More than a third of the Ajax vehicles in a recent British Army training exercise were linked to new noise and vibration injuries, the UK Defence Journal understands.
The scale of the affected fleet comes at a time when ministers have signalled that all options remain on the table for the programme’s future.
A written parliamentary answer on 4 December confirmed that twenty three Ajax family vehicles were associated with thirty soldiers who reported symptoms during the 22 November exercise. Sixty one vehicles took part in total, placing the proportion at roughly thirty eight percent.
Luke Pollard, Minister of State at the Ministry of Defence, said in his response that “none of the symptoms were severe enough to require hospitalisation”. He added that the activity was halted within thirty minutes so personnel could receive medical support and reiterated that “safety of personnel is a top priority”.
The UK Defence Journal understands that ministers have privately indicated a willingness to consider ending the programme if the results of the ongoing army inquiry and the separate safety investigation point to systemic issues. A senior figure in Defence said that “I will take whatever decisions are required” once findings from both reviews are presented.
The number of affected vehicles continues to raise questions about whether recent modifications have mitigated vibration and noise problems to the level expected.
Senior GD employee’s remarks draw attention
Yesterday we reported that a senior employee of General Dynamics UK, whose public profile lists several years working on Ajax testing and acceptance activity, posted comments on a widely viewed Facebook page suggesting that most of the vehicle’s reported problems stem from crew error, poor maintenance and command shortcomings. His remarks appeared in response to ongoing discussions among soldiers and trial personnel about persistent faults.
The comments were made from an account that identifies the individual as an Acceptance Manager. He stated that “apart from coolant leaks, everything else is user driven or command shortfall”, the exchange gained traction due to his seniority within the contractor responsible for delivering the programme.
General Dynamics UK was invited to clarify whether the comments reflected the company’s position or whether the matter would be addressed internally.
“General Dynamics Land Systems UK is taking this matter very seriously. The comments referenced do not reflect those of the company in any way nor do they align with our core values. We have the utmost respect for those serve to protect our nation and our allies and remain committed to deliver equipment that meets the highest standards to ensure their safety and wellbeing.
We continue to work collaboratively with the MoD in the delivery and support of the Ajax family of vehicles, underpinning our shared commitment to soldier safety. We have initiated an internal investigation in relation to the comments which will ensure we take appropriate actions in line with our HR policy.”
The remarks arrive at a moment when ministers have signalled openness to major decisions on Ajax’s future and when new injury data indicates that a significant share of vehicles in active training continues to be affected by noise and vibration problems.
The usual British Leyland QA approach of blaming the reviewer for the bits that fell off the car.
Then shoot the messenger – I sense a P45 moment.
Alls well then.
The bigger and more basic problem is army platform bloat. The single ‘do everything’ approach constantly destroys good programs.
SB, what do you mean by the single ‘do everything’ approach? Are you suggesting that the Ajax recce vehicle is multi-role?
I’m suggesting that it has been announced that it covers a number of roles and that to do so a range of other kit is fitted which drives weight gain.
That may be a chain of erroneous assumption but I suspect there is something to that.
My issue is if it’s weight causing the problems, which it seems to be. Isn’t anyone asking what about the future. What military vehicle in modern service has not had it’s wieght increased over time as new equipment is added. If it can’t handle it today there is a serious problem.
Maybe the crew should lose weight ?
They started with a vehicle that was never designed to get anywhere near that weight & kept increasing the weight. Designers of vehicles like Lynx & Redback sat down & worked out that they were looking at a 40t vehicle very early on & adjusted accordingly. 40+ ton armoured vehicles are reasonably common. Plenty of companies know how to build 40+ ton armoured vehicles. The heaviest WW1 tanks were around 30t so there is plenty of experience. Ajax is how not to design & build an armoured vehicle.
The problems with N&V have existed since ASCOD in GD’s own Carew Wilkes stated during parliamentary questioning that ‘Noise & Vibration have been a feature of the ASCOD design since the project commenced in 2010’
This tells us two things 1. 26T ASCOD sufferes N&V before Ajax 2. GD knew of these problems and never did anything to correct the design. Well, other than supply cushions and ear plugs….
SB,
Your post puzzles me: “I’m suggesting that it has been announced that it covers a number of roles and that to do so a range of other kit is fitted which drives weight gain.
AJAX is an armoured recce vehicle replacing CVR(T) SCIMITAR. Recce is its role. It is fitted with Special-To-Role equipment focussed exclusively on conducting recce. It does not carry equipment that relates to another role. However if ever released from its recce tasks for a time a certain number of AJAX vehs could carry out other tasks (Flank Protection, Fire Support/Strike) with no change to its on-board role equipment.
Other variants in the AJAX family replace other CVR(T) types ie have a different role.
ARES (a limited seating capacity APC) delivers up to 4 soldiers (dismounts) who have a unique specialist role such as sniper teams, anti-tank teams etc.
ATHENA is for Command and Control
ARGUS is for Engineer (ie RE) Reconnaissance
ATLAS is for Recovery (REME)
APOLLO is for Repair (REME)
The Spanish Factory that built substandard hulls has ISO 9001 accreditation, this paperwork box ticking exercise clearly has nothing to with product quality!
When GD reference to those who serve and protect our nation they are presumably referring to US forces? As General Dynamics is of course a US company. They are clearly not interested in resolving this issue. The solution is known and used on M10 Booker.
All this project has achieved is fund GD’s A vehicle sector in Spain and provide an unusable vehicle at the cost of £100 for every head of the UK population all 69,500,000 of them. UK got £40 million in investment out of6.3Billion spent and whist the Vehicle is unusable, eight years late & obsolete DE&S and GD are applying for awards for the best managed Mega project. You can’t make this up!!
Why was a contract placed to a company with no design team? factory? pedigree? or experience? and given a full production contract before a product was developed or existed? And a p TV price described as British from its boot straps then sourced from a company in Spain who had no pedigree either. Other than of course having license build Leopard 2 taken away from them because their quality, process control, and build was so appallingly bad it was unacceptable
What is the solution used on the M10?
M10 Booker cancelled
M10 and Ajax are both ASCOD derived platforms and originally both used Torsion Bar suspension with patented Spanish dampers along with Spanish running gear this is the cause of Ajax’s problems. M10 Program learnt from this and replaced the problematic suspension with Horstman hydro pneumatic suspension.
As if by magic vibration and ride issues solved!
So GD know the fix but refuse to resolve the problem. M10 & Ajax are near identical weights at 42T
ASCOD was 26T the extra weight is too much for the suspension. So there is a simple solution.
Looking at the Spanish website, they do have more advanced, heavy duty rotary dampers. The AR29T & the AR35 can cope with greater loads than the ARo1 used on some Ascod spin offs.
Strange that GD promised all items on Ajax would be offered to British industry, and in England we have Horstman the world leader in damping & suspension. The system that is used on M10 successfully GD have buggered about for z generation with damping and running gear fiddles on an inherently noisy& vibey platform and not sorted it when we know what the solution is
GD UK have squandered all the money, they made around £6,000 loss in 2023 and £10,000 in 2024. Their gravy train has run out, my guess is 1 billion to change the suspension and tracks, the cost would have been a lot less in 2018 when the problems were first known. Their only asset is the factory in Wales and Ferrari’s the overpaid management bought by the con.
pete, thanks. I guess GDUK spent an awful lot of money to convert a disused folk lift truck factory to an AFV build operation. Training all those guys who had never before even seen an AFV must have cost a bit. Super-annuated salaries to the execs. Profits return to the parent in the US. Shipping costs and profits to the Spanish side of GD. Rectifying all the faults. All adds up.
But making those losses on a £multi-bn order is a surprise.
GDUK will probably fold soon.
When I was in corporate world Pete the company I worked for invariably made a loss! even though we were contributing £Millions to Corporate and regional HQ’s by the way of management charges, IPR use, Trademark use, etc etc. It never really made sense to make profit in the UK!
I believe GD’s UK investment was £40M out of £6.3 Billion so .63 of 1% impressive don’t you think? considering they also reneged on their promise to provide over 10,000 jobs and that Ajax would be British from its boot straps with all parts being offered to UK industry which also didn’t happen
GD corp reports increasing profits though. GD UK will be sucked dry by corporate & Spain. It doesn’t pay to make profit in the UK.
If its just the Ajax variant and there’s a solution instead of chucking it all on the bin wasting billions then fix the things if it’s costs are not too exorbitant. Might be millions to save billions! Can they get any compensation from GDUK for any of the other noise and manufacturing quality ssues?
Whats happening to the 80 or so Bookers?
I suspect GD will point to the 2016 “recast” when the British Army did a major change to the spec.
Well then the UK may have to take it on the chin and pay for the fix. Can’t keep overloading the design if it’s not built for it.
If GD refuse to fix maybe its time to return all to sender and fill up their car park? Pretty pathetic isn’t it? If there’s a fix some strong instructions from on high might be needed to get them to implement it and share costs. This Ajax debacle is seriously giving a lot of people the shits.
M10 and Ajax are both ASCOD derived platforms and originally both used Torsion Bar suspension with patented Spanish dampers along with Spanish running gear this is the cause of Ajax’s problems. M10 Program learnt from this and replaced the problematic suspension with Horstman hydro pneumatic suspension.
As if by magic vibration and ride issues solved!
So GD know the fix but refuse to resolve the problem. M10 & Ajax are near identical weights at 42T
ASCOD was 26T the extra weight is too much for the suspension. So there is a simple solution.
I believe a Hydrogas Suspension & rubberised Tracks were also used in Genral Dynamics “spiraled development” all New Blackjax, so if does appear that this is their own work around to the noise & vibration complications. & “if” everyone in the room knows the “fix” then the problem is not with the engineering….but the cost of not only the work but the who pay’s for it, & I believe that is the true issue here. Kind Regards P.
If all parties are at some fault then why can’t they come to some shared costs agreement?
You are flat wrong abut Booker. It was, and is, a ground up new design. Nothing was derived from ASCOD.
Yes, the Booker concept vehicle used a bunch of ASCOD kit from the spare parts bin (including hull) but once the US Army’s interest was gained, a brand new vehicle was designed that shares nothing with ASCOD.
Lord B, I agree with nearly all that you post. But GDUK (or GDLSUK) who make Ajax is a British registered and based company albeit with a US parent, so the comments were surely directed at soldiers from ATDU, HCR and 6 Bn REME.
This controversial representative of GDLSUK is their Acceptance Manager (who was previously Trial Manager for the Ajax Reliability Growth Trials and before that the Ajax Trials Manager) who has worked closely with ATDU and the two units (HCR and 6 Bn REME) who were initially issued with Ajax. Surprisingly he is ex-Army and had a full and long military career; it looks like he was commissioned from the ranks having reached WO1 (RTR).
Surely the company in Spain that supplied the ‘possibly’ sub-standard hulls was GDELS Spain (formerly Santa Bárbara Sistemas, estb in 1960 as a private company from the much older state-owned armaments sector). They make Pizarro IFV (ASCOD) and the wheeled military vehicles: BMR, VCR Dragón, VEC) – so they had some pedigree. They also collaborated on Leopard 2E and AMX-30E.
How does a company who produces substandard hulls still have ISO 9001 quality accreditation, its likely the older skilled workers retired and perhaps were replaced with lesser experienced ones or they were being used on other production lines. Brexit resentment may have played its part.
Hi Pete,
ISO 9001 of itself is a Quality Management System and does not guarantee Product Quality. Quality Management systems have to be used! For example Boeing Commercial Aircraft meet ISO9001 requirements but what happened with 737MAX?, 787 etc. Management has live the system – unfortunately too often they buck the system due to pressure for progress, revenue, stage payments etc. Like any top it is only good if used!
delete Top and replace with tool!
Hi Graham,
Thank you for your response. I have particular views on GD but will not bore you with them! I realise GDLSUK are UK registered (GDLS Europe are headquartered in Spain) and Merthyr will be paying dues to corporate. Of course there are no Parent Company guarantees on this project.
With regard to SBS I think there is ample public domain data regarding the quality, or lack of on the first 150 hulls. Sub standard welding, Hulls with non parallel sides, Sides differing length, Bores not square, mounting holes on wrong centres, IIRC one report went as far as to say there could be no standard solution as every hull was different with unique characteristics! Not a great advert for quality and standardisation! Now allegedly the Army and GD are in favour of fitting Soucy CRT’s as a universal panacea. Whilst it will certainly assist it will not of itself resolve Ajax’s problems. I watched Luke Pollard take questions on the matter from among others James Cartlidge On parliamentary TV last evening. It was interesting to note that individual build of vehicles is a major issue as it was mentioned that apparently only some vehicles cause Health & Safety problems!
With regard to Mr Skivington, as he is so convinced the vehicle is perfect, I suggest he is driven round in the back of an ARES for a couple of hours and see if he feels the same then? GD have obviously told employees to ‘wind it in’ as they have been very conspicuous by their absence. However I am told GD do have a reputation of hijacking the chain of command (both here and in the US) as Directors and employees to ‘secure’ their position regardless of performance.
This perhaps applies to MR Skivington? In his Army roles he was responsible for ensuring that equipment was safe and fit for purpose, now? responsible for getting equipment accepted asap with minimum fuss – Sort of Gamekeeper turned poacher? If I were a cynical man, I would want to know when MR Skivington was first sounded out about a role in GD……
Hi Lord B, thanks for the post. We are on the same page. The poor work by the Spanish part of GD is rather inexplicable, as is the probable lack of monitoring their work in Spain by Merthyr Tydfil staff.
The Soucy tracks will not totally solve the N&V problem but I am sure that it will be trialled.
I see that Mr Skivington is no longer on LinkedIn – perhaps he is now unemployed! There was a rumour that GD banned its personnel from travelling in any of the Ajax vehicles…surely not!
👍😉
Well done UKDJ for reporting this. It has now been taken up by the Financial Times and I hope by the rest of the MSM. No employee of a contractor should be allowed to get away with being this rude to their customer. I was Navy, many years ago, and equipment was always “sailor proof” , and still worked to spec. To blame your customer, the end user, comes under the heading of rank stupidity, I hope the man Skivington gets fired next week.
Bad choice of builder, poor standards and all in all bad management. Should simply oddered some thing like CV90 already in service and just modded it. Every time we do this bespoke stuff it never works. over due, as always. And some are saying add the Ajax IFV to the list to be ordered, god help us that will be over priced and crap as well.
Order off the shelf in service would have saved time and injury we will never learn. Too late to scrap it we gave the CVRT’s away and no fall back,
I don’t necessarily agree and whilst as a taxpayer it pains me to say it I believe scrapping this piece of rubbish might prove cheaper in the long run. Ongoing maintenance issues and fixes will follow and when the claims come rolling in for injuries and health problems to our service personnel we will be being spending yet more on this disastrous basket case.
Bite the bullet and buy something off the shelf from someone who knows what they are doing even if it only does 90% of what we would ideally like it to do.
should ordered CV90, tested and inservice else where always being up dated. Like the Warrior up grade AJAX is a total disater but i feel it will not get scrapped as we have nothing to replace it and we have scrapped or given away the older kit we had. Who ever draws up or contracts seems not get a get out clause or money back if it does not work. My understand and i may be wrong on this is GD have pay for the fixes not the MOD or is that incorrct ie its fixed price contract which GD is may loosing money on?
They have had years to ‘fix’ it but not succeeded! There has to be a point when someone says enough is enough and this can’t be fixed.
I read that IF GD UK are liable for the rebuild Ajax could require it will bankrupt the company.
If scrapped there is at least a 3-5yr wait on CV 90 depending on variant ordered!looking about the only AFV we could get relatively quickly (1yr) are upgraded Bradley’s with all the trouble that brings with the tantrums of Trump🙄
Basically we are bollocksed!
Farce after farce, no tracked repacement even on radar for Warror, CV 90 would be the way to go for a full fleet that is tried and tested even in combat and up dated. 3 year delay is not far off how long it will take fix the mess that is Ajax its never a simple fix.
I feel it besat carry on and fix it rather than buy new off the shelf, in reguard to Ajax and its class of vehicles. Then as likely the Ajax IFV will have issues what do we do as we need a new IFV tracked and to replace 432’s/Bulldog. Boxer will not cut it and massive very tall etx.
Ajax as rece? its a bit loud and big for that un like the CVRT was.
Well as Steve has pointed out below the wait on anything is going to be eons before its in service!
Wasn’t Patria 6×6 being rumoured for 432 and the protected mobility fleet replacement?
I agree with his comment and yes at least 3/5 years to enter service with trials etc and the long delay in build time. As for Patria i have heard that but its as far as i know no more than a may be, replacing tracked 432 with a wheeled 6×6 will come back and bite the Army just as if replacing Warrior with Boxer if that happens.
Wheeled can not do all tracked can, and that might be put to the test and found wanting just as RCH 155 is good but wheeled.
It’s going to happen in the RE,losing 432 and getting Boxer in the CS Regts as the section vehicles,at the moment the others have Mastiff etc as a stop gap,better than a truck but not really suitable for the task in hand!
Thats it, its not a good as a tracked vehicle at some things which will likely come out after they are all ordered. The Army will either put up and shut up as normal and deny its an issue or have to order something else
Going to be a lot more than 3-5 years. That would just be the wait before stuff can start being built, the hundreds on order would take several years after that. Plus have to redo all the testing, so realistically adding a decade or more to the program.
No good options at this point, either take the financial loss and accept the extended gap in capability or accept the compromised Ajax.
Martin, the biggest disaster with the Warrior upgrade was that development and testing wasn’t finished and that it wasn’t introduced into service, some years ago.
My understanding is that the Ajax (and variants) contract is firm price and that GD have to pay for any issues that have needed resolving. MoD would pay for any implemetation of the army’s changes to the Staff Requirement during development.
As the vehicle is still at the IOC stage, the contractor should be still be under contract to fix any faults during the operational evaluation stage that leads up to FOC.
That is true it was never fully trialed and was mistake cancleing it it would solved an IFV problem for a many a year. Glad to know Ajax is fixed price GD will not make any money on it that is why they blame others i guess.
Martin, GDUK as a company has made losses 2 years running.
You easy see why, the stuff they make is crap
90% is still 100% more than this unusable junk provides!
Yes while i think if everyone sat down together , behaved responsibly and implemented all the best practices that were inplemented into the Booker vehicle such as new chassis new suspension and a whole host of other modifucations including building Chassis at home not abroad , which were all learnt on the back of Ajax program . The Booker design is like an Ajax 2 version. There is a part of me thinking if only UK adopts the GD design its kind of an evolutionary dead end even if it does become successful . Maybe we are better just latching onto German designs and keep it simple, and focus uk skills in other areas ourside of medium heavy vehicles . Let Rheinmetal or knd buy out out the factory in Wales and start building vehicles there thst already exist and ready to go .
The USA has 800 Bradley M3 in storage, perhaps they could used.
by the time they up graded to A4’s etc we would be able field some thing else but bradley is better than what we have at least it can fire on the move and destroy tanks, though its dismount is only 6 soldiersi
There are better vehicles than Bradley. US are upgrading vehicles they already have. Makes sense. Nothing new. If in doubt, look at the M113 & Ukraine. They have just about every version ever made. Some are best forgotten. Some are still operating on the front line. Some are outright weird (but apparently work). To assume US is happy to give Bradley’s away right now is perhaps pushing it. Just because a nation has something in storage does not mean they don’t want it. UK with its present accounting practices re the military & stored assets are not how the rest of the world works.
Martin, one fallback if Ajax is to be cast aside is to conitnue using Warrior as an interim recce wagon, and integrate the new ISTAR kit to it. It would cost some money to do but not £billions.
its better than nothing, but no idea what state Warriors are in and how many are servicable, I may be wrong but did we stop making 30mm radan gun rounds or did we have restart due the kit we gave Ukraine.
Warrior is a sound vehicle but even it is at the end of its days, not up grading it will and has come back on the MOD an as always it will cost more to sort out than if we just went through with the yp grade. Always sort sighted the MOD
“General Dynamics Land Systems UK is taking this matter very seriously.” How long has this persisted?
Wow well if they are taking seriousley i’d had to see what it like when can not be arsed. 8 years late and still counting. Who pays for the fixes needed the MOD or company that built it but can not yet get to the right standrard?
Absolutely.
Cancel the programme. No more of this sunk cost crap. Cancel it before the amount of delivered vehicles becomes too great, then buy off the shelf to replace it.
I think the problem is the government has already handed 5 billion over and the firm contract is 5.5 billion so all the costs are essentially sunk already it’s about getting GD to deliver.
That’s how it should be, but they won’t deliver though, this project is already significantly late and the issues aren’t new and still they have not been addressed beyond the bare minimum to see what they can get away with, it also seems the issues were accepted and somewhat covered up by the Army to declare IOC. I can’t see GD actually being held liable for anything, the U.K. seems to avoid accountability in defence.
That leaves the U.K. with the choice of either putting up the money itself to fix the problem or an alternative program, there have been indications this is looking like a hull redesign and new suspension starting at £1.6 Billion, programs always go over so it would likely be a lot more. There is also the risk of more poor design work by a company that has consistently not delivered in the U.K (AJAX, Morpheus), at the point you have to redesign and replace the hull and suspension it’s time to just look for an established vehicle rather than risk new design issues and the years of redevelopment and still have to start over (basically what happened since 2022). They have had years to fix the issues but haven’t, why would that change now, especially at their cost ?
Why can’t all concerned parties say that they have all stuffed up, agree to put in and get on with it? You can’t just bin $5.5bn! That’s 2 Astutes, 7 T26s and probably 10 T31s worth. Seriously not funny.
Yet alternatives already exist from others & in production. Why redesign the wheel if you don’t end up with a better wheel? This has taken so long, it’s no longer relevant. MoD needs to get over it. They stuffed up. Move on or you will waste even more money. Buy something you can take for a test drive.
I have no problem with R&D. But build something & prove it works then build a heap more. Don’t build a heap & hope to prove it works.
Political dynamite for Merthyr Tydfil. Welsh assembly elections next year.
Labour are screwed regardless. Good riddance.
It does look likely that Plaid Cymru will take control of the Welsh assembly next year, though some of the energy of the resurgent sense of Welsh identity may be hijacked by Reform. In any case it is the end of an era: How Green was my Valley. The interesting thing about England is that the Conservatives, who have traditionally laid claim to being the ‘one nation’ party, screwed things up and got kicked out. It does look as if they are dying. The resurgent sense of English national as evidenced by Brexit, is being fought over by Labour, Reform, the Greens and the Libdems. Labour has the strongest claim to represent the heart of English identity, not least because they closed their conference with Jerusalem – the unofficial English national anthem 🙂
Huh, we naysayers and tinfoil types proved right eh? It is a hunk of junk. Should wean ourselves off the US MIC asap. There is excellent European and Korean kit just waiting. However our bought/lobbied politicians are in total denial as usual.
At least Pollard has indicated scraping is an option.
My guess is that it is issues like Ajax, Argus and the deal with Norway on MCM ships and helicopter that is delaying the DIP.
I doubt the programme will be halted due to the government’s commitment to increasing UK content in any defence contract. Ajax is not the first British military vehicle to have a catalogue of issues. Admittedly, this one must be up there with the Churchill, but the latter did come good in the end.
May rubber tracks go some way to improving ride and handling, along with suspension adjustments? However, one solution could be to strip down the heaviest variants and split their functions. This would effectively mean a less modern gun system and a lighter turret/gun, and an increased number built. The current Ajax spec could then be transferred to another platform capable of carrying the additional weight. Another option could be halting Ajax but retaining the rest of the range. This would open the door to an off-the-shelf purchase for the latter; however, the current Ajax gun fleet could be considered as a possible autonomous platform with limited man-hours, thus avoiding any long-term waste.
Maurice, the heaviest vehicle in the Ajax family is probably the Scout Vehicle ie recce wagon. How can you split down the functions of a recce vehicle?
Graham, right now, the MOD is looking at all options, and the continued rollout of the least affected vehicles makes sense. As for a compromised Ajax gun platform, the ‘would like to haves’ and what is feasible must mean a lot of ‘the goodies’ are simply not available. Remember, the Ajax family is replacing the CVT vehicle, which served well and is apparently still much missed. I’m suggesting a compromised position using a less sophisticated gun, including all the digital advancements, until such time as an acceptable outcome is achieved. You are an old hand at the tank business, and I bet you know just how complex this issue will be in terms of costs and time.
Hi Maurice, thanks. I am very familiar with CVR(T); my LAD in 1976 did maintenance on 8 Scimitars.
The MoD has suggested that they will have a review within about 2 weeks, majoring quite correctly on crew safety. The issues with the gun not working properly due to excessive vibration I thought had been fixed and that extensive firing trials had been held some time ago – if not and the issue remains, then tinkering with or swapping out the 40mm CTAS gun for something else would not solve anything. The vibration would still have to be reduced.
I’m not sure what ‘would like to have’ goodies are on the recce version that can be discarded. Army vehicles rarely have unnecessary kit. Why chuck out any kit if it doesn’t solve any residual noise and vibration issues…and leaves you with a recce wagon that can’t do recce.
Its not just the turreted AJAX, its 3 out of 6 variants with reported issues so far, only 1 of the 3 has a turret, the others all use specialized equipment for their role, if you look at the variants could you see any that could be split down further ? It’s already a fleet of specialized vehicles rather than one design do all, even if you could break it down further, why would you, more money, more crews, more maintenance, more logistics support needed to cover up for poor design decisions requiring a larger fleet than would be required by alternatives. The BA need efficiency more than ever with how limited numbers are.
The problem is the basics are wrong. So everything you try to do from there is in trouble. Get the basics right & you have a solid base to work from. You can still get it wrong, but if you need to reset, you can. If the basics are wrong, everything else will also be wrong no matter what you do.
ATJ, good post. The BA has a long history of buying families of vehicles based on a common or near-common chassis or hull, the most memorable of which are Alvis Saracen and variants, FV430 family, CVR(T) family, Warrior family, Centurion tank family, Chieftain variants, Challenger 1 variants, Challenger 2 and variants.
It’s not great and I’m not trying to shine a turd with that statement.. but 30% is a quality control issue and not an irreversible flaw, so that is good new all round..it also means 60% are working and our exception to the not working is greater.
I think the evidence is GD land is taking the government for a fool in regards to its quality control ( American run companies have a bad culture in regards to work for the government that can be summed up in the American saying “ good enough for government work” once it meant work for the government had to be good, in modern American corporate culture it means you can pass any shod onto the government and it to incompetent to care or notice.
So it does mean that if GD are slammed in the face hard enough every time they produce a poor vehicle ( as in get to pay for damages in behalf of the injured soldiers or some such punishment) and given a bit of a carrot every time a good vehicle pops out..
I do think this shows one of the dangers of a firm price contract without any performance element.. don’t get me wrong firm price is good but it must have both a performance element and a failure clause.
Hi Jonathan, this project is based on a string of milestones agreed in advance between the Prime and the MoD. If the vehicles and/or other Project deliverables meet the criteria set for a given milestone, a staged payment is made. Thus MoD must have agreed that all milestones so far have been met and signed off on them!
Additionally each vehicle or perhaps a selection of vehicles in a very large batch needs to go through a handover and acceptance procedure – I do not have the details of that.
Each vehicle
The GD US submarine project is 12 -16 months behind schedule and likely cost hundreds of millions more. Price 115 billion, new estimate 145 Billion.
This should have been binned years ago as the manufacturer had clearly mis-sold us a turkey and an off the shelf option bought. But no. That would make far too much sense.
I expect GD will blame the Army for “recasting” the project in 2016. It started in 2011, production contract in 2014, then major changes when the Army moved the goalposts.
From what I can find online:
180 out of 589 Ajax Vehicles have been delivered to the army so far.
Of those 91 are the turreted Recce version.
Not sure which variant(s) the other 89 are.
Junk the lot, cancel the contract/s and tell General Dynamics, to take their rubbish, and (try to) sell it elsewhere!
Unsellable (they don’t work). However many components are fine. Engines, drivetrains etc are low hours (barely used) commonly used military equipment. In this case, the component parts are worth more that the complete vehicle.
Some adjustments to the defence industry plan then?
I wonder if the solution is to order some boxer 40mm CTA modules. Give the army the punch they need and other options, whilst at the same time giving GD/MOD time to sort Ajax.
The boxer modules would still be useful when Ajax finally gets into service, so not money wasted.
Boxer might not be ideal for a scout role but realistically that role is being filled by drones anyway, so more about fire support for dispersed forces.
Patria could offer the AMV35 Combat Reconnaissance Vehicle perhaps?
Would take a long time to build and would be a duplication should they ever get Ajax sorted. But could be an option depending on cost and timeframe.
I was thinking the 40mm because we already have the boxer platform being built and we have the guns in stock from the failed warrior upgrade.
In 2021, the quoted cost of a round of 40mm CTA was £250. Smaller cannons £20 a round.
The CTA 40 was a bad decision, rounds are a complicated construction which makes them very expensive,
, barrel life is 750-800 rounds it has a high recoil and complicated magazine system. For a Government with a strained defence budget this was economic madness.
Maybe but the mod has already decided to go down that route with Ajax, so makes sense to have a common ammo.
Australia have already fielded a Boxer recce vehicle, so it exits, but with a 30mm Mauser 30mm AB capable cannon. They are currently busy building & exporting it back to Germany (not as a recce vehicle – but it also has 2 inbuilt Spike missiles). I have heard that LM have designed a Boxer CTA turreted module but don’t believe it has been built. Personally I think a Foxhound /Hawkei / JLTV type vehicle with 30mm RWS is where this is moving to post Ukraine. ie small & fast.
Assuming reliable anti drone tech isn’t discovered, I really don’t know what the solution is. Fast and agile is fine until spotted, but the drone would still be faster and more agile so your hoping not to get spotted. On the flip side slow moving and heavy armoured just means once spotted artillery and drone swarms can be used and eventually take you out before you get away.
The approach of both Russia and Ukraine is heavily mine areas to cause choke points as the only viable routes, and make constant survallince viable. As such avoiding being discovered would be difficult.
Steve, our army does not do all or even most of its recce by drones. Why do you have that idea? Even if it were the case, why would you want a re-worked Ajax in service if drones cover the role?
Correct it does not. It is also equipped for the last war and not the next. The US is already pivoting by canceling multiple recon programs like it’s helicopters one. The world has changed.
Would love to know the chap who made the decision to sideline BAE and go GD 🫣
I can only guess at the closed door discussions:
1. BAE: I told you so
2. MOD: Let’s use then as drones to frighten the Russians
3. British Army: Bradley or CV90
We should employ the Australian MOD to procure equipment for the UK – seems to me that they make good decisions that are generally efficient in their delivery to the troops and with much better capability in Land assets.
At the time it was “anyone but BAE” as HM Gov/Treasury/MoD did not want to take any blame for the Nimrod MRA4 fiasco. I think the fault lies with whoever decided not to do new build, but fit new wings to old twisted fuselages. No one has admitted to that, as far as I know. Plus there was some talk of a dodgy deal over the factory in Wales that might have swung the decision.
The someone who had shares in the company who refurbished the corroded air frames perhaps?
I am sure they are more than happy to provide. Redback IFV, K9 tracked SPH, Boxer CRV, Hawkei, Bushmaster. Some of the best Armoured steel available. UK should not have been & did not need to be in this position. UK cannot even build a combat rifle anymore. Australia has two modern versions to pick from (both from Lithgow – 1 bullpup & 1 conventional design). Lithgow started in 1912 licence building UK designs. They still do, but only AWS sniper rifles. What happened?
I’d just to point out the year is alsmost 2026 and we are still on about this.
Uk should have bought AS21 Redback in the first place. We wasted money f#@king around with Ajax and still haven’t deployed with Russia looking for war with NATO we need to build our forces and quick we should also buy arrow 3 from the Israel to protect UK from air attack
Colin,
Redback is an IFV, not a recce vehicle.
The thing was, is and will always be a lemon. We should cut our losses before more money is added to the money pit, Buy more boxers with extra cargo pods if needed. Or get CV90.
Still a disaster. Mind you the upside is two thirds are OK, which sems some result after such a torrid development history. Why do so many UK defence p[rograms & cuts seem designed for the benefit of our enemies?
Oviusly NOT fixed, so GD have been telling untruths just to get tgis nit of junk into service so they can get paid. SCR it NOW….