The Ministry of Defence has confirmed that the British Army currently has no requirement for a light tank capability, despite monitoring the employment of such systems internationally.
Responding to a written parliamentary question from Conservative MP Ben Obese-Jecty, Defence Minister Luke Pollard said the Army routinely assesses which vehicles are most appropriate to meet specific capability requirements.
Pollard noted that the base platform of the Philippines Army’s Sabrah Light Tank is the ASCOD 2 chassis, the same family of vehicle that underpins the British Army’s Ajax programme.
However, he stated: “At present, the British Army has no requirement for a light tank capability.”
He added that the Army continues to monitor the use of light tanks alongside wider global developments in armoured fighting vehicles. The minister also addressed the Spanish Army’s VCZAP Castor, describing it as the combat engineering variant of the ASCOD 2 chassis.
Pollard said that under the British Army’s Armoured Cavalry programme, the Army is introducing the ARGUS variant of the Ajax family, which is expected to deliver an advanced engineer reconnaissance function. He said that together with the existing Trojan and Terrier platforms, ARGUS will provide the Army with what he described as a comprehensive suite of combat engineering capabilities.
So UK is dependent on Spanish vehicle manufacturing- even if it makes the crews lose control of their bodily functions, and causes long term disability.
A strange world we live in?
When country that invented armoured vehicles, destroys its own sovereign capability, ignores world class sovereign suppliers to include patented foreign parts that fail to produce a safe vehicle, ten years after it was supposed to be delivered.
This from the Army that has managed to spend £25,000,000,000 over the preceding years without fielding a vehicle fleet.
The same Army that in a recent Estonian exercise ‘Hedgehog2025’ lost a brigade to ten Ukrainian drone operators.
Are the British Army learning lessons?
Wanting to spend £ billions more on Ajax?
Is this sense or sanity?
Remember for the cost of one Ajax you can buy over 10,000 drones.
The DIP has still not been published. No indication when it will be.
I would say losing to Ukranian drone operators is very much a lesson learnt, but keep doom mongering and inventing reasons to be depressed and miserable. That’s what the comments sections is all about I guess. I suppose if you were in charge it would be smooth sailing and no mistakes would ever be made and you would of course find all the money you needed to create the perfect military. Pull yourself together and come back into the real world.
Well some might think that knowing what is happening is the basis for making better future decisions. Not sure in particular how suppressing it for the sake of the perception of optimism makes for a better military capability, questioning even if it appears negative at times, is vital to creating security, after all the supreme confidence in Britain that the much derided inferior Japanese offered no serious threat circa 1941 cost us dear. No one is going to seriously factor in the comments section of this forum to their defence decision making though if it feeds on the back of the UKDJ into a widespread and more influential movement then criticism might just add to questions being asked (like we regularly hear mentioned in these pages) and add to pressure on the authorities to explain their decision making or lack thereof. Meanwhile expressing eternal optimism and pats on the back for defence decisions or lack thereof offers no useful function whatsoever other than an internal sense of wellbeing, be it well founded or otherwise. Govts generally and this one in particular seems addicted to saying things (if they say anything at all) that bear little reality to what they are actually doing and in defence our very survival might rely upon questioning those who are making the decisions and trying to bring to light those inconsistencies. If that involves being overly negative then far better than to be the opposite surely.
Undue negativity isn’t cost neutral either however. We can’t be unduly optimistic but constant pessimism taking rational decisions in the worst possible light can also do damage.
With all due respect, many of the posters on this site are ex military. Like you maybe but many of which were prepared to fight against odds of 3,4 or 5 to 1. The “doom and gloom” brigade are quite right because they see the lack of capability given to our troops. At least back then we were given the kit to have a fighting chance. If they go to war against a peer adversary today they will be annihilated. Shit, I just read an article from the Washington Post that says the US think that currently both the French and Italians are more capable than the British Military. The Italians for F*cks sake. They concede we are much better trained but simply do not have the physical capability to deploy and be effective in a modern combat environment.
Not sure what’s wrong with the Italian’s, they’ve maintained decent and credibly sized armed forces, which they’ve put to use a few times since the end of the Cold War. With 8 deployable combat brigades (2 Armoured, 2 Mechanised, 2 Alpine, 1 Amhip and 1 Mechanised Airmobile) they have a larger land footprint than the French Army (2 Armoured Brigades, 2 Mechanised Brigades, 1 Alpine and 1 Mechanised Airmobile) and are comparable to Germany’s land forces (although with 4 Armoured Brigades, 2 Mechanised Brigades, 1 Airmobile Brigade and 1 Alpine Brigade, the Germans are considerably heavier), and at the same time retain a Navy that might be a bit more Med focused, but still can box with the big boys.
Was it stated that the British Army was OPFOR in that Drone Exercise.?.
I think part of the OPFOR was British army but it’s not really the point. The bigger issue is people treating exercises like Sports Games where you release two teams onto the pitch and one wins and the other looses, rather than the tightly controlled training and learning events they actually are.
As an example; there once was an exercise in the USA where some British troops and US SOF where working together as a deep screen for an American Brigade. Exercise Control gave the US SOF intel on where the OPFOR’s armour was and generated a requirement to find, fix, and if possible degrade/destroy the OPFOR Armour. SOF handed the task over to the British who sent out a Patrol into the area, that found the enemy armour, called American fires onto it, and destroyed about a squadron’s worth of it.
Exercise Control then regenerated the Squadron and a day or two later the 101st Airborne used Apache’s and ATGM’s to destroy that armoured force again.
The headline would have been “British Forces destroy Americans in Exercise in USA” had that event made the news, or “The Americans where so badly beat that they had to be reset multiple times.” But of course, that was the point. The idea was to give US SOF a chance to practice hunting armour and a US Brigade Combat team a chance to practice (if I recall correctly) repelling an armoured assault.
Now I don’t have insider knowledge on Exercise Hedgehog, but my gut feeling is that if I’m a NATO commander and we’re running a big exercise with some Ukrainian Drone operators, I’m going to try to set up the exercise in such a way that as much of my force as possible gets exposed to those Ukrainian Drone operators, for maximum training benefit.
Whilst fair and win/lose is all media stories, there is a significant gap in the UK forces around small drones and counter drone capability. Realistically our forces would be in serious trouble if they walked into the Ukraine conflict. There needs to be a sea change in how drones are looked at by the military, they need to stop looking at them as expensive top end assets and start thinking disposable things used by your average foot soldier.
That’s the fair and pertinent point in all this I agree Steve. If we don’t learn and act upon it quickly rather than wait for endless probes into how significant the results even were, or/and wait for some ‘perfect solution’ (at best) then we are purely gambling on fate to avoid repetition for real.
We had many failures of that kind early WW2 against a far more experienced foe and the cost was high, indeed it led later as those hard lessons were learned to many temporary, quickly built and ‘in field’ adaptations that anticipated and greatly negated further battlefield failures of that kind that became vital to the extreme effectiveness of British forces by mid war. It would be nice if we could achieve some of the latter before we suffer the results of the former lack of preparation for real. Problem is the unpredictability of that process to the money men who just love that sense of certainty before reluctantly handing out finance is inevitably an anchor on such wise precautionary actions until a crisis strikes.
“Realistically our forces would be in serious trouble if they walked into a Ukraine conflict.”
If the British Army on it’s own walked into the Ukraine conflict? Yes. On it’s own it lacks the mass to really shape the reality on the ground in a conflict of that scale. If NATO with went in with it’s full suite of capabilities? I think not.
NATO as a whole is an unknown as it depends on how committed they were. But let’s say we just deployed UK forces a small part of the front like like north Korea did. I still think they would struggle in a drone rich environment.
Again, that’s because the British Forces on their own, without NATO, do not have the mass to affect the battlespace that much in a war of that scale. Anyway Britain isn’t going to war with Russia without NATO so that’s a fairly terrible planning assumption.
Don’t you think it is sad the the British Army cannot deploy by itself anywhere, in any environment or at anytime? It needs the support of other countries so it doesn’t die en mass? You don’t see that as a problem?
I don’t think it’s realistic either, they can. We have all capabilities we need to deploy, it’s just mass that is the issue. However mass only comes an issue if the opponent has it. If we went to war with NATO our forces would be assigned areas and likely manly operate alone,.and so they have to be able to do it.
Saying that which NATO member has drones in the scale that Ukraine uses them, or the number of trained opeators? I suspect the answer will be the total drone force for NATO is probably used on one way missions daily by Ukraine.
It can self deploy, but even at it’s largest the British Army has always had a planning assumption of being just one part of a coalition when it faces a peer opponent.
“Our forces would be operating alone.” Nope. Not even remotely. A British Division *might* be a national formation but even at Corps level we plan for allied forces to slot in. Never mind when you start to factor in support from other services; one of the first things that would happen in any war involving NATO would be NATO forces carrying out wide spread SEAD and DEAD missions to gain air superiority. That alone means A) you can’t say British forces are operating alone and B) that the operating environment in any hypothetical NATO war vs a Ukraine War would be wildly different.
The British Army has never been able to deploy by itself anywhere in any environment at anytime. It has, since 1661, always planned to fight against major peer opponents as part of a coalition.
So no. I do not see that as a problem, it’s an extremely sensible planning assumption that lines up with the how UK Foreign Policy has worked for centuries.
Even in BAOR days NORTHAG had British,German,Dutch,and Belgian troops under our command so as you say we have never envisioned fighting on our own.
I get the political we never deploy and fight a war on our own and I agree, but my point is we would struggle to deploy a self supporting Brigade let alone a Division. We lack in AD, Artillery, ammo etc. We would need other countries to help provide the basic necessities.
We must say what suits our socialist masters narrative.
It does indeed.
Not sure why anybody would be surprised by this, CVRT is effectively the UK’s light tank capability, and that’s moving to Ajax. So as long as the Ajax program is running the UK isn’t going to be looking at light tanks.
Ajax 105mm would be interesting, though.
IIRC the turret basket was made bigger than necessary for CT40 just in case?
Yes, it’s one of the reasons there’s little interior space in Ajax for dismounts.
It would have been deeply unpopular, but was ditching MBTs for a big gun and/or ATGM-armed Ajax hull ever considered? Something like the Cockerill 3105 but with Brimstone for extra anti-tank oompf, perhaps?
Not that I’m aware off. The trade off in protection would kill that conversation before it even started. For as much as people online like to talk about SUV’s and light vehicles being more mobile and agile than armour, in a tactical context, especially off road, vehicles with lighter armour are not actually that much more mobile or agile than MBTs.
Adding more weight to an overloaded vehicle is folly. BAE has CV90 120 prototype that works with making crew sick.
Mmmm the Army is introducing Argus for the ladies and gentlemen of the CRE!have we missed the announcement the Ajax is safe for use?
in my day engineer recce was a Ferret! 😛
Then upgraded to a Spartan👍😀
Don’t fret about new stuff just get the crap we have already bought to work!
So many are saying Armour is obsolete ( which it isn’t ) because of Drones, so why buy a Light Tank?
Hopefully Ajax Scout is fixed and there’s our light tank.
Or, in another world, Strike would have been furnished with Centauro 2. Sigh….🙄
It’s not obsolete, however, the way we use Armour will have to change👍
The £££ we have spent on AJAX and the overall mess
It is infuriating!
I know Ajax is hardly light, but it is not a tank either.
The debacle goes all the way back to FRES with CVRT replacement.
It’s not?
Technically it isn’t a tank no. CVRT is also technically not a tank.
I’ve long thought that something like the Centauro or the Japanese Type 16 would have been a good choice for us. Moving Challenger (or any MBT) is a pain logistically and the wheeled options are far easie. Would be sacrificing surviveability though for the sake of mobility.
Sorry, as nice as they look, the British Army won’t get a new light tank because they are currently wasting £££ on CR3 and AJAX
The survivability of CR3, AJAX, or any other fancy vehicle in the worst-case scenario on the battlefield will be short and a very expensive loss, which we couldn’t afford to replace if we end up on a battlefield within Ukraine, for example.
Non-military trucks are becoming a hallmark of the war in Ukraine… stick a drone jammer on, and go INFIL or a trip to the armoury to pick up supplies
A line of light, medium, and heavy armour is spotted miles away and swooped upon by drones
The drones from both sides make it almost impossible to move, and you pray the drone jammer works.
Brutal facts of the attrition recorded
A new light tank… pfft more chance of finding gold at the end of a 🌈
Will the results of these recent exercises, like Hedgehog2025, shock the army into “at pace” decision-making on letting the various regiments just get on and improvise and adapt, or, as normal, drag their feet!
All well and good,so your solution is what? How about the armies end up in ‘fixed’ lines and then just sit there bombing each other with drones AKA Ukraine! Armies will still have to move and despite drones manoeuvre warfare is far from dead so armour will still be needed!
The problem is that Ukraine is using IMV in part because that’s what Ukraine has; both in terms of Domestic Production and what NATO has supplied it with, IMV’s (aka SUV’s, Technicals, Humvees etc) are just the lions share of what it has. Ukraine can’t suppress Russian Air Defence’s or deny Russian air superiority, Ukraine lacks the equipment to breach Russian minefields, Ukraine’s Armoured Formations are small and precious.
And yet despite that every time Ukraine (or Russia) gains ground in any significant amount and speed it’s because they’ve managed to concentrate force and punch a mechanised force through the enemy line (Kharkiv and Kursk are probably the best examples of this).
Also this is a great example of why I wish “Exercise Results” weren’t reported on in such sensationalist ways. People seizing on one part of Exercise Hedgehog’s “result” as if it’s a sports game.
John, In the Hedgehog exercise I read that a very large UKR drone unit (1,000 men) deploying goodness knows how many drones killed 17 British armoured vehicles. The headlines that ‘a British Brigade was wiped out’ are clearly ridiculous. I doubt we even had a full brigade depoyed and even if we did, 17 vehicles is not much.
Some reports assert that the British armour was deliberately not well camouflaged and concealed, to give Ukraine a satisfying and morale-boosting exercise.
As Dern says you’ve got to look at more that the raw score on exercises.
I’ve done a bit more reading since this is clearly (*SIGH*) going to be a talking point. Simulated hits where automatically counted as kills, it was a joint Ukranian-NATO unit not just a drone unit, reporting often claiming a full British Brigade was assaulting the Ukranians alongside an Estonian division… when we can be sure just from the force laydown it would have been “elements of”
Anyway, the more I read the more I think that one of the objectives was to get low level commanders to get used to working in a drone threat environment… you know, training.
1 )10 soldiers attacked NATO forces. In about half a day, drone operators conditionally destroyed 17 armored vehicles and delivered 30 strikes on other targets.
2 ) Quote >
In one of the training scenarios, a combat group of several thousand soldiers, including troops from the British brigade and the Estonian division, attempted to launch a mechanized attack. However, according to sources, they did not take into account that the drones had made the battlefield much more “transparent.”
3) Quote from Aivar Hanniotti, coordinator of unmanned aerial systems for the Estonian Defense League >
He led a unit of about 100 ‘simulated enemy’ troops, including Estonian and Ukrainian military personnel.
The opponent’s forces “were able to destroy two battalions in a day,” so that “within the scope of the exercise, they effectively lost their combat capability.” Meanwhile, NATO units “didn’t even get to our drone operators.”
They lost combat capability in a day, and in real life, would have been continuously harassed by drones in retreat = DECIMATION aka WIPED OUT
Yes the Ukranians did well (though it’s worth noting that it wasn’t just the Ukranians, as they where attached to a NATO force), and there’s certainly a lot that was learned, but again; a controlled exercise isn’t a simulation. It’s a training environment designed to test, not a sports competition. So your all caps conclusion at the end (along with 99% of the media reporting on this) just makes it clear that you don’t understand that the disconnect between the two.
The US tried to develop a light tank for its mobile protected firepower programme. The ASCOD based Booker came in at over 40 tons, failing the key air mobile requirement and had problems with the 105 mm gun. It has been cancelled.
If MBTs are now susceptible to drone attack, a lighter vehicle would be even more vulnerable.
TBF the Air Mobile requirement had been dropped a while before.
and the gun was fine.
If you look up the Cheiftains hatch he did a good deep dive into what documents are publically available and tried to make sense of the cancellation. I think the summary of his conculsion was “M10 was cancelled because someone wanted it cancelled” rather than any specific issue with the vehicle.
Ukrainian recce/strike stresses mobility over protection, using SUVs dispersed in small teams with a premium on delegated lower level command initiative..
Until AI driven counterdrone capabilities are able to consistently achieve battlefield low and ultra low level air superiority, it is difficult to see any real role for a light armoured vehicle, other than, perhaps, in an anti air role, that cannot be achieved by small teams of low signature fast moving SUVs.
The MOD rules out buying “anything”. There, fixed it.
Personally I think the whole drone thing is a short term fad. Not saying they aren’t currently useful, or will go away totally, but as soon as militaries realize they don’t need multi million pound solutions but a couple of 4×4’s that shoots proximity munitions the threat won’t be so severe.
Revive the mini challenger program from the 80s