The Ministry of Defence has outlined the current status of the Mobile Fires Platform (MFP) programme, addressing concerns about its timeline and the potential impact of delays on the British Army’s long-range artillery capabilities.
Maria Eagle, Minister of State at the Ministry of Defence, provided the update in response to a parliamentary question from Mark Francois MP (Conservative – Rayleigh and Wickford).
The Mobile Fires Platform project aims to enhance the Army’s Close Support Fires capability through the acquisition of the Remote-Controlled Howitzer 155mm (RCH 155) Wheeled Artillery System. The system is being procured in collaboration with Germany as part of a wider modernisation effort.
Eagle stated: “The project aims to achieve Minimum Deployable Capability (MDC) within this decade and will deliver the Remote-Controlled Howitzer 155mm (RCH 155) Calibre Wheeled Artillery System through a collaborative procurement with Germany.”
However, she noted that the project is still in its assessment phase, with a timeline for delivery yet to be finalised:
“The project is in its assessment phase and a timeline or definition of MDC is yet to be determined, both of which will be guided by the outcome of the Strategic Defence Review (SDR).”
According to Eagle, the Army is undergoing a combined programme of work to enhance its capabilities, “The Army is currently undergoing a combined programme of work to ensure our Land Forces will have the lethality, protection and mobility to fight and win against any adversary.”
While the MFP programme remains a critical element of this, Eagle highlighted the broader context of the Army’s investment in modernisation, “The Army’s modernisation will continue over the next decade with a programme of investment worth billions of pounds, future capability development priorities, including long-range artillery capabilities, will be guided by the SDR.”
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So Mrs Eagle, you basically replied in Parrot fashion with what was already known.
Why have you decided to let the British Army get by with only 2 Batteries of 14 155mm guns for an undetermined period, and who thought that a good idea?
I appreciate someone from DI will have conducted a risk assessment that Russia won’t kick off in the Interim to help the minister make up his mind.
Will they, or him, take responsibility if they’re wrong?
How about someone grow a pair, admit Sunak was playing political games, and cancel and make an UOR buy of what’s available, such as K9?
Or, as usual, are you prioritising industry and political considerations a priority by buying European?
In fairness Daniele it’s not easy for them as they have plenty to consider, they are probably in the most important phase right now, working out which option will be the most expensive and take the longest to deliver whilst providing poor value for money and becoming a niche capability for the army when it does eventually arrive 10-15 years late.
They’ll also want to make sure they get their decade of photo ops and press releases saying they are modernising the army with transformational capabilities whilst not having to actually spend the money.
Hi M8, 2022 pretty well lit the fire under orders for 155 SPGs, and the numbers of K9 now on order I very much doubt getting any from S Korea production any time soon. Their priority is To fulfil the massive Polish order and others as well.
Besides which it introduces an entirely different set of logistics to the Army, it may sound daft but going for a Boxer RCH155 may be the quickest way to regenerate the Army SPG capacity.
Starmer has now laid out his 6 priorities and defence isn’t one of them 🤷🏼♂️ so we await the SDR.
Is anyone surprised?
They’ll be gone next election.
What scares me is the damage inflicted before then.
K9 is developed and South Korea has a history of fast delivery RCH-155 is not yet fully developed and when it is, there will not be capacity to build it at pace due to all the other Boxers being built. Anyway Sunak decided against K9 and we have the RCH-155 (one day).
The SDR is going to drive it all. ““The project is in its assessment phase and a timeline or definition of MDC is yet to be determined, both of which will be guided by the outcome of the Strategic Defence Review (SDR).”
That could be a good or bad thing thing. if it is found in the SDR we need more artillery, it could be a good thing, other wise may be not
I doubt the SDR will conclude that we have sufficient 155mm tube artillery!
No but it would probably conclude that it can be mitigated by making dross statements about “increased lethality across the full spectrum of capabilities and better integration of ISTAR on the modern battlefield” AKA boxer has a really good digital display for its machine gun…
Haha. I like it! So true. The spin is imminent.
DM, as per usual you are pretty much spot on. I just imagine how those Regiments/Btys are getting by without kit? Just plain crazy and wonder how many are walking out of the job in despair.
I’ve read that 19RA and 1 RHA are using Light Gun where available.
Ironically, when other AS90 Regiments lost their guns in defence cuts, long before UKR kicked off, they too got the Light Gun.
3 RHA and 4 RA are who I have in mind, the supposed Strike Bde Regs.
If the wider public cared, which they don’t heads would be rolling and it would be a national scandal.
As it is, it’s a national scandal amongst the defence community and amongst those such as I, with an interest.
I suggest we make it a national scandal by publicising such as often as possible.
Hence my occasionsal blunt criticism, I’d hope more influential people and wider media would read the likes of UKDJ and call it for what it is.
Unacceptable.
The Light Guns been around for a long time and it filled the airportable role pretty well. Worked well down in the Falklands and in the jungle environment but in the European theatre I just don’t see it. No protection for the gun crew, they wouldn’t last 5 minutes and it would be wrong of any government or government minister to try to pass it off as such.
Going further back, they equipped ( and still do ) 29RA and 7 RHA, the Regs supporting the RM and the Paras, for which they were ideal, and also supported the AMF (L) again could be underslung under helis for rapid movement to the NATO flanks, which the AMF was designed for.
They are NOT 155mm SPG replacements, which they have, by default, become.
How would the impending loss of Puma and Chinook affect this ability? Surely hellos are going to be in short supply.
How does RCH 155 compare with Archer ?
Why not just buy more Archers?
RCH on boxer: The base vehicle looks too small to be stable when firing a long-barrelled weapon
I don’t think it would be quite as simple, as the Volvo chassis used is no longer in production and future users will likely have the system mounted on trucks like the HX series so this would be quite a different product and would require re-evaluation performance/capability wise, I’m not sure any user has the truck based system in service yet.
The current systems were transferred from Swedish stocks and refurbed rather than being completely new systems and probably why the buy was so limited to begin with (only 48 produced on Volvo chassis) 8 were transferred to Ukraine and the other 24 remain in service with the Swedish Armed Forces with the remaining 2 used for development.
Sweden has ordered 48 Archer based on a Rheinmetall RMMV HX2 8×8 truck and a full scale version was presented at DSEI London back in 2019, first deliver next year.
RCH155, which started life in 2014, originated from the ‘Artillery Gun Module’ which started life in 2004, a variant of which was mounted on ASCOD2 (Ajax) in 2008.
Is this thing actually ready for production?
Apparently Ukraine will start getting deliveries at the end of this year, is this on track? Is this a classic case of the MoD trying to ‘make it their own’ and move production to the UK and adding a billion ‘features’ causing a decade of delay?
Beacon, we are told that the Boxer RCH-155 Programme is still only in the Assessment Phase, so it is a long way from being production-ready. Need to complete the Assessment Phase, get through Main Gate and then get through the Demonstration Phase.
Back in november , quote-
“However, Army Technology reported in September that the 120mm mortar Boxer AMV variant was anticipated to reach an IOC of 2030, with the MDC for the RCH 155 coming in 2029, according to British Army officials speaking at the DVD 2024 event at UTAC Millbrook in September.”
And now the above comments by Eagle…with the usual vague answers
5 years to go with only 14 ARCHER until then is dangerous!!
I’m agreeing with Daniele…we need a UOR of whats available
The Ukrainians aren’t messing about and use whatever they can get to fire at the ENEMY!!!
It’s not only 14 archers, there are still as90s in service, admittedly the combined number is still inadequate
One Battery finishing it’s role in Estonia imminently, or already happened, then it’s gone.
In the UK, the last AS90s were ceremoniously flatbedded out of Larkhill a few weeks ago.
This is what you get for letting Sunak sign us up to a system that is not even proven yet🤬 utter madness!
Least he’s no longer in power that particilar Tory Coup was madness from the start. At least they got ‘their man’ in eventually…not that it did them any good of course.
Considering the prominence of artillery in Ukraine and the impact it’s had on the battlefield surely artillery is a capability that is guaranteed to be part of the future force and with the capability gap caused by the loss of AS90 already shouldn’t need to wait on the SDR. Why not commit to ordering smaller numbers now, even 24 as batch 1 to get production moving until the SDR confirms overall numbers, it would atleast allow for deliveries to start sooner and reduce the capability gap. Batch 1 could operate alongside archer until the full requirement is delivered. It’s not uncommon for equipment to be ordered in batches as needed as force structures change by other militaries like Germany so there’s no reason it can’t be done here.
Politically they seem to have tied themselves to RCH155 so it is unlikely to go any other way unless they opt for a split of tracked and wheeled artillery if the SDR was to push fully tracked AI if they end up getting an IFV and wheeled MI, but this would still mean RCH155 would be needed.
John reminds us above that the army was expecting the RC 155 IOC to be 2030. I read elsewhere 2031. That is a 7 YEAR CAPABILITY GAP and means our supposed warfighting division would take the field with no close support artillery
(The 2 Archer batteries will be with 1 DRS brigade, doing long-range fires).
This is hopeless. Sunak and those from the MOD.who advised him.got it hopelessly wrong, selecting a platform that is not in production.and needs years of development
Having let the AS-90 soldier on without upgrading it, it was obvious that a rapid replacement would now be required tout suite. Having done nothing regarding developing a successor, we have no option but to purchase a proven, off-the’-shelf system. The Korean K9 would do just fine and we could build it here under licence.
Of course, it is a proper tracked howitzer, which counts against it in the MOD, wherr the accountants say wheels are cheaper.
This is another procurement.screwup. Sending troops into battle with an ageing 105mm towed howitzer is highly dodgy, as a towed gun can’t be limbered up and moved befor being hit with counter-battery fire, according to the latest evaluations from the US army.
The procurement boys in, is it DESO?, have a lot to answer for here. Too many civilians and accountants calling the shots at the MOD and getting it hopelessly wrong.
It is DE&S, and I understand they just procure, I don’t believe they make the decisions on what to purchase, just action the results and support the capability.
Too much wheeled!? Why are our allies still choosing tracked SPG like the US, Australia, Poland? Why not a decent quantity mix of both for the UK? Anyone in government advocating for this?
Quentin, The army had the MFP and was to evaluate a number of tracked and wheeled SPG – Archer, Boxer RCH-155 and K9 and possibly CAESAR. Sunak instead decided to forgo the evaluation and personally selected the Boxer SPG, so as to suck up to the German Chancellor.
Too much wheeled!? Why are our allies still choosing tracked SPG like the US, Australia, Poland? Why not a decent quantity mix of both for the UK? Anyone in government advocating for this?
Quentin. Tube arty. We always used to have a mix of tracked SPGs (Abbot and US-origin equipment (M107, M109, M110) followed then by AS-90) – as well as towed wheeled artillery. The former being for the support of armoured/AI formations.
The Koreans were going to build k9 here in the uk plus base a spares hub here for k9 sunak basically chinned them off and went for rch
I think people are assuming the Govt intends to buy something not just bloviate about it. The good thing about “choosing” something that doesn’t exist yet is that you can talk about it optimistically until the cows come home, but still not actually do anything about it.
MDC within the next decade? Fuck me, I presume 1 x Bty of 6 guns? It’s now official, we have been absolutely stitched up by our political class! Would being ruled by China or Russia be any worse, the Russkies own half of London and some of our politicians while the Chinese invest for the long term in the remaining bits of both!
As I have said many many times, the MOD need to be buying and getting capabilities that are ready in the near term. Deterrent only works in the “now” what you have capability wise and what you can prove you can and will deploy and how this communicates harm and risk to your enemy is all that matters…future programmes and jam tomorrow do not deterrent and prevent wars..the only thing that matters is the gun in your hand, pointing at your enemy’s head as you look him in the eyes ( metaphorically speaking of course).
If the boxer 155 has no timeline and we need a replacement as a deterrent now, then we have to make a purchase of something that is available in the now or very near future.
If we were at a different point in time when we could take a relaxed, considered view about the optimal solution of the army and industry and I’d have have no issues with choosing Boxer (apart from its ugly).
However we’re at a very different point in history and expediency is a vital deliverable. If archer can deliver quicker I’d go all in on Archer.