never win, they will not get control of Ukraine, and thousands of young Russians have died for nothing. Its military vastly depleted. The conflict has… Read more »
I am not, I am being realistic, there is no way beyond Hollywood that a handful of men can hold off Putin’s hordes, the maths doesn’t add up, particularly when you realise the millions of civil servants we have can’t even ensure sufficient bullets if the whole army were SAS standard. Even if they were we are talking of an army arrayed against us so large that our handful of fighting men, however brave Nd well trained, will simply be swamped. Remember Ghengis simply pushed thousands of prisoners through in front of his army to soak up the arrows and… Read more »
You do realise it’s never going to be the UK v Russia on our own? As for the rest. That’s just fantasy. China isn’t going yo march over Asia and into Europe, is it? Ve a tad realistic Dave. Again. I point to Russia utter failed in Ukraine. You seem to be ignoring that small fact.
Russia hasn’t failed in Ukraine, and as I suspect trump will get in it won’t because trump will pull the support that keeps Ukraine going. And we may or may not be on our own but frankly the USA has failed dismally to be a dependable ally to anyone ever in it’s entire history so why think it will this time? The rest of Europe is generally very badly off as well, and relying on tanks from Germany because we have killed our steel, engineering and motor industries will look shit when they are overrun. It maybe that we fight… Read more »
Overun? By who? Have you forgotten we arw a nuclear power? You are talking utter rubbish.
We are, and so are a number of others. Do you think our politicians have the balls to order a strike while the russians invade? I dont.
Yes they would. But Russia hasn’t the capability or the death wish to push any further west. Stop playing fantasy wars dave.
That’s what they said after the Russians invaded crimea… It’s all they want, just appease them with that and all will be well, just as well as it was after we appeased Hitler who also had no ambition to go further…. Oops. People like you need to read some history, you don’t even need to go far back with Putin either.
China is going to march over a lot of Asia, it is building up to do just that, Iran is building up to wreck the middleeast. China has practically taken over Africa already and has Europe and America dancing to it’s tune because our ‘leaders’are greedy and moral free ignoring what china is up to and pumping all our jobs there (where of course the coal fired power stations they keep building don’t contribute to global warming)
Can I have some of the drugs you’re on? They sound great!
Govt waste is obscene , corruption graft is quite high in uk at the moment. Uk efficiency is quite poor at the moment. Zero accountability accross the board. Common sense is mostly out of the window at the moment.
Putin struggles in Ukraine for years, but he’s going to invade the UK, right………😂😂😂
Yes he is. If you haven’t noticed he is winning, the yanks have given up just as they would if we think they would ever back their not commitment, the latest aid if it ever actually gets there will be the last if trump wins (and there is a very good chance of that), the Chinese have helped him rebuild and modernize the arms factories (using our money) Iran and North Korea are supplying him, he is accelerating and the Ukrainians are being worn down and pushed back, it won’t be long, the middle of the year I would bet… Read more »
Your having a laugh now, did Russia suddenly invent some massive logistics capability. They can’t go 40 KM from a rail head, can you please tell me how they would physically get here.
I expect they would use ships if they haven’t already conquered Europe and come through the tunnel. They may have lost more ships so far than the royal navy has but they have plenty more
Ok so they have over run Europe all the way to the Chunnel , France hasn’t nuked them, they exceeded the Soviet Unions wetist dreams of conquest and some how their collection of museums ships has overwhelmed the royal navy and the RAF is gone. I’m presuming our nuclear weapons are what? Busy?
Well done Tom Clancy would be proud of that story.
Do you think any of our guys have the balls to use them in a first strike scenario? I don’t. I am not even totally convinced they would actually use them in response. They may have museum ships but they have a lot of them, enough to suck up the availability missiles and get something through afterwards. When Hermes went to the Falklands she was a museum piece (though it turns out able to serve India for what 40 more years) but she still carried and operated two thirds of our aircraft
Russia has spent more than two years fighting a country that has no Navy and a tiny air force, and has not established air superiority, does not have control of the seas, and worst of all has only captured something like 13% of Ukrainian territory (if you exclude territory in Russian/separatist hands pre Feb 2022). Most Ukrainian kit is Soviet era, were Russia to come up against NATO conventionally, it wouldn’t even be a close fight. Russia has 1 carrier that can’t even put to sea, no major amphibious ships and 12 cruisers/destroyers that get sunk by 2 subsonic ASHMs.… Read more »
Yes but Putin has been secretly training an army of Polar bears that his Orcs can just ride down the North Atlantic to conquer the UK. 😀
lets not forget the wunderwaffe poseidon torpedo which will create a tidal wave that wipes the UK clean. i’ve seen their marketing videos, very impressive stuff 😄
Maybe but we have no navy either just a handful of ships all needing oil from the two tankers that are easily sunk, yes we have more modern aircraft but frankly such a small number that they will easily be overwhelmed. Have you watched the tiny ants that bring down and kill the crabs? Enough numbers Vs superior weapons and numbers win
We have six tankers ( although the two Waves are reserve).
so it will take the russians six missiles… great eh? Get real 6 tankers arent going to last more than about 6 hours of warfare. We should have built nuclear ships – all of them – not bloody oil burners.
still need MRSS for supplies
We need to be making our own in the UK, as the argies learnt not making your own means supplies can be stopped. Ukraine is in the situation today, it can’t make enough ammunition and without the whitehouse will not survive, an inglorious end for a very brave people. We were lucky in ww1 and ww2 in that we got supplies but looks at the cost, all our gold, all our cash, vast debt, all our large companies, vast swathes of bases around the world, having to give up totally on empire under us arm twisting…
We have 5 tide class not 2, our subs are all nuke powered, the astute class being without a doubt the best attack sub for killing other submarines and surface warships in the world. 7 astute class all surged out to sea with orders to sink everything Russian would make an absolute mess of the Russian navy. let alone what would happen if the USN with its 68 SSNs got in on the party. I think our naval superiority over Russia is massive. Poseidon nuclear torpedo. If launched would be replied too by trident, simple as that. Yes Russia has… Read more »
Land an army from a nuclear submarine … not going to happen is it. The US are going to stand by, they are scared of russias nukes, scared stiff. Our aircraft carriers spend more time being fixed than sailing and even if they sail have no planes because they are shared with the royal airforce. The fact the British people are so totally in denial of both the fact we are already in world war 3 and that russia has allies in Iran, China and North Korea all of which out gun, out navy, out airforce and out missile us… Read more »
Well put Louis. But the Russians have got a single-minded aggressive leader who won’t be deflected and has power for 5 more years, a cavalier approach to casualties, and huge resources of manpower.
Ukraine did a huge amount with far less than 80 systems against Russia and without the UK’s air forces or anything resembling the allied strength of NATO.
Also a dedicated missile artillery regiment has under 40 of these so if you mean every regiment then you’re going to end up with Signals regiments which more firepower than actual dedicated artillery regiments – and not much space left for signallers.
Keep you western military ideas to yourself, as Dave points out Putin and Russia know more than anyone and they are literally poised to cross the Chanel any day now. Keep your silly ideas like having signalers in a signal battalion or logistics being important, to your self.
We should just buy a shit tonne of artillery and rocket launchers and stick them everywhere.
That’s a real army, non of this air power or manuvere warfare crap, just waves of criminals and Siberian slaves charging over open land with tones of old artillery or barely guided fireworks shooting away.
😀
Not enough to have won though. And frankly I don’t think the yanks will come in, after all their promises to Ukraine have dissolved like smoke, months of hold up and if trump gets there a stop. A bit like Afghanistan, Iraq and every other war they have been in
I’m trying to rationalise the numbers:
We have 26 in service + 50 in reserve (more in reserve than service?!) = 76
We are upgrading 69 of those, and procuring 16 from elsewhere to make 85 units (I’m hoping the same 1:2 ratio of in service: reserve is not continued)
76 – 69 = 7 units in stock that we are not upgrading- what’s going on with them?
The only acceptable answer is they’re part of this year’s package of aid to Ukraine, but I’d like confirmation.
Maybe it suggests that the army feels it needs a pretty large operational reserve…it would imagine these artillery systems would be up there as targets to be knocked out.
Don’t get me wrong, the idea of a branch of the British military having depth of equipment makes me happy.
The implication I’m seeing, though, is that they don’t have enough operational units to field more than 2 regular artillery regiments (using Daniele’s post above as my reference) worth of these. So we’re not really increasing the British Army’s offensive capability to any great extent- is my concern.
We never had 80 MLRS even during the Cold War war. This is a big increase.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m very glad for it. But given our current force structure, I’m struggling to see whether we’re going to see more active units (i.e. additional batteries to the artillery regiments, organic batteries to BCTs, or even another regiment stood up), or whether this will just go to the existing units and to storage.
I would hope that we do both- more units int he field and some in reserve for attrition. But I’m not confident in that, given our manpower shortages etc.
We had 63 MLRS in 2007, but only 54 in service. I need to check back though some other book to confirm earlier numbers
Agree it is an impressive new capability
It’s not 50 in reserve. The MOD a has bought 50 off other countries and from storage, these launchers aren’t in service, but they will be upgraded and enter (re-enter) service.
Ah, they’re counting units recently bought..! I have to admit I was pleasantly surprised- now it turns out I shouldn’t have been.
I’m glad, at least that we’ll have a good stock to go into reserve though, as I presume we don’t have enough active units to put even 40 on an operational footing?
The Future Soldier (pre Ukraine war) had 2 regular regiments with 12 launchers each in 2 batteries. There was also a reserve regiment with 4 batteries which would provide a battery of 6 to each of the regular regiments on deployment. This was to be achieved from an increase from the fleet of around 35 launchers to 44 launchers.
Now launchers are increasing to 76. I have no idea how they will change the structure, but I suspect it will be by raising a third battery in each regular regiment, and increasing battery size to 9.
Well, I won’t be complaining if that comes to pass!
Will make for some impressive video if we ever get a regiment in the same place at the same time for a firing exercise!
Article doesn’t say there will be more capability fielded.. simply more kit in the system. Additional redundancy in an era of longer endurance FPV’s ?
An MLRS Bty used to have 9 M270, not sure what they have now. MLRS has not been made for well over 20 years, to grow the fleet is top idea as long as you have the Ammo for it and also war stock.
We had 4 up graded MLRS, not sure where the 50 in storage come from we only bought 64, 1 were written off, 4 were converted to REME vehicles, leaving 59 the 26 are in service so leaving 33, not 50.
The ‘50’ in reserve comes from the number that the MOD has recently bought off other countries + the number they have managed to scrape from storage or elsewhere around the country.
The MoD spreadsheet said we have 29 MLRS in 2023 on the Active List.
Yup, one ran over a landmine inside the wire perimeter of the firing area! Bent the hull, lost a couple of roadwheels, interesting video! All crew safe and well.
do you have the video? i have seen photos of it, but not video
Not any more Martin, I left it behind when I left Arborfield☹️
Well it’s a start all be it late , one could argue still not enough but there again the Army’s manpower needs to match platform numbers .And Troop levels are far to low so lets get platform and troops numbers up . Still this is good news ,have the government woke up ⏰
It’s a re announcement, this expansion was detailed some time ago. Typical MoD but yes it’s a positive.
So new SPG, more MLRS I wonder what’s next ? I suppose being logical it would have to converting the rest of the CR2s to CR3s. 🤔
So 220 – 227 is that enough for 3 regiments ?
Yes mate.
Until we gave 14 tanks to UKR we had 227 CR2s on the Active List – enough to equip our three armoured regiments.
I just don’t see the sense in upgrading just 148 if they do the lot (that remain), we get 213. That may not be to everyone’s liking but it’s more than we are getting now. Which is I believe sufficient for 3 regiments, just not a lot else.
In the Future Soldier Orbat we go down to two armoured regiments, probably Type 56 but might be Type 58.
Even then 148 CR3s is too few. With Type 56, that is 112 tanks assigned to the Field Force which leave just 36 to divvy up between the Trg Org (RAC and REME), Repair Pool and Attrition Reserve.
Up-cycling of pre-loved equipment. Look forward to the Repair Shop TV episodes 😂 Whats not to like?
2030?? Dragging of feet yet again. The money is there, is the political will? Not acceptable that nigh on six years is needed to fulfil this requirement.
Excellent news. Well done G.S. 😉
isn’t it just better to transition to a cheaper truck mount version like Himars?(that way you can buy more units and easier to transport and maintain) not sure i see any benefit to upgrade expensive tracked platforms for long range artillery. it’s not like tracked armored artillery is going to survive an incoming missile or loitering munition.
exactly what i was thinking. we always see HIMARs videos coming from ukraine but not M-270… im guessing thats due to the mobility benefits- being able to get close to the front then quickly driving to safety after firing. seems like that is the way to go- at least in europe where there are plenty of roads to use.
I think the tracked M270 are air transportable by C17. Are the road himars?
FYI Himars weighs under 15 tons and is transportable by C130.
Furthermore i wonder if Roguefires can be lifted by Chinnok using a sling. I am not sure what Roguefires weighs but would guess it’s probably around 10 tons; since it’s just the weapons module on a JTLV barebones chassis and engine (without the armoured cabin)
Interesting info. Can you fit Archer in a C17?
MLRS, like all UK artillery, does shoot and scoot to minimise or eliminate chance of CB fire.
Himars can also shoot and scoot. FYI shoot and scoot is great vs counter artillery fire, but does nothing vs loitering munitions that can track and hit moving targets. in fact moving may make you more visible when facing loitering munitions and recon drones. anyway this is all beside my point, which was Himars does the same thkng just cheaper and easier to maintain. for example, you ever tried changing tracks? bit more effort than simple tire change which you need to do less often, same goes for engine change, etc.. and easier to procure spare parts than something no… Read more »
Agreed that shoot and scoot is no guarantee that an artillery system will survive everything the enemy can throw at it, but it is clearly a better modus operandi than staying in position for hours on end. We need a mix of artillery systems – alway have done, always will do. So we need tracked rocket artillery (MLRS), truck-mounted rocket arty (HIMARS or similar), truck-mounted tube arty (Archer, Boxer RCH 155 or similar), towed arty (LG or similar). Have I changed tracks – yes. But throwing a track is not that commonplace and is not of itself a massive reason… Read more »
Hopefully a sensible improvement on our weak artillary. But I fear the Tories might be cynically spending now that power is slipping away from them to leave Labour in trouble when they try to reduce orders to balance books. We’ll call out & fight that battle & anything Labour does harming our record weak forces, but I think UK forces will be very glad to see the back of the recvent generation of Tories. Meanwhile Russia seems to be using chemical weapons in Ukraine. OK for them to invade & escalate whenever they wish, but we hold back defending UKR… Read more »
From what I know that the hanwha Mlrs is a excellent piece of equipment, take a leaf out of polands 🇵🇱 book and buy from them
This is good news, the MLRS has proven itself in Ukraine and ensures long range fire superiority whilst simultaneously giving commands a long range strike package when the correct rocket is fitted obv. Would still like some news on more SPGs and the replacement for the AS90. Curiously was watching a youtube video of some Russian peasants lording it up over the few captured specimens of 1 Abrams tank (minus DU armour and some of its best sub systems) and a Leopard 2. Got me thinking… yes the Russian’s have captured some western hardware, inevitable really, yet the Russian army… Read more »