The Ministry of Defence has released a tender notice for the procurement of Rear Safety Camera Systems (RSCS) for the Warrior Infantry Fighting Vehicle.
The contract, with an estimated value of £20m, seeks a supplier capable of delivering 359 units of the safety-critical modification within a two-year timeframe from September 2023 to September 2025.
According to the official tender notice, “The RSCS system will comprise of 359 units and include the following sub-systems: Rear Camera; Display Control Unit; Cabling Loom, and camera wash wipe facility.” These systems are intended to provide drivers with comprehensive rear-view visibility, covering the entire track width from the immediate rear of the platform.
There is currently no rear safety camera system fitted to the Warrior IFV. As the notice highlighted, “this requirement exists to expediently integrate a suitably robust day/night capable system to the platform to ensure it fulfils the health, safety and legislative obligation for which the Authority is responsible.”
The notice further specified that the contract would be firm priced and without options. The RSCS systems must also meet the Authority’s technical specifications.
The notice added, “PLEASE NOTE that this procurement is being conducted in accordance with the DSPCR 2011 Accelerated Restricted Procedure. It will therefore be subject to reduced timescales.” This suggests a swift decision-making process, making it an interesting opportunity for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and other potential bidders in the defence sector.
Upgrades stopped – then started?
A total of £430m had been spent on the Warrior upgrade programme before it was stopped due to budgetary changes. The Defence Command Paper released back in 2021, titled ‘Defence in a Competitive Age’, stated:
“We will no longer upgrade Warrior but it will remain in service until replaced by Boxer, which we expect to happen by the middle of this decade.”
Under the scrapped upgrade programme, the present turret mounting the RARDEN cannon, which lacks stabilisation and is manually loaded with three-round clips, was to be replaced by a turret that would have mounted a stabilised 40mm weapon.
£20 Million? Most motors come with a rear camera nowadays, pretty sure one with a proven track record could be sourced (complete with spares and servicing package ) for half that price via COTS for a vehicle which the Gov has stated will be retired by the middle of this decade. Its as if the MOD can’t stop throwing money away
It’s utterly ridiculous that amount of money is being paid out for something that you could rig yourself in 20 minutes for, if you were as fancy as you wanted to be, £250 tops.
If the Warrior’s chassis is still good and there’s money around why not spend a bit more and replace the turret too? Or, any possibility of a stretched Ajax/Ares type Ascod 2 chassis? Is the British Army watching what the US and Australia choose in their IFV trials? Anyone?
And Dont scrap the Warriors; you never know when they could be useful.
I’ll bet they do scrap them. I hear scrap merchants always have a buyer for stuff they scrap before they even sell it!!!
I hear the Russians are after replacement AFV’s, perhaps we could sell them to Ivan, enough room for three Russian soldiers in the back, fully combat equipped with 40 bottles of vodka….
Warrior is to be withdrawn from service and replaced by Boxers – this was announced in March 2021.
The retired Warriors will first be offered for sale. An option might be to gift some to Ukraine?? Scrapping is the last resort and hardly ever done for significant vehicles.
I agree with passing them on to Ukraine but too often and especially with the psyche of Russia likely to persist it might be sensible to hang on to last years model.
Like it or not, once an equipment has been declared ‘Obsolete’ then it is withdrawn from service and disposed of ASAP – by sale, gifting or scrapping.
We don’t keep anything that has been declared obsolete – so no Chieftains, CR1s, Abbots, Stalwarts etc sitting around in some hanger somewhere!
https://dconcepts.co.uk/case-study/fv510-warrior
Warrior is being withdrawn from service – so this plan won’t fly.
Tempting though….quick, inexpensive and worthwhile upgrade. I’ll bet its cheaper than the rear facing cameras 🙂 And the Boxer build rate is glacial….
At RARDE we did this with a Chieftain in the late 80s, to a lesser level of sophistication. ‘Crazy Horse’ is now in the Tank Museum.
😅
There is already an ifv version look up America’s Griffin program the Bradley replacement, with the war in Ukraine and the possibility of industrial warfare on the continent I think we need to look at a heavy armoured infanty platform I don’t think the boxer will cut it.
You didn’t get the memo? Warrior upgrade (which included replacing the turret and cannon) was cancelled in March 2021.
Boxer will replace Warrior.
Morning Graham, yes we all did, lol, but things can be reversed. Expeditionary or not, all in wheeled afvs seems “wheel” daft (sorry pun intended) and dangerous. Do they want a potentional 1939-40 all over again? Need some common sense here surely. Can’t see the US, Aus even European armies going all wheeled.
Not sure its fair to say the army is going all-wheeled – just the Infantry. But I think it is a mistake – best solution would have been upgraded Warrior for the AI – pity it wasn’t pushed through faster – that programme dragged badly – not worried that it went over-budget as the pricing was wrong on Day1. For little over £1bn we would have got a full suite of upgraded Warriors with better modular armour, new turret with stabilised 40mm cannon and networking. Now we are paying £5.3m a pop for the AI to get wheeled Boxer and… Read more »
Sure hope this is not a colossal mistake for the Army. All eheeled going into battle as part of a spearhead assault, or even in defence, seems a bit daft. Are we seeing majority wheeled in Ukraine? It looks mostly tracked on the front line or a mix anyway. I’m only a civvy but I’d think a 200/400/800 tank, tracked ifv, Boxer split would be more sensible mix give or take. Ajax isn’t in here. Guess we have to leave all this to the experts and hope they build all the Boxers in alignment! Heard that Australia will be building… Read more »
Wheeled armoured vehicles have their place – they would clearly be prevalent in a medium weight force. For the Infantry in support of tanks (the Armoured Infantry, AI) the jury is out as to whether they can keep up with the tanks cross-country over complex terrain and in arduous met conditions such as deep glutinous mud, ice and snow. Additionally, if those wheeled vehicles lack cannon, they are mere APCs, not IFVs – they will not be able to provide serious fire support to the rifle section whether they are mounted or dismounted and they will not be able to… Read more »
Thanks for your great reply. Good detail and rationale. What I meant was 200 tanks, 400 IFVs, 800 Boxers respectively, just as general numbers in the Army fleet. Add Ajax to that. What are you thoughts on the actual current and future quantities for these types?
Thanks Quentin. I get your numbers thing now. Tanks – we bought 386 CR2s (ISD 1998), but were down to 227 by 2010 due to Defence Review(s). Gave 14 to UKR so now have 213 tanks on the active list of which 168 in the three armoured regiments, the rest (45) in Trg Org, Repair Pool and Attrition Reserve (call it ‘elsewhere’ for short). Under FS we come down to two tank regiments (112). We are converting just 148 tanks to CR3, so that means just 36 in Trg Org, Repair Pool and Attrition Reserve, ie less than was (45).… Read more »
“T(h)anks” (pardon the pun) for another fabulous reply again Graham. Will give you a break for now. Yes Daniele is very good on this stuff too.
Just been announced that Warrior not to be scrapped
I can’t find that on a google search. Who said this? It has been the case since March 2021 that Warrior would not be ugraded but would stay in service until replaced by Boxer in the mid-2020s.
So that position has moved?
Considering the warriors are not planned to stay in service for that long, it does feel a bit toppy.
I guess the system needs to be able to handle rough wear from a military vehicle, which would increase the cost but still seems excessive as doesn’t need to be perfect for an interim solution. I guess a load of backhanders don’t pay for themselves.
Maybe this is an indication that the army still hope warrior can survive the crop.
I was an ESM. Even equipment that has little service life remaining still gets ‘safety’ money spent on it.
And so it should but £20m seems excessive.
Well I have a Warrior that is fitted with a rear view camera as standard. Admittedly it is an L200 version and lacks a wash/wipe system. Also not sure about fitting 40mm cannon, but there are many videos to prove that a 50 cal mg no problem.
It 55k+ per Warrior. . Commercial version is available for less than 100quid, the washer, A car or truck washer motor is a few quid, a pipe and reservoir is again just a few quid, basic automotive wiring. Heck for a couple of grand you could add a sensor to automate the cleaning.
How about a loud warning siren for when you are backing up, collision detection and GPS laser targeting of enemy drones? Or have Halfords run out of those?
Yes, it sounds like a lot. £1K for the kit, £54K for integration and the extended warranty.
Not sure Halford stock all that, there’s not much you can’t find on ebay. I always thought nain dealer servicing was expensive.
Warrior has been in service for some 35 years give or take, suddenly it needs a rear view mirror/camera, just before it goes OOS!!! Mate you couldn’t script this shit if we tried. The army wonders why it gets such bad press wrt procurement…..
I think this may be linked to a fatal accident on Salisbury Plain two years ago.
That is indeed very tragic for all concerned, nobody ever wants this to happen.
It still begs several questions, indeed if this is/was a requirement, why wasn’t it acted on sooner? £20 mill is actually a pretty small sum in the grand scheme of things, but for a rear view mirror/camera just before warrior goes OOS! It just raises more questions of competence where army procurement is concerned.
fatal accident two years ago, i was in the rear of one when it ran over a red top safety vehicle in BATUS in 1994 the land rover driver was killed the secondary bloke in the rover was shot 3 times from the chain gun, and no safety mods were done about it, I even saw a lad run over on ex, because the driver could not see the troops on the ground in front of him..
Yes, I’m aware of other fatal accidents involving armour on exercise; each one a tragedy. As I said, I think the camera modification may be linked to a more recent event.
Probably senior people with shares in the company or whose family have shares. Honestly it’s the only explanation for a lot of government spending.
Look come on they may have to retreat in a hurry don’t ya know, so gotta have the best view.
So they are buying cameras for installation by September 2025 in a vehicle which will be out of service by the middle of the decade. Isn’t that 2025?
Tomorrow is Amazon Prime Day. I am willing to bet most British Soldiers have a Smart phone so 2 blink cameras for 600 warriors is 60K, just add floodlights for another 60K.
A mate of mine has 2 with a magnet stuck on them, if he is reversing his HGV he just hops out sticks them on the back corners and off he goes.
The only issue is…. you probably don’t want soldiers using smart phones in an EW contested environment.
Not an issue at all, I doubt anyone will give a Monkeys about reversing cameras if they go to war. You just have to wonder how they have managed without them for the last 30 years.
Of course they will. Quite aside from the increased situational awareness it gives regarding threats, there’s the whole issue of needing to reverse when dismounts are present (If you’ve never seen IFV’s practice they move back and forth a lot to hard target) which becomes a lot lower risk if there’s a reversing camera. And of course parking up in leagures etc doesn’t go away just because you’re in a warzone (in fact it becomes more relevant as you might want to park under scrim to help disguise your position, at which point you REALLY don’t want to undo all… Read more »
Agreed, you can bang on the rear door as much as you want, the driver will never hear you. Even with the Commander leaning out of his hatch, there is still a massive blind spot behind the vehicle. Hence why he has to jump out normally for driver guidance.
Confirmation today that Warrior will remain in service until 2030 in the papers. Who is surprised? Not me.
Yes, they’re way behind.
With Ajax delayed, Warrior in the RAC Regs doing the CVRT role, and Boxer not delivered in scale until the 2030s there is no other option.
Just go on EBAY FFS any tiffy can rig one in minutes🙄
why bother, they never came with them when built in 1986 so soldiers have managed to reverse the damn things under proper instruction so why waste money for the sake of a few years, the army moan about not having equipment but yet are happy to spend 20 million on a rear camera system, talk about wasting money again
Hilarious, fitted for but not with. The staff in the MOD should visit Ukraine and see what is really required.
I didn’t think the British Army went backwards.🙄
No they don’t but quite often they carry out a tactical withdrawal?
We have all done it.😉
Here we are again… whoever these ‘bright people’ are in procurement, conned into believing that a rear view camera (with wiper blade) for a military vehicle, is worth £55,700 a pop!
Absolutely ludicrous… whoever was involved in the ‘tender’ details, should be arrested, have their entire lives scrutinised, found guilty of fraudulent activity, and sent to a secure medical facility, for the rest of their lives!
There must be more to the procurement than it looks, as surely even a very corrupt person with no links to consequences or reality would expect to get this over the line if it really is just a camera with washing blades.
This is a tender and presumably under competition rules. Given the ubiquity of the gear requested, it shouldn’t actually come in at the guide price.
This is why the mod is fucked we spend to much on consultants quangos and shit when this money doesn’t get spent on hardware recruitment is down coz gen z don’t wanna fight for this country
It’s sound like this is a health and safety item that has to be fitted ASAP. A cheap
System would do the job for 2 years until early the retirement. Seems a bit expensive.
I didn’t know the army actually spent £430m warrior upgrade! Why spend so much before it’s actually being bought to equip
The £430m went on Studies, Requirements work, fleet survey, design, development, prototyping, testing, safety case, certification, ILS work, configuration management etc, etc – its called Non-Recurring Engineering (NRE) costs. Some may have been spent on buying long-leadtime items for the production phase. WCSP was a big programme with many aspects – armour upgrade, lethality upgrade, networking – and there was an associated programme, ABSV. Someone senior (who, I wonder, and why?) in MOD killed WCSP, so that £430m has all gone to waste. About another £600m was to be spent on actually upgrading all of the Warriors (manufacturing or production)… Read more »
From what I read about WCSP, the poor material state of the existing fleet is pretty much what killed it.
It’s a great platform with a good combat record but they have been worked very hard, I think the worry was it would turn into another Ajax type fiasco, with either the upgrades causing problems or requiring extensive restoration work beyond the budget.
Keeping them as-is in reserve or gifting to Ukraine seem like sensible options. I believe also the CTA-40 cannons were already purchased and will still need to find a new home somewhere, perhaps on Boxer.
Nope it didn’t matter, all the hulls were going to be stripped down to component parts, reconditioned and then rebuilt with new parts. So in effect the Warriors would have been brand new. Only the main engine was remaining as original. A lot of the problems were LM’s really poor management of the program. Where they had project managers making very poor engineering decisions. These decisions held back and delayed the program. I have two colleagues who were working for LM, one an engineer another whose was finance. Both had said that all the issues would have been sorted in… Read more »
From what I hear about WCSP several projects were melded together over time to form a programme which got unwieldy. MoD project management grip was poor. CT40 was forced on the Company by MoD, and caused itegration with turret problems. Never heard about poor presentation state of vehicles – that does not make sense – they did not start series production. In-service Warriors would have been in fairly good condition. Anyway they would have had a Base Overhaul first thing. I still have not heard who cancelled WCSP and why. All I can suppose is that there was irritation over… Read more »
“I didn’t know the army actually spent £430m warrior upgrade!” WCSP – Cancelled when General Carter decided wheels could not wait. Under Army2020, formulated in 2010, we had 6 Battalions of Warrior in 3 Bdes, 2 per Bde, which were to be upgraded in the WCSP. ( see Grahams detailed reply ) They also had a single Bn termed “Heavy Protected Mobility” with Mastiff. WCSP was happening at the same time as CH LEP and Ajax. Boxer – the “MRAV” programme was to be for 2029, for just 3 Battalions, replacing the aforementioned Mastiff / HPM Bns. So much later,… Read more »
And now the announcement comes in the papers that Warrior will not retire in 2025, but will continue in service until at least 2030 (colour me not surprised) so the investment in reversing cameras makes a bit more sense.
Only question: Will they continue in service providing Armoured Infantry or in other roles (fingers crossed we get to keep 5 Btns of Warrior and Boxer goes to 7X or 4X, or even a 50/50 split in battalions in 3 XX)
This is absolutely ridiculous.
As other posters have said you could buy the whole setup online for less than £1k
The problem is that the £20m price tag sort of says that this goes to the usual MILSPEC suspects.
However, the system can’t give off an EM footprint…..so it may have to be modified COTS…..which is where *bit* of cost increase is indicated for the screening required.
not even reducing its EM footprint can justify the cost. It will be a dc operated bit of kit with a one way signal cable if its only required for reverse then its switched off most of the time. If the thing does not work properly due to interference then back to what they do now which is cope without it.
it’s absolutely crazy the price tag per vehicle, you can buy a Tesla for that price and it comes with loads of cameras and self drive 😅🤣
They’ll pay for a reversing camera but screw paying to upgrade combat capability. Priorities well and truly on show for all to see…
Safety related work is Priority1, irrespective of remaining service life.
Does this suggest, with Ajax’s continued delay, that the new turret may proceed, perhaps on a limited number of vehicles?
Does not suggest that at all. Why do you say that?
Do you mean for the Warrior that are now used in the Recc role with the RAC? Which will be the Ajax role once that capability arrives.
I doubt it.
What an utter waste of taxpayers money. Warrior hasn’t needed this for 35 years so why bother now?
Do all other afvs have reversing cameras- Challenger Boxer Ajax?
In my day kit like this was Commander controlled. We managed through the 60s,70s 80s etc. Etc what is so special about this bit of kit that requires a reversing camera???
AJAX has a local situational awareness system essentially giving it 360 deg views, so yes, it does have a reversing camera.
Useful now it seems at last to have overcome its difficulty reversing!
I did try to find out whether other vehicles had reversing cameras but couldn’t find out much. Unless reversing locked down under fire, couldn’t an MBT crew member just look?
Closed down
I think Mastiff has cameras. In normal situations (no shooting) vehicles are ground commanded, guided by hand signals.
Does it work?…..(sorry couldnt resist🙂)
Ooh! Cutting😁
Yes they do👍
Because its Safety! Safety mods are always Priority 1 irrespective of service life remaining.
Why do they have to put a value on the contract? Put it out to tender and see what quotes come back.
I would have thought the army has the ability to install military grade cameras on warrior in house, especially if it’s just to cover until 2025.
Bet Halfords could do it cheaper.
Just upgrade them !! Stick them in storage when replacements finally arrive.Has nobodyin MOD learnt anything from Ukraine/ Russia?
Will the cameras work at night, when the British army traditionally fights?
they should have gone to Halfords
Fit it to the 432. In nuclear Armageddon only cockroaches and 432/Bulldog survive. Crack on another 62 years with the rear view camera
Is anyone in the MOD /Government actually keeping tabs on these procurement costs? I thought money was on short supply for the Army? You could almost buy 4 more Boxers for that money? 😁
Mil spec: which means mil spec components, connecters, temperature range. Things like MTBF. The IP rating.shock and vibration testing.Has it all been certified to the correct standards (EMC etc) thats it why it costs that much. And how many car reversing cameras do you find dont work after a bit, quite a few. Not what you want on a military vehicle
Think this is the 1st Step in re-starting the Warrior upgrade. and there was a feasibility that was bounced around of taken the Bradley Turret and grafting onto the Warrior. to shorten development and design costs.
Has nobody asked why it will cost 56k per vehicle to do 2k worth of work on these vehicles?