The total amount of compensation paid out as a result of claims related to issues with the troubled Ajax armoured vehicle is currently £12,320.
A Freedom of Information request asked the following:
“1) The total amount of compensation paid out to service personnel as a result of the issues with the Ajax AFV as of 16/08/2022.
2) The total number of service personnel compensated as of 16/08/2022.”
The answer was as follows.
“In answer to question one, the total amount of compensation paid out under the Armed
Forces Compensation Scheme (AFCS) as a result of claims related to issues with Ajax is £12,320 as of 16 August 2022. In answer to question two, I can confirm less than five service personnel have been compensated as of 16 August 2022.
Under Section 16 Advice and Guidance, it may be helpful if I explain that the Armed Forces Compensation Scheme (AFCS) provides compensation for any injury, illness or death which is caused by service on or after 6 April 2005. It replaces the War Pension Scheme (WPS), which had been in place since 1917. Where the injury is partly caused or made worse by service, compensation is payable if, on the balance of probabilities service
is the predominant cause of the injury or of the worsening of the injury.”
The Ajax programme, which began in 2010, is intended to transform the Army’s surveillance and reconnaissance capability.
However, it has gone badly wrong, with no deployable vehicle delivered to date let alone providing Initial Operating Capability or Full Operating Capability dates, say the Public Accounts Committee in a report released earlier this year.
Committee chairwoman Meg Hillier said that the government “must fix or fail this programme, before more risk to our national security and more billions of taxpayers’ money wasted”, adding “these repeated failures are putting strain on older capabilities which are overdue for replacement and are directly threatening the safety of our service people and their ability to protect the nation and meet Nato commitments”.
The report states that the Department (the Ministry of Defence) has a £5.5 billion firm-price contract with General Dynamics Land Systems UK for the design, manufacture and initial in-service support of 589 Ajax armoured vehicles.
You can read more on the report here.
How much longer is it going take to Get this Ajax problems sorted out .For me it’s time for Ben Wallace to pull the project we are no further on than this time last year 💰💰💰
A decision will be made by the end of the year it seems. Graham has mentioned that a few times on here, he is ex-army. Not really sure what he did but it sounds important 😀
IanM of this parish is best placed to comment on matters regarding Ajax.
Paul, my sources tell me that changes have been made and trialled on various versions of AJAX. GD are currently awaiting on MOD input to move forward.
Have the changes resulted in total rectification of problemsor are there issues remaining? Do we know how much of a delay is caused to the programme? Do we know that GD is footing the rectification bill?
IanM will give us a good dose of optimism, I am sure.
Not always a given Graham.
I have just been repeating published Press reports. If it is bad news it will probably be released on the day of Christmas Parliamentary recess (21 Dec) or 1 or 2 days before, so there is little or no time for a debate.
My experience at DE&S dates back to 2009-2011 when I worked consecutively as a contractor for 3 branches, and I was a REME officer for 34 years before that.
This project is a total disaster – the wrong vehicle built by the wrong company, and designed & built badly, and very badly project managed.
I am utterly amazed (in a bad way) at all aspects of it, especially the very long time it is taking to get to a final Decision Point – and the lack of grip by senior civil servants, as well as senior military and political figures.
Given there is a contract I can understand why the MOD might be delaying in order to justify it’s cancellation. One would assume they’d have to pay the balance if there wasn’t an ironclad reason to abandon the project. Hopefully they’ll move on to something else soon enough.
I have to agree, looking like it’s time to pull out and double down on Boxer. Just sue the ass off of General Dynamics. The last “explanation” coming out of the MOD was absolute nonsense from the same public school boys that managed to bring you FRES and Snatch Landrover in Afghanistan.
Land vehicle acquisition should be the easiest acquisition program in the MOD, Given the size of the global market and the number to choose from. This makes the British army’s ongoing cluster**** all the harder to swallow. Hopefully we can get a fair bit of money back from Ajax, although I doubt it, knowing how these muppets write contracts.
“Land vehicle acquisition should be the easiest acquisition program in the MOD”
Not sure I agree with this. Keep in mind how many different factors there are with any sort of major military procurement, ranging from economic (unit price, support costs, national and regional benefit from the work) to the practical (does it work in all of the conditions it will face, does it mesh with our existing kit, etc).
The massive choice on the market actually makes things HARDER. Not only do you have a wide array of products to choose from, probably none of which exactly meet the requirements without notable changes, but that oversaturated market makes developing our own kit much more expensive and riskier.
Having said all that, one option might be “Buy BAE”. Between all of their various local businesses, there aren’t many needs they can’t meet; in this context, Paladin SPGs and CV90s are both reliable and popular products that we could buy at short notice to fill gaps until – or if – local production is set up. It ultimately still benefits our defence industry, although to a lesser degree.
Everything you wrote is exactly what the Army brass say as well. I’m not buying it. How can their requirements be that different form the 30 other NATO countries all fighting in the same wars in the same places. They can’t be. It’s physically impossible.
It’s just jumped up public school boys with little if any real world experience inventing unique requirements based on their opinions .That’s how we end up with debacles like 120mm riffled guns. Not real world data or trials as you would conduct in any other setting just opinions of people often completely incapable of forming valid opinions, Because they know best and certainly better than anyone else in NATO.
They can’t use domestic suppliers and production as an excuse either as they have managed to completely destroy UK land systems production while the RN and the RAF have managed to maintain continuous production in their supporting industries while simultaneously supporting world leading weapon export industry.
We were using 120mm rifled guns when the rest of NATO was still using 105 mm! How is probably the best tank killing gun at the time become a debacle?
Because we kept it on challenger 2 long after the rest of NATO went smooth bore. So we ended up with the newest tank in NATO with the oldest gun and now we have an obsolete tank that can’t fire NATO standard ammunition.
You have heard of Challenger 3 haven’t you? Mind you that obsolete tank is still way ahead of anything a potential enemy is going to throw our way!
Yes, it’s crap, it still has the same thin toe armour that can be penetrated by existing RPGs, and it still has that huge unarmored area in front of the divers hatch.
Whats crap?
Challenger 2 getting a 120mm smoothbore gun was a project for YEARS. One was literally fitted onto a Challenger 2 in 2006 for testing. But you know what? There was a thing called two wars that had to be funded, neither of which involved tanks, so understandably it went onto the back burner.
BTW the M1’s gun is older than the Challenger 2’s (remember it uses the L/44 version of the Rh-120, not the more modern L/55 the Leopard and Challenger 3 use), it was introduced in 1979, and installed on the M1A1 in 1986, so no, the Challenger 2 does not have the oldest gun.
The L55 gun is a work around because we won’t use DU ammunition. The American L44 will still out perform the L55 firing tungsten
The “American” L44 is a Rheinmetal gun, same as the L55. Same gun, different length.
Not sure if anyone here has any experience of operating either a Challenger or a Chieftain tank that also has a rifled bore – well for the ignorant here it is by far the most accurate turret gun on any tank even today demonstrated time and time again against all Nato tanks – it is also proven in battle during the Iran Iraq war and tge Gulf war. There are pro and cons to everything the smooth bore doesn’t heat up as quick and lose its accuracy (the turret warps a few mm after firing consecutively but this is known and compensated by the target computer), it can’t fire all 120mm shells but this doesn’t mean it can use any Nato spec 120mm shell.
In the end most gunners will tell you that in combat accuracy is everything you need to hit the enemy 1st or they will get you.
Having said that today’s modern ATM can knock out any tank even a tiny 20kg Aselsan ATM from a Bayraktor drone can destroy all known Nato tanks as well as Russian – the days of the tank are outnumbered as armour technology hasn’t progressed since the 80’s and 90’s as we haven’t had any major tank wars against modern armies until now and we have seen how devasting Turkish Drone attacks using missiles cheaper than tank rounds are against Russian armour.
Kram: Do you have the accuracy data on the L-11 so it can be compared to other guns, or are you basing this information on what you have been told? I can assure you that the L-11, L-30, RM series, and even the 2A-46M have very similar accuracy out to battle ranges. What makes the difference is the Fire Control Computer, not the gun. Hence, the T-72 struggles past 2000m whereas western tanks do not.
“doesn’t mean it can use any Nato spec 120mm shell”
It 100% can’t fire NATO shells!
There is no point hitting the target if it can’t penetrate, look up challenger ballistic data, and you will see how outdated and substandard the ammunition is.
Tanks are not dead. This has been said many times over the years if they were, why is Russia still using them, Poland hoovering up and tank on the international markets and new tank projects being invested in?
If the days of the tank are numbered because there is a counter to it (BTW, the first anti-tank weapon dates to 1917), then other less well armoured vehicles must surely face extinction, and the dismounted soldier has the least protection of all. Should we just disband the army?
Armour technology has been exceeded by anti armour technology by several decades and needs a major overhaul.
Armoured vehicles have a role supporting infantry as the 2 must work together to be effective but tanks as frontline attack weapons have limited use until their armour technology shortfalls are addressed.
Nope, 100% wrong. The 120mm Smoothbore cannon is far more accurate than the rifled 120mm.
Another ignoramous.
You’ve never operated one nor designed one so pls don’t make hypothetical remarks when you have no idea – its not possible technically and if you knew Physics of armoury and turret design which you obviously don’t you wouldn’t make that silly remark why do you think every decent snipers rifles are all rifled forget what Google tells you
Because its still in service and will be for the next 10 years no doubt. Excellent gun at the time but not any more.
From what I read it’s long past its ability for ammo upgrades to increase lethality.
Then add to that the fact that ammo production ceased 10 years ago (along with the destruction of the machines that made the ammo!)…
Granted the gun is getting long in the tooth and that is being addressed in Challenger 3 but it is still more than capable of defeating any perceived threats from potential threats at the moment.
“How can their requirements be that different form the 30 other NATO countries all fighting in the same wars in the same places. They can’t be.”
They can be, and it’s incredibly easy. A few examples include:
-differing mission profiles
-compatibility with legacy fleets
-levels of national content
-operational experience
Compare the UK to the US and Germany. All three have large legacy fleets of vehicles that they can’t just write off, meaning new purchases have to be compatible as much as possible with existing transports, ammunition, etc. The US, with its obscenely large budgets, doesn’t have as much of a need to economise, while smaller nations have to consider that. Likewise, Germany doesn’t give a fuck about deployability, but the UK and US have a greater focus on expeditionary warfare.
You call the 120mm rifled gun a debacle, but it’s really not. The only issue with it is lack of compatibility with our allies, which makes it too expensive to continue development of on our own (the same thing that’s killed the 4.5″ naval gun). Those “jumped up public school boys” have a fuckload more real world data available to them than you, with a great deal of institutional experience, but it’s ultimately all still decided by the Treasury and what they’re willing to spend.
Very much your last paragraph. The thing is there is a lot of Dunning Kruger IMO in defence commentary circles “I know better than people who have been in the army for their entire lives, I looked it up on the internet, did 5 minutes of research and know the answer.” Always smacks off “Then you don’t understand the problems” to me.
Callum:
Having done a few laps of the procurement track over the last three decades, I have to agree with Jim on this one.
There are four sorts of people you meet in procurement.
1, The substandard colonel. If he was any good, he would be commanding a battalion, instead, he is put in charge of a project. He had virtually zero experience operating armoured vehicles and probably hasn’t even seen one for years. The issue is that he thinks he is an expert and tries to put his spin on the project, after 2 years, he is replaced by another substandard colonel. He has no motivation to bring the platform online on time.
2. The defence contractor. He does have experience of AFVs, that is why he was brought on, but only for a 2 year rolling contract. As soon as the project finishes, he has to look for a new job. He uses big corporate words and tag lines to sounds punchy, the Colonel starts to adopt those words so he sounds punchy. He has not incentive to finish the project on time.
3. The accountant. He is assigned to the project for a short time, as long as the books balance for the time he is in his job then he will get promoted, if this means kicking the can down the road and delaying the project, so be it.
4. The lawyer. An expert in cooperate law, close to a six-figure salary and runs rings around Army Legal. He is there to make the most money for the company, if that means delaying the project then so be it.
As you can see, no one has any incentive to finish the project.
Defense procurement is SIMPLE, the defense contractor is there to make it hard, the Lawyer enables this and the MOD just goes along with it.
You hear people regurgitating nonsense said by the contractor, “probably none of which exactly meet the requirements without notable changes”. No vehicle will ever 100% meet our requirements. What about the biggie “STRIKE is platform agnostic, if you think it needs a cannon, then you don’t understand the concept”. 100% made up by a defense contractor, proven to be spin!
“They can be, and it’s incredibly easy. A few examples include:”
“differing mission profiles”
What does that mean in real life? What does a CV90 do that a Puma does not? I don’t mean differences in the systems, I mean its mission profile.
“compatibility with legacy fleets” Again, what does that mean on the ground? Coms fit? Easy fix, most AFVs have similar fits, they just need adapting for our specific radios. Can it fit our low-loaders, yes, they were designed that way? All our new vehicles use different ammo, engines, sights, and tracks.
“levels of national content” literally has nothing to do with the platform and everything to do with the contract.
“operational experience” This just feeds into the requirement, notwithstanding creating our own vehicles from scratch, the ever-changing requirement will never be met.
“Those “jumped up public school boys” have a fuckload more real-world data available to them than you” See above, please explain how a DE colonel from say a tank regiment has any technical training on a tank, he is a man manager, not an expert.
Want to know how simple it is, look at Poland.
I am not sure why you keep mentioning public school boys – the army does not employ boys. I was one of many boys from comprehensive schools commissioned (DE, not LE) in 1975; more than 60% of the RMAS intake today are from state schools. Public school boys do not have less real world experience than state school boys, if both cohorts entered RMAS at the same age – they just have had a different educational experience in their teenage years – so what?
We do not have 120mm rifled cannon as a result of a debacle and it is nothing to do with public school boys – when it was designed in 1957 to kill tanks at 2km+, the L11 tank cannon was state of the art and head and shoulders above our allies’ 105mm guns and could outmatch the opposition. It was still excellent decades later and still holds the record for the longest range tank kill ever (4.7km) on Op Granby. Arguably it should have been replaced by a 120mm smoothbore some 15 or so years ago and the CLIP programme was successfully trialled in Jan 2006 – don’t ask me why it was not adopted then but I hear it was because we had a lot of ‘rifled’ ammo to use up and money was tight with Iraq and Afghanistan operations running.
I do agree that the lack of regular orders on British industry to upgrade or replace AFVs has led to its almost complete contraction. The last tank-based vehicles were produced in 2002/3 – some 66 Trojan/Titans. Don’t blame public school boys for this – blame HM Treasury, senior civil servants, successive Min DPs and SoSs, and some army officers (irrespective of where they went to school as a teenager).
FWIW reports state that Ukraine has taken the longest Tank-on-Tank kill, a T-72 knocking out a T-80 at 10+km (using indirect fire)
Wow! A lucky shot methinks.
No! Drone corrected Indirect Fires by the T-72.
Thanks Dern – good info. So we must be specific that the GW1 long range kill was the longest direct fire tank – tank kill. Still means that people should not totally rubbish the L11, although clearly it is long overdue for change.
Honestly the L11 isn’t actually obsolete, and it’s not like the gun is in and of itself any worse the the Rh120/55, it’s nearest NATO competitor. It just means you need to have a different focus when developing ammo (eg neutralise the spin for APFSDS rounds). It’s the ammo that’s the issue, since only us and Oman use it there’s a big overhead for the MoD to develop new ammunition. Meanwhile the rest of NATO just waits for Germany to develop a new round and then buys that.
I guess what I’m trying to say is, if it was the other way around, and the Leopard and Abrams had the L11 while the CR2 had the Rh120, then we’d be switching to rifled guns now.
It’s the EM-2 and .280 vs 7.62 all over again.
No. The long rod penetrator can’t get any longer in the L30. The smoothbore penetrator is twice as long, penetration is a function of length.
Nonsense! The muzzle velocities of smoothbore guns far exceed that of a rifled cannon, and it’s physically impossible to increase the length of the fin dart in the L11 placing an upper limit on its penetrating power. It’s now far overmatched by the 120mm smoothbore cannon,
CV90? We could have had it in service by now .
Yes its what we should have gone for and all built in the UK too. GD and the fools in MOD are to blame for this. How can it be a recon vehicle that weights as much as it does. Modern tech really. Eyes on is what is needed. The Army is not really up to it anymore. Sorry for all the good lads and lassies there but they deserve the best kit that works and can be maintained easily not this trash. Dump it and get the cash back and go buy something that works and is compatible with our NATO friends. So much wasted when it could be better spend giving us the services needed.
Hi Angus, AJAX weighs as much as it does primarily to meet MOD requirements to protect our precious lads and lasses from being blown into a pink mist.
Cheers
CV 90 is 5 to 10 tons lighter.
Not by the time you add equivalent armour to Ajax and add all the bells and whistles a modern ISTAR recce vehicle needs.
ISTAR electronics won’t like vibration. Reliability will be poor !
Rob, below has answered.
Cheers
Agreed . Billions of pounds and nigh on twenty years have been wasted messing about with restructuring the restructuring that took place because of the defence review that replaced the defence review and on and on it goes. Armoured Brigades, Strike Brigades, Tracks , no tracks. Still – if all is well we’ll be able to get our mixed bag of kit together just as it all becomes redundant.
Meanwhile, any body fancy the idea of increasing the likes of Himars; improving and increasing medium lift; some more AH 53’s or keeping the Herky birds?
Angus,
The entire army is not to be written off [‘The Army is not really up to it anymore] just because Ajax has not been fielded. If pressed we would deploy with Scimitar; some say that a number of WR are being converted to the recce role as an interim recce vehicle. We would give a good account of ourselves against the Russian Army or a less-than-peer opponent,even with old kit.
I agree though that we should have bought CV90 recce to replace Scimitar – I would love to hear the reasons why it was rejected – rumour alone contends that it was because HMG wanted to put BAE in its place following the Nimrod MRA.4 fiasco, rather than there being any inferiority about CV90 recce.
I would be surprised if we will get much, if any, of the cash back that has already been paid to GD. My experience as a DE&S staffer is that MoD has signed off on many, many work packages prior to payment so those payments were legitimately made. MoD could sue for Liquidated Damages but has a poor record of success.
Totally agree with the CV 90, with the equipment variations this tracked afv has we could have had it in service at an operational level now. Everything from a basic AFV to a 35mm with spike LRII upto a 120mm smooth bore.
Just think of it, a heavy division made up of, one brigade of Ch3s, plus two brigades of CV90s full range of variants, one brigade of artillery mixed M270+ AS90s plus an extra brigade of CV90 mounted heavy infantry.
I have taken the time to work out the strength of the CV90 brigade based on a Battlion armoured infantry battlegroup with types and numbers of equipment. So bare with me and understand this is the battalion strength, three battalions equals a brigade. so here goes.
Each Battalion would have all CV90s
14 x 120mm smooth bore
36x with 35mm Bushmaster+ SPIKE LRII
6x 120mm twin mortar
24x 40mm for Recce
24x 16 round Brimstone anti tank
3x AFV for demolision, combat engineering
6x Anti air
2x snipper observation
3x quater master
5x signals/ew
2x drone
3x mt
2x medical
12x Battalion HQ, intel, comms, infantry, anti air etc.
So for the two heavy CV90 brigades about 1000 CV90s would be needed plus two further battalions of armoured infantry of 300 CV90s gives a total of 1300, this does include about 200 spare. Combine these combat brigades with a CH3 brigade plus the artillery of one regt of M270 + 2 regt of AS90s and a support brigade of CV90 mounted heavy infantry and use this as a NATO mobile reserve division. Not to be used peacemeal but to hit hard.
We should then build two further divisions based on Boxer in the same way, plus a brigade that are specialised in landings over the beach.
That is a frontline combat stregth of 50,000 men.
As for Ajax, good god sort it
You’ve put some work into this Ron. Fascinating combination. The numbers are impressive and I trust your experience to know that it is doable. I’ll print this off and have a read and get my head around the numbers.
I trust BAE to design and make a land combat vehicle that works rather than a brand new British subsidiary of GD, whose staff mostly had little experience, and didn’t even have a factory initially.
Jim, Boxer can’t do what a tracked Recce platform can do.
How do you know that, Ian? Is it the tracked bit? There’s a tracked base for Boxer. Is it the Recce bit? Boxer can carry the same weight and has the same engines as Ajax. Give it the turrets designed for Ajax. UK comms? Bowman/Falcon to Morpheus/Trinity will have to be adapted for the Boxers anyway. Why integrate into two platforms?
Hi Jon, a tracked Boxer isn’t what the MOD have bought, the ISTAR fit is extensive and is not a bolt on job unless and until RM design the ‘pod’.
Cheers
Jim, don’t you want to wait a couple of months to hear if GD has been able to fix this beast, as IanM suggests? I assume you would opt for Boxer CRV if Ajax is a dead duck – not sure if it would meet the army’s requirement without some modification.
Not sure you would have much luck sueing GD if all their work packages so far have been signed off by MoD before payment made (as is the procedure), and if GD can counter-claim alleging MoD failings (poor project management, changes to spec etc).
Snatch in Afghanistan was a temporary expedient as it was the only lightly armoured wheeled vehicle that we had in quantity in the early days of operating in Helmand – and it is worth saying that none of our vehicles were built to withstand massive IED blasts right against the vehicle. I was PM at the Operational Vehicles Office for a period in 2010 – we supplied huges quantities of replacements very quickly.
Believe me, procurement of complex land vehicles is not trivial.
I mean as much as it will make people spit their bisquites out, GD having fixed Ajax to an acceptable standard and us keeping it is by FAR the best option right now.
Would CV90 have been better from the start? Maybe. But at this point we are not getting our money back, so we really should be hoping that something will be there to show for it.
What have public schools to do with it? Or are you making a social commentary?
Did they ever publish dates for when decisions would be made. I think they gave vague one about the end of this year didn’t they. It does feel like a snails pace, I would have expected GDUK to have been given 3 months to identify the route causes, propose fixes and been trialing them this year with the MOD to see if they meet the requirements and if they fail pull the plug and work with the eastern european countries that trialed CV90 and Lynx to see what was the best fit.
Less than five. Is that nonsense speak for four?😙
I suspect it’s about staying within the data protection act and FOI act. Your not allowed to release data that can be used to develop a profile that may allow someone whose clever at pulling data together to identify a Person. So as soon as you get to very low numbers of data points ( as in people, with this) organisations that are required to give information under FOI get a bit vague. If they has said there was one case and we know the total pay out was x pounds. We know the person was in army and they are involved in armour and suffered an injury…..a media person could start digging at those facts and end up with a person….or people who knew that person was injured now know exactly how much money was paid….busted either way in the data protection act and ending up sitting on the naught step outside the information commissioners office waiting for a fine.
Personally I would have never released that information to an FOI the numbers are to low…..people will know who it is and they will know now how much he or she got as a payout. I would have used the exclusion around it potentially being identifiable data….
Ive had to consider this a lot when the media ask for data on significant events that happen in my own organisation some of these things are one off events or happen very rarely and if you give details the media can be very clever at hunting down the person it happened to, you have then breached the data protection act and your buggered as well as the poor person having the privacy violated.
If I was betting I would say it was 1 or 2 people at most…if it was 4-5 they would probably have said less than 10.
Blimey🕵. That is some answer Jonathan and more to the point it makes sense to me. I’m sure your right.
What has happened to this country where we can’t even build a tank for billions of pounds?
Hi Jason, AJAX isn’t a tank but I get your sentiment.
Cheers
Well,French are angry with Germans in a lot of military programs so maybe you can join hands with them. And Italians that also need to replace their Ariete.
Ariete is a MBT. We are talking about recce vehicles.
Too late to embark on a long collaborative programme – CVR(T) family should have been replaced in the 1990s!
You mean a recce vehicle – Ajax is not a tank.
No complex AFV family (589 vehicles, 8 variants plus training aids/packages, STTE, spares packs etc etc) can be designed, developed, manufactured and tested for ‘peanuts’.
Yet an Army General has publicly called it the AJAX ‘medium tank’.
Please name and shame! That General is wrong.
Hi I work on the tank 1000s of jobs on hold while these trials go on . We want a decision asap .
And still the farce rumbles on with not a glimmer of anyone actually having the intelligence or backbone to make a decisive decision on where this shambles is going.
I’d look at how much it’s costing us not to make the decision between now and the end of the year and give 10% of it to whoever has the balls to definitively cancel it. Liz Truss, Ben Wallace, Jeremy Quin, David Williams, David Marsh: the first to put their hand up gets an awesome pension boost.
Should Warrior WSCP be resurrected and the £5.5 Billion refunded by General Dynamics? Discuss 🙂
Two very different projects.
WCSP was canned because of irritation (by some) that it ran over budget and over time. I think we should have persevered. Now we are having to buy extra Boxers instead and have written off monies already expended on WCSP – these Boxers will probably cost more money than implementing WCSP and may give us a vehicle that lacks the firepower we expected (ie if they each lack a 40mm stabilised cannon) and may be down on mobility (so may struggle in deep mud, ice & snow and so may not keep up with the very fast CR3). Reinstate WCSP, in my opinion.
GD will not refund £5.5bn as MoD has not paid them £5.5bn. MoD has paid £3.2bn so far.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10881257/Ministers-fix-scrap-3-2bn-Ajax-armoured-vehicle-contract.html
GD will say they have done £3.2bn of work which has all been signed off (work package by work package) by MoD. It is hard to see what logic MoD could use to get any of that back. MoD could sue for Liquidated Damages but has a poor track record of success, and GD can counter-claim with accusations of poor MoD Project management/changes to spec/poor communications etc . GDUK might make a goodwill payment but they are not a wealthy company (I know the parent company is of course, but thats a different entity) – they might offer c.£50m at most?
So the MOD have paid the equivalent of the QE carrier and at this rate will pay the equivalent of the POW. I’d scrap the whole damn Ajax programme, re-visit WCSP with BAE’s input whilst they work on the replacement for Bradley.
In the meantime, perhaps aquire K-21s from South Korea as a stop gap. If they’re anything like KIA cars, they’d come with a 7-year warranty 🙂
This Ajax saga is dragging on. Hope they’ve been given a definite deadline to “fix it” by end of this year and if they don’t make it – chuck it!
Weird to say that ‘less than 5 people’ have been injured by Ajax. Say it is 4. So they each get about £3k compo. Thats not much, so the injuries must be very minor.
Aye, that is only through the Army injury compensation scheme.
Private injury and accident insurance has probably paid out more.
The one we should have bought is the Hanwha Defense Redback
Redback is an IFV. We are talking about recce vehicles.
A recce vehicle wider and twice as high as a main battle tank and staggeringly noisy.
Ajax? It’s the wrong vehicle in my eyes for the recce role, unless we now do recce by fighting (as per the Americans) rather than recce by stealth (the traditional British way).
Designating it, belatedly, to also be a strike vehicle, was a further mistake.
Well the farce continues… please can we just stop throwing good money after bad and cancel this heap of junk and buy something off the shelf that works. There is plenty of good vehicles out there that can do the job. Why is the MoD/Army listening to the manufacturer’s psychobabble …. ‘no just hold on a little longer, we have almost fixed it… just give us more time and money’…. JUST SAY NO. STOP the madness.
…and kiss goodbye to £3.2bn?
Yes…. before it becomes £6bn!
This is a flawed product we should not buy a flawed product. Also we should get compensation from the manufacturer. I am stunned that so many of these things have already been build (badly) before it was properly tested. With planes you build a prototype test it then accept it THEN go into full production. With this cluster f@@k they have already built hundreds!
We should get a grip and CANCEL this….
As someone who lost their job at BAE as a result of this shocking decision along with the now cancelled WCSP contract I’m amazed that this has been allowed to go on this long. It was obvious to us from the start that the winning bid was floored as they immediately came offering us jobs in Wales to fill their knowledge gap. The shameful part of this is I’m now contributing taxes to prolong the pain. I hope GD have to pay the majority of the money back they’ve wasted back but I doubt it.
I have never, up till know, felt the need to contribute to this debate, however as the decision of the PAC looms ever larger. I would respectfully offer my thoughts as follows:
Due diligence needs to be demonstrated in order to secure any realistic opportunity of recouping any money for reinvestment if the issues identified are insurmountable.
Serious, time bound and closely managed alternatives must be procured. Perhaps without over reliance on a single platform. Obsolescence and indeed mass is becoming increasingly apparent.
Off the shelf is not as easy at it may sound given the ISTAR capabilities that the Ajax possesses and may yet deliver. Mr Ian M and others have articulated this better than I.
Ajax is a step change in terms of capability across a range of applications and if it can enter service there is much to be commended for the vehicle. However lessons need to be learned and importantly be backed up by action.
Decision awaited with interest.
I used to work on this cursed project, before the bad press. Should have axed it a long time ago, the problem is this; UK engineering is terrible, that is why we don’t make anything any more! Utter incompetent and arrogant “engineers” combined with clueless overpaid managers that don’t give a damn. I have a book in the works as I have worked at a dozen firms and interviewed at maybe 100 in almost all sectors.