A new 878 Institute paper says four armoured infantry battalions face a gap between Warrior leaving service and Boxer arriving in numbers, and wants the shelved Warrior upgrade revived to bridge it.
The first of eight recommendations in Britain’s Military Deterrence Gaps is that the Government halt the decommissioning of the Warrior Infantry Fighting Vehicle and fund the Warrior Capability Programme, which was part funded and then rejected. The £1bn scheme would upgrade 380 platforms with “a modified turret and 40mm cannon” and extend the fleet’s service life past 2040. Robert Clark, who wrote the paper, puts the revised cost at £1.25bn including inflation.
The point is not to keep Warrior indefinitely, though. Funding the upgrade would, Clark writes, “enable the Boxer programme to continue at its current speed without leaving armoured infantry battalions without armour or mobility”, given that Boxer’s 2027 date is expected to slip.
Warrior is supposed to end service by 2027, and the paper notes that “many units already decommissioning their Warriors, ready for Boxer”. Boxer itself missed an Initial Operating Capability of Q4 2025 on supply chain grounds. By June 2026 the British Army had received 100 of 623 platforms for unit trials, with no revised date published for the rest.
On the paper’s reading that “will leave a significant capability gap”, with Warrior phased out and no operational replacement for the Army’s four armoured infantry battalions. Clark also warns the 72 howitzer platforms planned for the Royal Artillery from 2028 would face “knock-on delays” if the first tranche of armoured infantry Boxers overruns.
General The Lord Dannatt, who wrote the foreword, goes further, calling for an Ajax programme “that should be scrapped in favour of upgrading the WARRIOR infantry fighting vehicles”. The report’s own recommendation is narrower, treating the upgrade as a bridge rather than a substitution.
The Government has previously ruled out retaining Warrior in service, a decision this publication reported in 2025 and which the paper cites. The Ministry of Defence has not yet responded to the report.
Britain’s Military Deterrence Gaps by Robert Clark is available in full from the 878 Institute.
We arent getting an ifv version of the boxer nor a tracked version doesnt matter how many boxers arrive we still have a gap when warriors retire
Exactly, the same genius general is also saying we should scrap Ajax and upgrade Warrior. How does upgrading an old IFV replace an armoured fighting vehicle. I think that invalidates anything the General has to say on the report.
I know that the warrior and Ajax may look similar but anyone with the most basic knowledge of the army knows these vehicles serve completely different roles.
And anyone with basic knowledge of the subject would understand that he has identified that the gap in IFV is the more pressing capability gap, given what we know about Ukraine, fighting the “pacing threat” and the requirement for protected, integral firepower for ground close combat.
What he is saying is that the AJAX platform could swallow money and still not be fit for purpose, indeed it could be obsolete before it gets to FOC.
Now, we still need a networked, protected FIND capability, integral to making recce-strike really work, but if you can’t have everything, where do you prioritise.
What you definitely don’t do if your short on cash is scrap a £6 billion fixed price contract for one vehicle to then invest £1.5 billion in a totally different armoured vehicle capability and leave a massive gap that you then have to go back and spend billions more to fill in again in future.
Actually that seems to be the exact logic the army follows which is probably why Lord Dannatt managed to get to the top of it 😀
Everything I have seen in Ukraine suggests armoured recce is still a vital capability. You can probably do most things that Warrior can do with boxer but there is almost nothing that Ajax does that Warrior can cover.
It has been well known for some time that Warrior is gone next year, good that this gets some publicity, as always probably too little too late.
So it seems another gap is incoming, like when CVRT was withdrawn en masse before Ajax was available in bulk to replace it, leaving CVRT Sqns in the Recc Armoured Recc Regiments ( now Armoured Cavalry ) on foot, or using Warrior themselves as a stop gap.
SP Artillery went the same way with AS90, I don’t know what the Batteries of 1 RHA and 19 RA are using beyond a handful of Archer.
No wonder the Army is prioritising the FLF and the likes of 4 and 11 Brigades, they do not use it, and the ARRC elements can sit back in the UK trying to catch up, reorganise, and rebuild.
We could see if Germany still have their broomsticks: they don’t need them now?
Joking apart this is getting beyond the pitiful phase….
I think this is one of those “Duh” moments!
Pretty certain that if push came to shove, the Army would want to keep Warrior rather than swap over to Boxer in the Mech Inf role. Purely for the fire support that the Rarden can provide, even if the gun is obsolete by today’s standards. I very much doubt the MoD have a pot of money stashed away to provide our Boxers with a turreted autocannon. The Army with the current money pot, will either have to cut something else to pay for the Warrior’s capability programme or fund an turreted autocannon for the Boxer. It won’t have enough for both, and probably not enough for one.
The Boxer already comes in several turreted auto cannon IFV versions for other operators. There is also a demonstrated CTA 40mm version. Apparently we have 200 CTA 40mm turrets in storage from the failed Warrior upgrade program as well. It should not be that difficult or expensive to get an IFV on Boxer.
According to the Aussies, the turreted Boxer is top heavy (and a roll risk) and too heavy to work properly on soft ground.
And, you’ve kind of rubbished your comment above… maybe the General knew of these 200 CTA turrets for WR2…
Of course, we can’t just buy off the shelf, can we… I know we already have them, but are they up to snuff for today’s battlefield. Perhaps some IFVs have some 35mm Cannons for lite AA and keeping those troops on the ground covered. And already integrated on the Boxer.