British Army show off Ares armoured vehicle

a dozen is below token level. Any thing less than 50 is almost useless!

They are supposed to be receiving 94 variants this year, but it isn’t clear what the mix is.

Deliveries are underway. Would you expect all 500 odd Ajax variants to be delivered at once?
No. Not would I. So the current number is immaterial. When the capability is in service in bulk, then one can judge.

See ‘several’ in the OED.

Good for reconnaissance where the role is to see without being seen.

The ARES variant (93 ordered) is used to transport small specialist teams of up to 4 men to/from their task location under armoured protection.

Rolling out a new fleet takes several years. I really don’t think we need over 50 of them in the first year of issue.

Graham, what is replacing FV432? Will ARES take up some of its roles and if so, surely 93 and 600 Boxer is not enough to replace FV432/Bull Dog and Warrior? The Army’s fighting fleet is going to take a huge hit unless we see follow-on orders for the new vehicles. My hunch is the MOD is probably waiting to see what transpires in the long term in Ukraine before committing to new orders. One issue that needs to be reviewed is maintaining the Telford factory output and retaining the current skill build-up after CH3 and Boxer. One way would be to ensure follow-on orders for Boxer and Ajax out of the South Wales factory.

Going way back to the first involvement (1996-2003, yes it was that long ago) of UK in the Boxer programme, it was always the case that residual FV432s would be replaced by Boxer. No change over 20 years later!! 432 Ambulance will be replaced by Boxer Ambulance and 432 mortar carrier will be replaced by Boxer mortar carrier. I am unsighted as to which other FV430 variants are still in service, but they should be replaced by relevant Boxer variants.

ARES is a small-capacity APC taking 4 dismounts. I am sure that it replaces CVR(T) SPARTAN which was the ‘mini APC’ of the CVR(T) family.

So far 623 Boxers (of multiple variants) have been ordered in two tranches – Tr1 of 523 and Tr2 of 100. That is certainly not enough. I read a while back that funding for a total of 1,016 Boxers had been agreed and ring-fenced, however I also heard that figure was too low.

Out of interst the army currently has 625 Warrior and 746 FV430s, ie total of 1,371 vehicles. However do not read a lot into that as they are for the current Orbat and not the future Orbat based on an army which is smaller. It is only a very broad indication as to how many Boxers might be required in total.

IR Refresh 23 and associated DCP was supposed to update the 2021 documents in the light of lessons learned from the war in Ukraine. It did not recommend enlarging the manpower of our armed forces (especially BA and RAF) or increasing platform numbers. I doubt there will be another farcical review this side of a General Election.

I fully agree that we need to protect the rather minimal AFV industry that we now have, by placing follow-on orders and tasking them to do regular upgrade and Base Overhaul work, the latter being competition for Babcocks.

Think how many tasks originally identified for Ares, which can now be done by drone and two kids sitting miles away. Recon units not intended for getting into a fight. What capabilities has advancement in drone technology removed from Ares? £1,000 a pop and able to cover a battlefield/tens of miles in minutes. While delivering HD real-time video with AI identification of opposing forces and their equipment. Cameras HD cameras, embedded cameras, thermal cameras, infrared camera sensors, LIDAR and image capture systems.

How many can you buy for the price of an ARES and the value of the humans inside?

The ARES vehicles will be used by the British Army to deliver specialist troops across the battlefield, including anti-tank Javelin teams, MANPADS teams, sniper pairs etc.

Could a drone deliver the same capability as the above?

Thanks, Graham for that comprehensive overview there will be a lot of ex-military vehicles on the market in the coming years. Interestingly, many groups are restoring FVs to a high level of reliability and in a strange turn of fortune are providing a modest reserve if they were ever needed. 😀>

There are a lot of ex-mil vehicles coming on to the market every year. Some are sold at auction by MoD direct to buyers and some are sold to specialist middle men, who sell them on, ie
https://www.govsales.co.uk/index.php/home

The production lines aren’t making an IFV so if the UK MOD wanted a tracked IFV based on ARES (which is ASCOD) it could be done.

None of the Ajax family are tasked as IFVs

Yes, I know that, see my comment above:
“ The production lines aren’t making an IFV”.

Hi George, you are misinformed as to the manufacturer if the AMPV. It is based on a turret less Bradley, not an ASCOD and made by BAe, not GD. I agree with your comments in the Cockerill turret.
Cheers

Thanks Ian, Well spotted. I’m chalking that one up as a senior moment formerly known as a brain fart. I’m confusing the Bradly replacement submissions with the AMPV. The excellent YT video by LtCol Nicholas Moran explains thing nicely.

👍😁

It’s the Booker M10 that is an ASCOD derivative, but GD used ARES as the more up to date start point.
The Bradley replacement will be either a version of this or Rheinmetal US version of Lynx.
To me the obvious choice is the GD option due to commonality.

Yes, I’m well confused with all these new vehicles tracked/wheeled AFV, IFV, AMPV, APCs and the associated multinational conglomerate interplay.

I agree about commonality for all the obvious beneficial logistical and training reasons. So long as our troops are not being short changed with second rate kit. That said, high on my list of priorities is the reestablishment of a fully British strategically important armaments industry. Where we can ramp up production with very little warning when necessary. If that means a mishmash of designs and several unrelated factories – so be it. A few logistical hurdles is worth the ability to rapidly switchover to wartime production rates. But again, with the same proviso regarding second rate kit.

Modern wars are won in factories, just as much as on the field of battle. Having an Ajax/Ares production line in Wales. A CV9O production facility on Tyneside and yet another somewhere else building Korean K9 Thunder 155mm. Would not be something of a dream come true. Having that many trained munition engineers and options for the future, is mind blowing.

Of course that means having a military large enough to ensure sufficient orders to keep everything ticking over. At least 1960/70 manpower levels. With all the necessary financial and societal changes to go with it. It’s possible but improbable given the current dysfunctional state of woke broke leftish GB.

Weird thing is the M10 Booker is based on ASCOD, which does make one scratch one’s bonce. The US army are introducing 2 vehicles based on completely different IFVs.

They have a force large enough to place sufficient orders, to keep both production lines viable.

Does that mean it will come with in built cooler problem’s

😕Let’s hope not.

I believe the mod has already officially planned to replace all 4 ? warrior battalions with boxers . Hopefully this is a stop gap plan and if maybe either a german Boxer tracked ifv or similar , or new USA GD ifv project matures I think there is a hope the uk will jump onto one of those

There’re others here who can make a better judged comment than me on this. I think that we all just hope that the army has the absolutely right vehicle for given IFV tasks. Current decisions can be changed and maybe the US IFV choice might influence future choices the UK. It might not.

There will be 5 Boxer battalions.

Boxer might be a stop gap? Treasury does not allocate that amount of money for a mere stop gap.

I don’t see our Infantry getting another proper tracked IFV until Boxer is eventually phased out in 30+ years time.

Having said that it may be that some Boxers (in late Tranches) are ordered as cannon-equipped models…or we could buy IFV Boxer mission modules.

Can see Warrior OSD pushed right. Otherwise, our Mech Infantry will have no APC and at the same time the RA no 155mm guns, the way things are going with the glacial delivery rate of Boxer.
All while there is a war on in Europe and return of the Cold War.
Nice work…..

Why can’t MOD just accept that we need a Tracked IFV as well as Wheeled and now there may be a bit of extra funding available.
I may not know much about the Army but I can read a spec, the advantages of commonality involved with a generational development plan.

Run the existing Warriors on a while but speak to GD about producing an IFV after the Ajax.

No fancy massive development costs, KISS principle, so the baseline would be the M10 Booker (Griffin III), as they used Ajax as their baseline just they reduced the number of road wheels 🤷🏼‍♂️.
But to speed things up fit it with the turret that was developed, built and tested for the Warrior upgrades. That way we do get some payback from the £430 million we wasted.
The one thing I would do is use the higher powered MTU from the M10 (it’s 1000hp monster vs 800hp). Simple reason is it gives room for growth.

We needed them in 2010 when the rock of the army was a deployable tracked Armoured Division.
We needed them after 2015 when Carter went all Strike, wheels loopy, anc changed the long standing plan, and they still existed in the form of WCSP.
We still need them now, nothing we’ve seen in Ukraine has changed things?
Politics and money mate. That is all.

Depends on which bit of the MoD you are talking about. The army’s General Staff know we need a tracked IFV to work alonggside the tanks – thats why they wrote the Staff Requirement for one to succeed in-service Warrior. Politicians and those concerned with budgets in MoD are content for the army to lose a programme.

I am sceptical as to whether the extra money promised by a dying Adminsitration will materialise within a matter of weeks or a few short months – and be ringfenced for use later.

Certainly the army can run on old kit – it has had plenty of practise! Money needs to be found to do that. Clearly as time passes, the effectiveness of Warrior will continue to reduce against any new/high quality Threat nation kit – and will be harder and more expensive to maintain.

I am not sure why you single out GD to produce a future IFV after the Ajax production line closes. There are other companies that I would rate more highly. A future IFV for the British Army would have to be fully developed (or nearly so) ie MOTS – and very affordable. I would be more than happy to see it incorporate our stabilised 40mm CTAS system for reasons of cost-effectiveness.

I read a while back that MoD had worked out the cost of running on WR for a while longer and put that into a future budget, but can’t recall if that was the WRs for the RAC as interim recce vehicles (pending delivery of Ajax in quantity) or a proportion of the IFV fleet due to duration of Boxer roll-out.

Changing over an equipment fleet does take a very long time – I seem to recall that it took 6 or 7 years to fully roll out the much less complex SA80! Fielding started in 1985 – my Regt Wksp REME in Hameln was converted in 1991 or 92.

HMG has form regarding creating lengthy capability gaps (10 years for the carriers etc)…and not being bothered about them! But a capability gap for the Mech Inf would be unacceptable – we have frequently deployed AI or Mech Inf in armoured vehicles on warfighting, PSO or COIN missions in the last 35 years, where the kinetic threat is very high.

Is Warrior “good enough?”
As in, could the Boxers go to mechanize other Bns in the ORBAT and Warrior remain in the AI Bns, as being better than nothing and still better than Boxer.
Or is their maintenance becoming prohibitive? What state are they in?

Much as I have long been a Warrior fan, it is criminal that the only upgrades it has received since first fielding in 1987 seem to have been fitment of BGTI and upgrade of comms from Clansman to Bowman. It should have been upgraded regularly throughout its life, with a major upgrade happening every Base Overhaul (about every 7 or so years). Thus for example the protection upgrade should have happened from about 1994, the lethality upgrade from about 2001 and the electronic architecture from about 2008.
Instead all packaged into one unwiedly WCSP programme many, many years later.

It is an old vehicle and should have been pensioned off about 2015. Still none of the above happened. Key characteristics of an Infanry section carrier are: Protection, Mobility, Firepower and Internal Capacity.

Protection. I cannot easily compare protection levels – applique armour for Warrior is developed and exists (TES kit), so that may be as good as Boxer?

Mobility. Warrior has higher P/W than Boxer A3 by y a little, thus has a higher X-C speed (50 kph vs 45kph) but Boxer has the edge on roads (of course (103kph vs 75kph). Terrain access will be better for WR – gap crossing etc

Firepower. Even with the ancient unstab 30mm RARDEN, Warrior has the edge on Boxer which can only take a MG or GMG in its RS4 RWS. This is a huge factor to have 38 cannons per battalion at your disposal + 8 from Recce Pl?? What vehs will they have?

Capacity. Both have sufficient capacity for an 8-man rifle section. Boxer must be bigger internally as it can take an extra dismount, and is a much longer veh (7.93m vs just 6.3m).

Sadly I cannot answer your last questions. I left the army in 2009 and have no current serving contacts to ask about maintainability issues. Weekly Equipment Availability Returns (WEAR) are not in the public domain or whatever they might be called today to glean the equipment state and its availability. Very frustrating.
All I could find was a reply to a Parliamentary written question. Cartlidge answered a question from Francois on 20 July 2023

“708 Warrior Infantry Fighting Vehicles are in service with the British Army. This number reflects a reduction in platforms from the number quoted in the last annual published statistics following the disposal of 13 platforms which were Beyond Economical Repair.”

All we can get from that is that we typically lose 13 WR per year due to being categroised BER, probably as they were stripped for spares, so assume the rest of the/bulk of the fleet was in at least fair shape and not awaiting spares.

As mentioned before, REME and the User will aim to keep a key operational fleet at min of 70% availablity rising to 90% after a concerted brief period of additional maintenance work with spares to hand.

To me warrior is a new vehicle.e in service since late 80s what about the 43 series of vehicles, took over from brengun carriers(I know universal carrier) in service before I joined boy service JTR Troon 1964.

Andrew, that’s funny. Thinking a vehicle first fielded 37 years (and designed about 45 years ago) ago is modern.

Of course the FV430 series is even older, as you say. 432s were APCs and took over from 1950s era Saracen APCs, not from Universal (Bren Gun) Carriers.

And yet with the upgrades the 432 has had it is still is a capable vehicle for doing its job despite its age! I am thinking of Engr section vehicles etc where all that is needed is a steel box on tracks.

It would be interesting to hear if it costs a lot to maintain now.
Yes, it can still do its job. The US M113 similarly has had a long life with various armies around the world and is still in service with the US Army (until 2030).

George, are we really going 100% General Dynamics? That goes against competitive procurement ethos.

What are they building for the army after Ajax and variants?

RBSL is producing CR3. WFEL with some subcon work to RBSL is producing Boxer.

Looks like BAE is back in the MoD’s ‘good books’.

I hope it’s not set in stone that we are going fully with GD. Even though commonality across the fleet of vehicles is a good idea in principle. I’m not silly enough to think Ukraine and Russia have the monopoly when it comes to corruption. Remember there is still the Warrior, SP90 and Challenger replacements to procure.

I’m still sold on the CV90 as the “goldilocks zone” vehicle of the APC/IFV concept. Not too big or small, etc. Tracked Boxer is also a very sensible option with interchangeable modules from the wheeled version.

It really would go against normal MoD procurement policy to routinely go to a single company and to avoid competitive tendering. Single-source procurement is very rarely used and very good reasons have to be supplied to the politicos and Treasury to get approval.

The Warrior replacement, like it or not, is wheeled Boxer A3- MoD declared that over 3 years ago.
AS-90 replacement is Boxer RCH-155, declared earlier this week.
Challenger 2 replacement is Challenger 3, which is currently ‘in build’ by RBSL. [I worked on this project in 2016 for Rheinmetall].

I too am a CV90 fan – I wish we had bought CV90 Recce instead of the GDUK product.
If WCSP just had to be canned for a genuine reason, then I wish we could have had tracked CV90 IFV as the Warrior replacement.
Boxer was always the MIV (APC) for medium-weight brigades, not intended to be a second-rate stand-in for an IFV in the armoured brigades.

Yes mate, I know. But who said I had to accept it without moaning and taking the hump. It’s not in my nature grumble mutter, grumble mutter.

I think the unspoken plan for the past twenty years has been to reduce our army to a none MBT force. With no need for heavy tracked infantry to keep pace. Why else would they have failed to plan an indigenous next gen MBT replacement and only 140ish Challenger 3. While stalling the warrior replacement.

Lessons from Ukraine notwithstanding. (Being the only glimmer of hope for a reversal.) At best we could end up with a few GDUK stretched Ares based IFV and a handful of similar hulls with a 120mm or 105mm turret. Likely issued to the RTR as a magnanimous gesture before they are amalgamated with who knows what. Grumble mutter and moan.😉

Thanks George. Certainly the MBT numbers go down every time – 900 Chieftains to 435 CR1s to 386 CR2s to 148 CR3s.

Very much a step back to get Boxer, a mere APC, in the armoured brigades – the Saracen of the 2020s.

The Warrior replacement is not stalled – it has been cancelled. Boxer replaces Warrior.

No lessons from the Ukraine war have been taken on board. Its all very shocking. No, I’m moaning!