The British Army’s first 100 Ajax armoured fighting vehicles are currently not in service with any unit as they await planned upgrades, the Ministry of Defence has confirmed in a written reply to Parliament.
In an answer published on 6 February, Defence Minister Luke Pollard said the majority of the first 100 Ajax vehicles were withdrawn from units in 2024, with the final example taken out of service by 6 Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (REME) in October 2025. He added that the vehicles are now located in Merthyr Tydfil, Llanelli and the Bicester Holding Area “awaiting planned upgrades to meet the requirements for the current Capability Drop level before being delivered into service.”
The programme has been repeatedly delayed; initial deliveries were originally planned for around 2017 but did not materialise until the mid-2020s, with final delivery of 589 vehicles now expected by the end of the decade.
Despite Ajax being declared to have achieved Initial Operating Capability (IOC) in late 2025, that status has since been formally withdrawn by ministers following safety concerns. Defence Secretary John Healey told the House of Commons Defence Committee that officials “didn’t have the full facts” ahead of earlier decisions about Ajax readiness, and that the programme must now be “backed or scrapped”, with safety for personnel the overriding priority.
The programme has faced persistent issues with excessive noise and vibration, which in training exercises have been linked to dozens of service personnel becoming unwell, reporting symptoms including nausea, disorientation and hearing problems. In response to such incidents, the Army halted all Ajax use in training and testing while safety investigations and reviews were carried out.
Earlier reviews also identified shortcomings in how safety concerns were communicated within the Ministry of Defence, leading to the removal of the senior responsible officer for the Ajax armoured vehicle programme. Pollard confirmed the dismissal after it emerged that known safety issues had not been fully escalated to ministers before the platform was declared safe for use.
Why, what’s wrong with them ?
Progress? Sounds like they have been able to link at least one root cause to a manufacturing batch and identified a fix – the early hulls?
Withdrawn in 2024, does that mean they are not the hulls that caused illness in trials?
I think there were trials illness problems with the recent ‘drops’. It looks like they have decided to make Ajax work; unsurprising since we don’t have any money for a replacement, which anyway would take time we don’t have. I think they are adopting the sort of approach you would if you had a problem or bug with a piece of application software….the first step is to update to the latest release – bring the early models up to the latest drop standard. Narrow down the issues to hopefully minor easy to fix ones.
Hope so. I read onto “Drop 4” now.
What’s right with them you mean
Oh no. Not the comfy chair! They need to stop patching.
Even now we still hear about the weight issue! Is it not possible to install heavier rated torsion bars and new shocks up to the job?has this been done and reported because all I can find is that they have replaced the shocks but they are still bottoming out and not up to task!
Use horses, far easier and only need hay.
Obviously, no alternative but to rework. Considering an alternative tracked vehicle would take at least 4/5 years considering the establishment of a UK plant and pre-service prep and training. An Ajax rework could be concluded considerably quicker than that.