UK expands infantry role for Ares alongside Boxer

Jim after years of being told that they need a Tracked replacement for Warrior the British Army has finally come to the same conclusion as nearly everyone else (including Finland who have BMP and CV90.
You need both !
Even France is supposedly going down that route which is somewhat of a surprise.
As for Patria it ticks a lot of boxes and at that price could be a really good way of adding mass at a reasonable price, a lot depends on what is in the Autumn DIP. We already have an identified wheeled vehicle in Boxer and Tracked with the Ajax family of vehicles, I’d be reluctant to complicate the logistics and maintenance pipelines with another wheeled vehicle.
But what I think it would be really useful for is providing armoured mobility for “The New Force” mentioned in the SDR for the protection of bases and CNI to release reserves from home defence / security duties.
I do actually think that one of the key lessons to learn from the Ukraine is how they survived the initial attack by Russia. They had a robust frontline fighting force backed by adequate quickly mobilised reserves. But that was only possible due to their 3rd line of local territorial knits which were very quickly deployed to take over the local defence of the rear areas.

But saying all that it’s the British Army we are talking about so they will probably insist on a long expensive fancy named project which spends millions to assess the options but results in just buying some more Ares.

ABC I don’t think the army was ever under any illusion that it didn’t need both. The decision to go with a wheeled replacement for warrior was forced by financial constraints, not by what the army wanted. The plan was for upgraded Warrior, Boxer, Ajax and Challenger 3 all working together within 3 UK Division, but the money didn’t stretch so Warrior became the natural cut, as the oldest vehicle whose job could be at least somewhat covered by Boxer.

If either a modified Ares with a RWS, or an ASCOD variant are purchased, it won’t be because the Army suddenly realised “we need tracks” (or more realistically “We need a 30mm”), it’ll be because the money became available to actually fund that.

Jim, Chally 2s are not frequently knocked out in UKR. Certainly one was knocked out and possibly another.

That’s been very badly reported on. The MOU is basically that Babcock and Patria are going to develop a derivative of the Patria 6×6 that they’ll pitch to the MoD. So quite a long way from actually supplying the vehicle.

David, there was a story that Patria want to pitch a 6×6 120mm mortar carrier to the MoD.

The closest to what you are suggesting is in Battlegroups, where a Troop of Tanks or AFV’s get attached to a Company of Infantry, but typically the Challengers/Ajax stay under their own tactical command.

So, re your Strike deployment point and picking up on DJ’s post, isn’t the pragmatic option to actually make 2 IFVs; put a 30mm RWS on Ares for the armoured infantry and ditto on Boxer for the mechanised infantry? Horses for courses.

From my time with 4 Regt RA i believe they served as both Battery Observation and Command post variants. Both with fake wooden Rarden barrels if i remember correctly.

BigH, I remember those wooden barrels! IIRC it was to disguse them so they wouldn’t be made priority targets?

ASCOD is actually shorter than ARES, and yes it’s being proposed for the Bradley replacement, but also Ajax/Ares is based off of ASCOD, just heavily altered for the UK’s needs in a modular recce vehicle.

To add to Dern’s comment below. The Ajax SV base vehicle, which the other variants, such as Ares, Apollo, Athena etc are based on differs from the original ASCOD2 in a couple of major ways. The first is that the vehicle is heavier at 34t, with additional armour goes up to 38t and can cope with a growth weight up to 42t. Though the largest version of ASVOD2 now matches Ajax weight wise. The second major difference and why it is heavier, is that the base armour is rated to a much higher STANAG 4569 rating than Warrior. The main requirement was that the base Armour will protect over the frontal arc against 30mm armour piercing fin stabilized discarding sabot (APFSDS). But I suspect due to the weight, that the side armour can protect against larger than 14.5mm AP. Where most IFVs are up to this size.

Would be nice. But it depends on how much money is left over after RCH, drones, mlrs, gbad, sf/rangers etc. I don’t think we’ll see any movement on an ifv for a while yet.

The vehicles coming back from Afghanistan where UOR’s. If the army hadn’t wanted them they’d have been handed back to the treasury. Retaining them required the Army to buy them off the Treasury as they returned from Theatre.

Does those others have comparable STANAG regards Armour?
I have long believed Boxer should be primarily in the Infantry Platoons, with a cheaper type in supporting functions.
Just like FV432 remained when Warrior was bought.

And to add, if this happens, the Army regards 3 UK Division has seemingly spent the last decade destroying itself going around in a circle to come back to almost the same set up as before.
3 Bdes. 1 MBT. 1 Armd Cav, 2 Armd Infantry in each.
That I’m sure is what they’d like, and what NATO want.
That was set from 2011 onwards and WCSP, CH3 and Ajax were the big modernisation programs.
Now, with the 2015 Strike debacle and the cuts to CS CSS that came with it, there are significant holes to get back to that set up.

The thing is do you really need STANAG6 as a baseline on all your APCs.. do you want them dragging all that weight around all the time as well as the expense. The French have gone for STANAG 4 as the baseline with theatre standard kits to take them to STANAG 6 when needed… and the French APCs are coming in at around 1 million a pop not the 6-8 million for each boxer. It also means logistically they are working with baseline 25 ton vehicles not 40 ton vehicles.

Thanks for the explanation Dern, that all makes sense, I guess in this situation it always would have been an issue with using the AJAX platform for an IFV variant.

I wonder if it would have been sensible to develop AJAX and an IFV variant off the same platform from the start, for commonality and reduced programme development cost purposes (without WCSP or a separate IFV programme), from what I understand it was looked at by other companies with CV90 and KF41 Lynx, the Bradley also has a Recce Variant. AJAX seems to have diverted from ASCOD 2 quite significantly so even purchasing that will leave them with a very different vehicle rather than another variant.

AT John.
You put your finger on it with WCSP. Why develop a IFV Ajax if you already have a IFV project in the works.

I think politicians,and the army, find it easier to cut CS CSS units. Less of an outcry in the media, compared to some named old county Infantry Battalion getting axed.
Oft called the Cap Badge Mafia. As I’m not ex Army, I do not know whether this is a real phenomena or not.

The army cannot build Brigades with the Infantry Battalions it has, some of which are below typical Bn establishment, as the CS CSS to pair with them no longer exist.
2015 SDR and Strike did for yet more of them.

Conveniently for the army, establishing things like 11 SFAB and ASOB “disposes” of Battalions now orphaned from CS CSS that used to exist alongside them when the army was bigger. These included formations like 19 Bde, which existed in the regular ORBAT, and 7 and 4 Bdes were full on Armoured Brigades. 4 going to Mechanized ( a cut in effect ) before a further downgrade to Infantry.

To be fair, Grey Zone is a thing and you don’t need full Bde enablers for things like ASOB, but still. For 73K, so few actual deployable Brigades.

This was further compounded as said by the Strike thing. A2020 had CS CSS for 6 Brigades. 1,12,20,16,7,4. And 3 Cdo was a Bde on top, though still lacking in some areas.

Now, only 4 Bdes are so furnished. 1 DRSB lacks all sorts, having “merged” with 1 Artillery Bde, to be truly a 5th.

A bit of a mess with no easy way out. The Army is in a seemingly never ending circle of reorganisation, which never fully finishes before the next reorg arrives.
Add the dysfunctional equipment program, and here we are.

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@Daniele The Cap Badge Mafia is somewhat exaggerated in the press, and commentary consciousness, but it does exist. Basically yes CS and CSS is usually easier to cut than Infantry or Cavalry (I think Cavalry is the hardest to cut for reasons that will become obvious in a second).
Every Corps and Regiment obviously has it’s Regimental Colonel, who should be fighiting for their Regiment, and if, for example your Regimental Colonel is King Charles III (as is the case for the Parachute Regiment) it might be harder to cut a Battalion than if your Regimental Colonel is the Duchess of Edinburgh.
The next thing is obviously nobody wants to be cut, but some organisations can survive a cut much more effectively than others. You cut a REME Battalion and honestly the REME probably won’t bat an eye because the REME has 12 Battalions and a large smorgasboard of detachments. As an organization a cut isn’t a huge threat to it. On the other hand cutting a Mercian Battalion at this stage represents the Regiment loosing 50% of it’s size. So you bet your backside they’ll fight tooth and nail to avoid the loss.

@JJ Daniele is making the list look a bit longer than it would absolutely need too. You’d need 4 CS and CSS Battalions for 4 Brigade but could probably source at least some from UKCF (Signals and Int should be managable from current DIEG forces which subordinate already, but obviously an uplift is a nice to have, and RMP’s are held centrally under 1 RMP Brigade, but enough squadrons to support 6 Brigades). In turn that frees up enough Reserve CS and CSS to make a Reserve Light Infantry Brigade from half of 19, the other half would at least have some artillery, but would need some CSS support.

Also DSRB doesn’t need a new Engineer unit, as all 3 Engineer Battalions are centrally held under 25 Group, not subordinated to brigades, and theoretically you could increase a Boxer Order as there are 4 Artillery Regiments in the Division (going from 2 MLRS + 2 Close support Gun regiments to 1+3, but obviously a 5th Regiment for 2+3 would be better).

Exactly what the minimum is depends on how much you are willing to thin out other formations (For all you can hate on 3 Division due to the way it has reserves structured into it it’s actually very deep and can sustain a lot of losses), and how effective you want the individual formations to be, but as a minimum the army probably needs about 5-7 new supporting Regiments in order to make proper use of what it has. Personally I tend to argue that it needs to uplift back to about 100,000 strength, to build a proper Corps with 2 fully deployable Divisions and 11+16 forming a rapid forces Division. But that’s really the gold plated solution.

Like I said above, we can’t even rotate an armoured brigade in Estonia. Having three brigades would make that possible — but imagine the retention issues that would come with it.

If war broke out tomorrow, we could deploy 3rd Division as it currently stands to hold ground. But after that initial deployment — and not even accounting for attrition in personnel or vehicles — we’d be out of the fight for some time. We obviously don’t have any additional heavy armoured forces to replace it.

With three armoured infantry brigades, the situation would be slightly better. We’d retain the option of deploying the full division. Another approach could be for 3rd Division to lead a multinational formation, rotating one UK brigade alongside two from other NATO members.

Well 3 UK does form part of the ARRC, of which we are the framework nation.

There are solutions other than creating a whole new armoured brigade. Readyness cycles and being in Estonia aren’t the same thing. Readyness means you need to be able to get out the door within 10 days and cross europe. So that’s everything from making sure your Bergan is packed ready to go, to not being able to take leave because your on 42 hours notice to move (or 10 days or whatever readyness level is decided for you), to making sure the entire unit is vaccinated, to having the trucks ready to transport the vehicles. It goes on and on. (This also stands for the guys going on the EFP battlegroup btw, because it’s a deployment, rather than basing).

A Forward based unit doesn’t have to worry about that. Typically the families of service personnel follow them, their “home” is in Estonia, the vehicles have to be good to go, but because they are going to fight within 100 miles of camp the burden is much lower. You can take your leave, because the unit is already there, the CO just manages how many of his troops are gone at any one time. Forward Basing is even seen as a retention bonus because “join the army see the world” comes into play (BAOR/BFG/BAG long was seen as a great place to serve in part because of the location in Europe).

As Daniele said, 3 UK Division is the Core of ARRC, which would probably consist of 1 UK, 3 UK and then a multinational division. But if we start deploying full divisions then the idea of rotating kind of is going out of the window, harmony guidelines aren’t really a thing in wars of that scale, and stop loss is enacted to reduce retention issues. A 3 Brigade Division would go into a 2 Up 1 Reserve fighitng structure (which isn’t the same as a rotation as the unit in reserve is still being called up to fight as and when needed, and is physically in the battle-space).

Spam filter doesn’t like me posting long messages like this.

… driven the makeup of the fleet ever since, with the crown jewel being one operational carrier – and next to nothing left to do ASW or air cover in Eastlant.

We simply don’t have the money to re-create some Imperial worldwide naval presence as in daysvof yore, that time is history now.

I hope – but doubt – that the SDSR will succeed in rebalanced our forces, with a more powerful air force and an army that can at minimum field the two heavy divisions that NATO expects and we are supposedly committed to. In terms of the new ‘NATO First’ policy, the RN needs to reorientation itself to Eastlant primarily, while making a contribution to ENATO out-of-area flag showing.

At the moment, we rather have the tail wagging the dog strategically.

Just to clarify my position, I’m not satisfied with the current state of the Army. As I’ve mentioned in a previous post, we need to return to having three fully equipped armoured brigades so that one can be continuously rotated. Most of us—including myself would like to see a substantial increase in Army numbers, but that doesn’t seem likely anytime soon, primarily due to financial constraints, though there are other factors as well. So, at the very least, we need an all-singing, all-dancing 3rd Division.

As for the island nation point, the UK relies on maritime trade routes for food, energy, raw materials, and exports—unlike many of the countries you mention, which have the option of land-based supply routes.

Another key difference is that the UK governs or maintains strategic interests in 14 Overseas Territories spread across the globe, including the Falklands, Gibraltar, Bermuda, and the British Indian Ocean Territory.

I gather you’re not a fan of CSG25, but one of the key reasons for sending HMS Prince of Wales to the Indo-Pacific is to achieve full operational capability. From what I understand, she’s expected to be reassigned to NATO’s area of responsibility after this deployment.

I’m mot so sure about “hiding in the Far North” as a concept. Back in the CW the Russians assigned older, expendable destroyers to shadow CVBGs I peacetime and they had loads of AGIs. There is nothing stopping “neutral” vessels reporting locations. You can’t operate with total EMCON all the time and if you put AEW up it signals your approximate position, all the more so if your AEW platforms are relatively short-ranged helicopters. Then you have the problem that you can only be in a relatively limited area of ocean to hit targets with affordable weapons, especially if your attack aircraft are shorter-legged F-35Bs. Their combat radius is not really going to be very useful unless you are going after targets in Murmansk or the far north of Finland/Sweden/Norway and, even then the additional distance is going to really impact your sortie rate and response times. A look at the Geography of the area reveals that any advance by the Russians would follow predictable routes and be very easy to interdict by ground forces. That leaves the rest of Scandinavia. You’re not going to sail a CVBG into the Baltic, which means your F-35Bs are left essentially useless. As to the relative vulnerability of carriers and airfields, we lost four fleet and one light carrier in WW2. I can’t remember a single airfield being put permanently out of operation (though Manston was evacuated as too vulnerable). Whilst the latter remains a possibility, experience from Ukraine would indicate that Russia has not shut down any airfields nor as far as we know, significantly impeded operations. Ukraine has caused significant damage to, but not actually closed any Russian airfields, though it caused at least one helicopter base to be evacuated. The Russians have lost a few large naval vessels.

Couple of points the RAF lost huge numbers of aircraft on the ground and ww2 aircraft were easy to disperse. Iraq essentially lost its entire airforce on the ground.

As for hiding a carrier.. a quick question in war how do you keep track of a carrier, because that carrier battle group will kill everything that tries to track it and then move position at 20-30 knots.. as for f35B being short legged… no they are not they have long legs and there is literally nothing stopping you using your strategic tanker force to give them even longer legs… as for no targets there are plenty as one of the key parts of any war with Russia will be cracking open its Barents Sea bastion and destroying its strategic capabilities to fight in the high north.. it’s how you hurt Russia without actually invading mother Russia and risk triggering a nuclear response.

It’s worth remembering that the RN wasn’t exactly flush with Carriers in the first part of the War, with the loss of Glorious and Courageous the Fleet was down to Furious, Eagle and Ark Royal in terms of fleet carriers for a while. Even so the Carriers definitely had a big impact, just focused on the Med. Reducing their contribution to “Covering some landings” is basically skipping over the lions share of their contribution when they where fighting off Italian and German Land based aircraft on the regular to provide cover for convoys to Malta and Egypt (Also what Ark Royal was doing when she was sunk and where Illustrious and Indomitable where damaged).

Worth noting that by the time the fighting transitioned to France the difference between allied and axis air power was enough that really carrier based FAA was not needed, and the transition of British Carriers from Europe to the BPF. Illustrious left in December 43, Victorious and Indomitable left in early 44, Implacable, Formidable and Indefatigable operated against Norway until late 44 and then left for the pacific. Furious had been placed in Reserve at the end of 44, so, yes, obviously the Carriers had little impact on the fighting in Europe as they weren’t around.

Spot on John.
Very few Boxer so far are of the Infantry Carrier variant.
Forget how many, 89 or something?
I had a breakdown somewhere, I’ll look. When added to the Ajax variants, an awful lot of c2.
Another issue is the last I heard from any Army spokesman on Boxer, future tranches might include more modules than chassis.
Which to me is utterly ridiculous.
Then you’ve the weapons issue. OTS options exist, be that for cannon or AA, CAUS, they won’t pick one, or if they are, they’re nor saying or are taking years over it.
It is like they are paralysed.
You have government ministers warning, NATO intell chiefs warning, and hi hum here comes another trial to add to the others.
Did you see the CAUS types lined up at Thorney the other day?
I remember the VCGS years ago looking round such a display of similar.
It is like…..hello! Do you want to buy something to increase lethality or not.

Worth remembering that in order to equip 4 Battalions with APC’s you only need 104 Boxer APCs. (Each APC carries a section, 3 sections is a platoon, 9 sections are a Company, 27 sections are a battalion, 27×4=104. Obviously a few more are needed to fill out specialist roles here and there. But the British Army’s Boxer ICV (the APC version) is 146, so easily enough for 4 Infantry Battalions. (Daniele the 85 number you are thinking of was the initial batch 1 order another 61 where in the batch 2 order).

There are 152 C2 version being ordered but that breakdown makes sense when you remember that the C2 versions are going to provide C2 to something like 20 battalions (At a minimum the 4 Mech battalions, and the 6 CSS battalions/regiments in the AI brigades, but possibly also artillery, engineering, and signals units might get Boxer C2). Remember each Platoon needs a C2 Boxer, each Coy needs a C2 Boxer so just for the CHQ’s and Platoon HQ’s for the 4 Mechanised Infantry Battalions you are already looking at 50+ C2 Boxers.

Morning Dern.
Good summary. Yes makes sense.
Had not recalled the second Infantry order of 61. Not much spare there so far, plus those needed for training and trials.
Interesting to speculate who will recieve 152 Boxer C2 compared to 112 Athena.
At a guess.
MBT and Armoured Cavalry Athena.
I assume Athena fielding will mirror strongly CVRT Sultan fielding, which was with the FR Regiments and Armoured Regiments.
Infantry Battalions Boxer.
3x Engineer Regiments. Could be either? Especially the 2 that are Armoured Engineers for 12 and 20, with tracked assets.
3 Signal Regiment has/had 432s so surely Boxer.
1 RHA, 19RA assume Boxer, to go with RCH.
1 and 2 Medical Regiment Boxer.