The British Army is partway through a long-term shift in the vehicles it uses, replacing older platforms with newer, more capable ones.
Some vehicles are being upgraded, others are being retired, and a number of new ones are only just starting to enter service. The process is ongoing and in many cases still years from completion.
There are currently 219 Challenger 2 tanks in the Army’s fleet. That number is being reduced to 148, all of which will be upgraded to the Challenger 3 standard by 2027. The new version will include a redesigned turret, a 120 millimetre smoothbore gun, improved protection, and a laser warning system. It will also be fitted with an active protection system designed to defeat incoming threats and a more powerful engine that increases its top speed to 60 kilometres per hour. Challenger 3 will equip three regular armoured regiments and one Army Reserve regiment, the Royal Wessex Yeomanry.
Ajax is being brought in to replace the CVR(T) family of reconnaissance vehicles. There are six variants in total: Ajax, Athena, Ares, Apollo, Atlas, and Argus. These will be used by reconnaissance regiments, artillery fire support teams, engineers, and logistics units. So far, 128 have been delivered. The total number is expected to reach 589 by 2029. Ajax is also the first British Army vehicle to be fitted with the 40 millimetre Case Telescoped Cannon.
Boxer is a new wheeled armoured vehicle being built for use across a wide range of Army units. The British Army has ordered 623 Boxers, with the first ones due to reach initial operating capability in 2025. Boxer is set to replace Warrior and protected mobility vehicles such as Mastiff, Ridgeback, and Wolfhound. It will be used by infantry battalions, engineers, artillery, signals, electronic warfare units, medical teams, and more. Different versions will be fitted with a mix of heavy machine guns, grenade machine guns, and general-purpose machine guns, mounted on remote weapon stations.
The Warrior infantry fighting vehicle remains in service, with 613 vehicles still in use. These are being gradually withdrawn as Boxer comes into service. Some have been reassigned to reconnaissance roles since the retirement of the FV107 Scimitar. Others are still used by artillery and engineering units.
Bulldog, a variant of the older FV430, is still used as a command vehicle, mortar carrier, and battlefield ambulance. Around 744 are in service across infantry, medical, and equipment support units. A replacement programme is expected to begin in 2025, but the new platform has not yet been selected.
Several armoured patrol vehicles brought into service during operations in Iraq and Afghanistan are still in use. These include 297 Mastiff vehicles, 164 Ridgebacks, and 83 Wolfhounds. They are used by heavy mechanised infantry battalions and support units. All three types are set to be replaced by Boxer.
Jackal and Coyote vehicles remain in service with light cavalry and reconnaissance forces. Jackal 2 is the main variant, with 502 in service. Coyote is a longer, six-wheel version used to carry supplies. A new version, Jackal 3, has been ordered with an initial contract for 70 vehicles and options for more.
Foxhound is used by light and light mechanised infantry battalions in 1st (UK) Division and 16 Air Assault Brigade. Some are also used by resident battalions in Cyprus. There are 395 Foxhounds in service. The vehicle is smaller and lighter than other protected mobility vehicles, but still offers protection against improvised explosive devices.
A small number of RWMIK Land Rovers remain in service as a specialist capability within 16 Air Assault Brigade.
Taken together, these changes show a shift toward a more modern fleet with fewer types of vehicles. Many older platforms are still in use while new ones are delivered and brought into service. Some key fleets, including Boxer and Ajax, are not expected to be fully fielded until later in the decade.
British Army and MOD faffing about with equipment in the GUCCI shop
Just seems to be no sense of urgency at all!! A decade to wait for any full capability🤣😒😤
Meanwhile, in my messages and feed …
Fundraisers asking me to promote and donate to Fundraisers for any 4 X 4 vehicles (like your mum and dad’s Volkswagen Tiguan ) for various Ukrainian Brigades to get to the frontline and fight
Stick a drone jammer on, and off they go to war
I disagree, I think it’s a really great idea turning a £10 million pound gucci reconnaissance vehicle into an ambulance or a tow truck so we can act like it’s a CVRT family of vehicles. Better yet let’s use it as an APC with a whopping four dismounts and a machine gun on the top. That kind of fire power is clearly worth £10 million per vehicle. 😀
I think defence economics should be taught at sandhurst. I don’t think anyone in the upper level of the British army understands bang for buck.
GD must have been laughing all the way to the bank 🤑
Our budget is massive, we could easily go back to a force of 100,000 if we choose 80% off the shelf solutions like Patria 6*6 or CV90.
One Ajax costs the same as the annual personnel costs of an entire battalion of light infantry for a year.
Well said! Absolutely bloody ludicrous situation – £10,000,000 vehicles that can’t move due to drone vulnerabilities no APS, ISTAR system until end of decade at the earliest. Four dismounts??? Really? I would a Q&A session with senior commanders over their thought patterns here….
CV 90 has a unit cost of $9m/11m in recent contracts. So similar to Ajax and with no UK content. The initial 2019 Boxer contract cost@ £4.5m per unit, very similar to the price paid by the German Army.
I have contrasted the cost of the French afv programmes before. They appear to be much more affordable. In particular, the Jaguar seems to have avoided all of the problems Ajax suffered with CTA.
But, all of the vehicles ordered under project Scorpion are based on a commercial truck chassis and may be significantly less capable off road.
Also, the final unit cost of Jaguar and Griffon was higher than the initial target, with Jaguar costing @ $6.5m, though still much lower than Ajax .
Finally, France did not have to regenerate afv manufacturing from scratch after privatized BAE bought then closed down most production sites.
It is worrying that it will be 2030 before CH3 Ajax and Boxer reach FOC. And we still have to rebuild artillery capability with no firm contract in place yet.
For the future, we absolutely need to move to a good enough approach to procurement and break the pattern of ever rising unit costs of AFVs, aircraft, ships. If we don’t, any rise in the defence budget ( if that ever happens) will be swallowed up with little increase in mass.
Still no ISTAR system despite spending £823,000,000 with GD for no deliverables – Will DE&S seek to recover this cash due to contract non performance??
What are you on about? No ISTAR system? No deliverables? It says in the article that 128 AJAX have been delivered, sounds like deliverables to me! All AJAX come with a full ISTAR suite.
I believe Ajax ISTAR suite is state of the art re NATO systems of this type.
Correct Daniele (as usual).
Ajax is built in Wales.
Wales generally has the highest unemployment rate in Britain.
Even those non Sandhurst graduates should be able to work out who it was that really selected Ajax.
Clue: they have never worn a military uniform.
South Wales has a long history of heavy engineering, so what is your point?
Political considerations outweighed all else as they have done so many times before with Land Rover selected over Steyr Pinzgauer (cheaper through life costs) and Royal Ordnance/Vickers Challenger preferred over the M1 Abrams selected by the British Army after exhaustive trials etc. etc.
The Army cannot be blamed for poor equipment if they are not given the equipment that they have selected.
What was so wrong with Challenger?
It has performed well in combat, it’s survivability record is better than the Abrams.
AJAX had some problems, but they are all sorted now.
They will be much better than the CVR(T) vehicles they are meant to replace.
It is good that the UK retains the ability to build AFVs
219-148= 71 CR2 bring chucked? Surely they can squeeze a few more out of this to top up the numbers a bit? Another 20,30-50? Seems like a “wasted” opportunity.
I understand that the remain hulls have micro fractures meaning they can’t be upgraded so will be mothballed and wheeled out as is if needed. Would be interested if others have heard the same
The hulls are only inspected with ultra sound when stripped, some are scrapped with wear to floor or dents due to cost of repair. Very few have other problems. Cost of building new gearboxes and final drives is more likely why number chosen.
It’s amazing how Russia can leave 1000s of stored T64/T72/T80s out in the open, and then refurbish them when needed
And we cannot maintain / repair / re-manufacture a mere 71 hulls. It’s embarrassing
As my grandmother used to say, there’s no such thing as can’t, there’s only won’t.
Exactly, the MOD looks for every excuse to cut costs.
QD,
Ummm…er…agree some facets of HMG/MoD/BA armour programme, and/or this article’s description of the same, don’t quite compute. Four armoured regiments (3 regular, 1 reserve) dividing a provisional 148 CR3? In ye olde math terms, that equates to 37 CR3/regiment. Accurate? Alternatively, does the reserve regiment receive virtual CR3s, or perhaps an inflatable decoy model, ala the pre D-Day deception campaign? Does this article presage a contract amendment/modification TBA via the DIP? Further, article implies FOC by 2027. Perhaps 2030, unless contract has been/will be renegotiated? Article also implies all CR3s will receive Trophy system. Reality? Other articles have stated that only the approximate equivalent of one regiment will be thusly equipped. Dunno, details re armour are definitely outside my wheelhouse, but this article engenders some intriguing questions… 🤔
*being
So I make that 3,017 vehicles scheduled to be withdrawn from service; and 1,430 replacements on order.
Can anyone reassure me I’m wrong to despair?
The Autunm equipment plan should hopefully improve some of these numbers.
As you say all these Gucci vehicles. One wonders if they should kit out sone infantry battalions purely with upgrade commercial vehicles and add every conceivable weapon support onto them as well as carrying the troops . Or just a light modern version of a Humvee type vehicle, something like the Turkish army use and again just mad max them all up and we are off. I think an infantry section would be better off in armoured light vehicles 4 men each than all in one vehicle that will get hit by fpv .
CAVS
Very true.
They call it “modernising” and “rationalising”
Nowhere near enough Boxer are on order. There was supposed to be another batch to take numbers to over 1,000, but as par the course and for all the grandstanding HMG made on that a few years ago, that has quietly died a death.
Good job too in a way, with its utterly ruinous cost.
So 13 different vehicles in an attempt to reduce the number of vehicle types….and two Regiments worth of Challenger 3 to equip four regiments….. and we are committed to provide a coherent Army Corps on Continental Europe to our allies.
Plain as a pikestaff, we have no credible conventional deterrent while our allies, close to the action, are already spending close to five percent of their gdp on….let me think…oh yes…..tanks…..
I know I was just a humble jnco, But even I can’t work out how we are supposed to increase lethality tenfold while swapping our IFV’s with 30mm cannons for APC’s armed with just GPMG’s or GMG’s while gutting our Tank and SPA fleets. Our warriors need a like for like replacement or at a minimum mount a cannon on the boxers I know they have trialed the 40mm CTA cannon on the boxer supposedly with good results.
We can do it with missiles like Brimestone launched from vehicles and better ISTAR merged into a single picture. Problem is we don’t seem to be buying anything like that.
Brimstone missiles fitted to an overwatch vehicle while welcome, would be expensive and I bet the MOD would not purchase enough missiles or platforms to be a true asset if we end up in a war with a peer adversary, we need teeth at all levels in our battlegroups.
Trouble is we are broke. We spent £823,000,000 with GD on MORPHEUS and got zero deliverables – Economy is going backwards and with the amount of debt we are carrying the services may be subject to further cuts. GD are laughing all the way to the bank. UK must be close to spending £7,000,000,000 on Ajax which doesn’t meet its specifications (is arguably 200hp underpowered for its weight). Has no ISTAR no APS and won’t reach FOC until the end of the decade. Could not realistically be used for the role it was designed for – forward recce (apart from being too big, too heavy, too noisy etc) without full GBAD cover. And people are suggesting we spend billions more with GD? Insanity
Again with the no ISTAR, what are you on about? AJAX meets or exceeds the MOD noise requirements and provision of APS isn’t in the current contract or MOD wish list (yet).
I think we need to be clear that the army has spaffed away a fortune on armoured vehicles for almost no delivery of a cogent force.
.7 billion spent on failed projects that delivered zero vehicles
2.8 billion on urgent operational requirements vehicles that had or have limited capabilities or use beyond the singular purpose they were purchased for
.4 billion on warrior upgrade that never happened.
5 billion on boxer 650 APCs
6.2 billion on 500 ajex
So the army has spent in the region of 15.1 billion pounds
And for that it will have
500 Ajax
600 APCs
500 lighter armoured vehicles purchased reactively
If we look at France
It spent 2.4 billion pounds on 630 IFVs
it just spent 9.5 billion pounds for 1900 APCs and armoured cav vehicles
So it’s spent 11.9 billion for 2500 armoured vehicles ( IFV, APC and armoured cav).
Sadly the army has made its own bed.
We could have bought 15000 Patria 6*6 for that with every needed variant already designed and in production.
In light of the advertised role for 1 Div, the German decision to buy Patria 6×6 with 120mm mortar and the Babcock – Patria agreement I’ve got to believe it’s worth a bet that money will be found for a Patria assembly plant in the UK for the British Army.
Andover over the last 25 ish years has spaffed £25 billion on no fleets or replacement TUL/TUM – Of course they did well will Panther didn’t they? Got a few Archer and a few supacat vehicles. Mind you on both Panther and Ajax there were plenty of jobs for the boys in industry weren’t there? Of course in that time they managed to destroy Alvin’s, Vickers, GKN and BAE Land systems. We as a nation are totally dependent on German, French, US and their Spanish subsidiaries can’t make turrets or engines even…… Good at getting directorships and consultancy’s for ex civil servants and officers though….. who tell us to buy more foreign kit…..
“there were plenty of jobs for the boys in industry weren’t there?”
Of course!!! That is HMG priority with the MoD budget. That the Army seems utterly incompetent just makes it worse.
Didn’t the ex Director Land at DE&S end up at General Dynamics UK?
Also, are you aware Andover have plans to:
Dispose of Titan and replace it with a Boxer bridge layer, which cannot cover that capability like Titan can.
And I read there is even a plan to put Serpens Radar on a Boxer. Gold plating at its best. Why, in all that is holy, is a flat bed truck unsuitable for that and you need an expensive Boxer instead?
I’d love to hear their reasoning?
Surely that would be a totally different class of bridge on a Boxer? Couldn’t carry a 70 or 80 tonne class bridge unless they make one out of balsa or Bacofoil! Madness!
Hi Ian.
I can only report what I read on X, ( UKAFC ) so hope it is incorrect.
The Titan, Trojan and Terrier vehicles were the last armoured types to be delivered to the RE as far as I recall, and work, and AFAIK are still modern for what they do. Why why WHY do any need replacing?!
Taking out an AVRE of Titan’s type seems insanity.
Someone correct me as to why replacing an AVRE with a Boxer which cannot do what the AVRE does is sensible?
Alvis purchased both Vickers & GKN armoured vehicle arm and than later on BAE purchased Alvis.
Jonathan, those figures always get my blood pressure rising…
To be fair the army was fighting wars for the first 15 to 20 years of the century and they were expected to fight those wars largely within the peacetime budget. Nevertheless, they should have been able to separate out long term deterrent requirements from short term counter insurgency requirements. The fact that they apparently couldn’t do that raises a whole range of issues regarding the procurement system and the suitability of the people in it.
Deterrence against the CRINK nations, as we know, is not just about the armed forces. It is about industrial might as well. That can only be generated and maintained by a creditable defence industrial strategy, and in the case of a medium size power such as the UK during peacetime, such a strategy needs to engage with our allies as well, to generate mass and ensure a full spectrum of industrial and military capabilities that can be scaled up in times of need.
Crucially, though such a strategy only works with a coherent and sustained procurement program and that is where the Army’s failure to properly plan and control it’s equipment plan has dropped us all in it… Deterrence will only work if we can properly support our allies at sea, in the air and on land – within the NATO context. The British Army is in a very poor condition and while the new kit is finally just about starting to arrive in service the wasted and time and resources will never be recovered which means frontline units will be paying a price for the failings of the Army brass who failed to get a grip of the requirements twenty years ago..! Not only but we are having to rebuild an entire industry! Makes my blood boil.
The numbers you quote drove my blood pressure up when they first came to light years ago and they still do now..!
Accountability – what a joke.
Cheers CR
I thought it was worse than that.
I recall Think Defence quoting around 2 Billion on FRES alone.
And as my cynical side always notes, the MIC are rubbing their hands with glee at the 15 billion sent their way.
While the military go without.
Priorities of HMG?
2 big mistakes:
Reducing our MBT fleet to 148
Boxer APC replacing Warrior IFV
But having said that, I think Boxer is a good replacement for Mastiff, Ridgeback, and Wolfhound.
It appears AJAX problems have been sorted and all variants will be a welcome step change from the vehicles they are replacing
I could kind of accept the latter if it was Boxer IFV with a proper autocannon. Far from ideal, but acceptable as a hard decision. Boxer APC is no replacement for an IFV.
Yes indeed, it would Boxer IFV with 40mm CTA would be a huge step up.
Yep, we could even use the French-designed turret if we wanted. I can’t imagine it’d be hard to port over.
As always talk up the slow fix to the Army’s armoured problems, no new orders no incress in numbers just chill out take their time and hope its ok in a few years time, No tracked Arty, no new wheeled Arty, no wheeled or Tracked air defence, no tracked replacement for Warrior just tall wheeled thing with machine gun, or may a tracked thing with a machine gun Aries?. Lets hope no wars happen in next 5 years and we might be ok. No long rang air defence, no vast orders for ammo. Just talk and more talk,