The British Army is projected to take delivery of over 180 Ajax armoured vehicles by 31 December 2025, as part of the troubled Armoured Cavalry Programme, according to Defence Minister Maria Eagle.

In response to parliamentary questions from Ben Obese-Jecty MP, the Minister referred to a previous response from July 2024, reiterating that the programme remains on course to deliver the vehicles by the end of the year.

Eagle confirmed:

“The Armoured Cavalry Programme (Ajax) is projecting the delivery of over 180 operationally deployable platforms by the end of 2025.”

Despite numerous delays and technical challenges—including noise and vibration issues that resulted in a temporary halt to trials—Eagle’s response indicates that the programme is now progressing towards Initial Operating Capability (IOC).

While no firm date has been given for IOC, the MOD’s projection of over 180 delivered vehicles suggests that the Army is moving closer to integrating the Ajax platform into frontline service.

The £5.5 billion Ajax programme, originally intended to provide the Army with a cutting-edge reconnaissance and armoured fighting vehicle fleet, has faced significant delays, cost overruns, and design issues. The Army had expected to begin fielding Ajax in 2017, but extensive technical problems—including concerns over crew safety—pushed the project years behind schedule.

Despite this, the government has maintained that Ajax will play a vital role in modernising the British Army’s armoured capabilities, particularly as part of the Future Soldier transformation plan.

With the programme moving forward, the focus now shifts to whether Ajax can deliver the capability the Army originally envisioned, or whether further delays and modifications will be required before it reaches full operational deployment.

For now, the MOD’s latest figures suggest that, after years of setbacks, the British Army could finally begin receiving significant numbers of Ajax vehicles by the end of this year.

Tom Dunlop
Tom Dunlop
Tom has spent the last 13 years working in the defence industry, specifically military and commercial shipbuilding. His work has taken him around Europe and the Far East, he is currently based in Scotland.

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    • There’s a whole raft of potential platforms that can be developed from AJAX, the only constraint is the will from MOD / ARMY and available cash.

    • That would be good, but I don’t know what would need to change for AJAX (designed for Recce) to evolve into an IFV, Space for more infantry? (currently space for 4 dismounts AFAIK)

      • BofF, No-one is talking about AJAX being redeveloped for IFV use. The (unpublished) talk has been of a number of ARES being converted, which would require a larger order for ARES to be placed and much cash laid out on the table for conversion work. However your basic question is worth asking. Certainly an IFV needs to be able to carry an 8-man infantry section and have a substantial 30-40mm stabilised cannon.

        • Graham, at the 2023 DSEI show, General Dynamics showed both a digital and a small physical model of an IFV based on the Ajax platform. They stated it could carry up to 8 dismounts. They were able to do this by making the vehicle longer. It had 8 road wheels instead of 7. I can’t remember if the turret was manned or unmanned, but it did have the CTAS 40 gun.

          • Hmm, Interesting Dave,

            Assuming that they could get away with the same engine, perhaps up rated if it has that kind of potential (and if should do, I hope), then there would be significant in-service advantages in running an Ajax derived fleet of IFV. A couple of questions spring to mind. Do GD have any design capability in the UK? I’d be looking for at least some given the recently introduced uncertainties. How long to develop the new vehicle?

            I would stamp down hard on any attempt to add any kind of gold plating, simply stretch the hull, add in two more seats on each side and an extra wheel underneath, absolutely no growth in ground pressure, preferably a reduction in average empty ground pressure as there would only be road wheels etc, and a bigger hull section, so mostly air… turret and engine (may be) unchanged. I.e. tell GD we are interested and to come back with the simplest of upgrades.

            Then buy it so that it can come down the same production lines, although I would probably want to see the hulls built in the UK after the shambles that resulted from building the hulls in Spain…

            Up dated design and expanded production facilities – how long? 5 years max to first delivery and it might be a deal.

            Cheers CR

          • Davey, thanks. it is hugely discombobulating for me as an engineer and ex-army guy to muse on the Ajax/Warrior upgrade/Boxer story, programmes which should never have been intertwined, but did become so.

            Very obvious that the 50-year-old Scimitar and variants had to be replaced – it would have been better to have selected CV90 recce which was in the evaluation, and made it in the UK by BAES (still haven’t really get official reasons for the selection decision).
            Instead the contract goes to GD who have to set up a new company (British subsidiary), find a factory and recruit people many of whom have never designed or built AFVs before. They start with the perfectly reasonable and proven ASCOD 2 Ulan/Pizarro IFV and spend a lot of money and take a huge amount of time to develop it into a recce vehicle. The new GDUK factory (part of a fork lift truck factory) in Wales isn’t a proper AFV factory (just an Assembly Hall) can’t build hulls so the hulls are built in Spain and shipped in and many consider them to have been so badly fabricated that it set up serious problems that caused a roughly 2-year delay in the programme. Finally some 7 or 8 years late and after many technical difficulties they get built in series production.

            Meanwhile Warrior upgrade is cancelled, despite development being nearly complete and it being a good VfM programme, said to be because General Carter advanced the Boxer programme and the funding profile for multiple AFV programmes no longer worked. So Boxer is forced on the army as a very inadequate replacement for Warrior, especially as it is not an IFV….and now following 4 years of grumbling after the WCSP cancellation decision, some consideration is being given to sourcing an IFV that is adapted from Ajax which is a recce vehicle adapted from a perfectly reasonable IFV (be it a drastically reworked ARES or the vehicle you describe).

            Total incompetence…and a whole heap of very costly and time-wasting decisions, not just General Carter’s!

  7. Got to see one of these up close, that 40mm cannon is an impressive beast..infact the whole AFV is huge…. You not going to hide this behind a bush.

    • Jon, that was always something of a concern that I had. British recce vehicles traditionally have been small, nimble, agile – and our philosophy was to conduct recce by stealth, not to do recce by fighting.

    • A BIG bush?
      It has to be big to meet the survivability requirements and mount all of the ISTAR equipment an AJAX carries around.

    • They may deliver 180 but the training of the units is still a time consuming exercise so it will be more likely be mid to late 2026 before IOC could be logistically claimed. Of course all of this is half a decade late and we should really now be talking about them achieving Full Operating Capability but slow progress is at least progress

  9. I wonder if future aid packages to Ukraine could include some brand new Ajax family vehicles and an increase in production speed (an extra shift added maybe). I would imagine anything we could donate from existing stocks is now more or less gone.

    • Andrew. Seriously? You would give Ukraine vehicles that we have been waiting so long for. In my opinion, the CVR(T) family should have been replaced over 20 years ago after 30 years service. The British Army is in rag order in so many ways, including its AFV and artillery holdings. It urgently needs replacements right away.
      Ukraine should have equipment that is genuinely surplus to British requirements. I am sure you are right that there is not much left to give them from the army side, anyway. I am sure many would argue for Warriors to go there once they become surplus to requirements.

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