A formal safety investigation into the Army’s Ajax armoured vehicle will take at least two weeks, the Ministry of Defence has confirmed, in a move that deepens uncertainty around a programme, some say, already facing the prospect of cancellation, the UK Defence Journal understands.
Answering a written parliamentary question on 5 December, Defence Minister Luke Pollard said “the safety of our personnel is paramount” and confirmed that the Defence Accident Investigation Board, supported by the Army Safety Investigation Team and General Dynamics, is examining the latest incident.
While this work continues, ministers have directed a halt to training and exercising with the vehicle and Pollard noted that the investigation is “anticipated to take at least two weeks”.
The pause follows reports that around thirty soldiers experienced noise and vibration related symptoms during a late November exercise involving sixty one Ajax family vehicles. Twenty three of those vehicles were linked to crew injuries, placing the proportion at roughly thirty eight percent. These figures align with new Army data showing that a substantial share of the training fleet continues to trigger health complaints despite previous rounds of modification work.
This episode has added momentum to political scrutiny already building around the programme. Defence Secretary John Healey recently declined to rule out cancelling the project entirely, stating that all options remain open. His remarks came after press reports that some soldiers were being deafened or made ill in Ajax, and after confirmation that the platform is now eight years behind schedule and absorbing more than six billion pounds of investment for a planned fleet of 589 vehicles.
Ajax had formally achieved Initial Operating Capability on 6 November, with a first squadron deemed deployable from an initial pool of fifty vehicles. The announcement was presented as a long delayed breakthrough for a platform that the MoD has described as a digitalised, sensor rich armoured reconnaissance fleet built in Merthyr Tydfil by General Dynamics Land Systems UK. The subsequent halt has renewed questions about whether the upgrade effort has brought vibration and noise issues under control to the standard required.
Additional controversy emerged this week after a senior General Dynamics UK employee, identified publicly as an Acceptance Manager, posted comments on Facebook asserting that most reported faults on Ajax were caused by user error, poor maintenance and command shortcomings. The remarks, made in response to discussions among soldiers and testers, drew attention due to the individual’s seniority and came at a moment when ministers have signalled openness to major decisions on the programme’s future.
General Dynamics UK said that the comments “do not reflect those of the company in any way” and said it has launched an internal investigation. The firm added that it remains committed to delivering equipment that meets the highest standards and continues to work with the MoD in support of the Ajax family of vehicles.
The results of the safety investigation and the parallel Army inquiry are expected to shape ministerial decisions on whether Ajax proceeds, is reconfigured or is brought to an end.
Imagine what a public inquiry would find in this mess.
A public inquiry would take five years and £300m to find that personnel did not close down early enough, should have masked up and maintained at least two metre spacing.
Essentially a huge amount of money to simply agree what was actually generally already known so the conclusions can be delayed until they no longer truly matter to the public and those in charge ( the sitting government at the time it happened) are long gone.
What’s the point, publican inquiry will just cost millions, take years and tell us nothing we don’t know. General Dynamics is useless and Spanish build quality is atrocious which is why their stuff is cheap.
Scrap it and sue General Dynamics even if we loose it will still f**k up their armoured vehicles in Europe.
There is no point. At all.
That is why I said “imagine”.
English is a wonderful language.
How can the program possibly go on, no one will ever have faith in it again and going in just men’s giving General Dynamics more money.
Hopefully we learn our lesson and never buy anything from another US defence contractor.
Buy CV90 and be done with it.
One hundred per cent Jim.
Hi Jim, The problem is ordering anything else just puts us in a very long queue behind lots of other orders. Like you I’ve done a lot of reading on this, but I just have to wonder if something can be rescued ? Just like the US we Gold plated it, added weight let GDLS run circles round the Army and MOD procurement.
So I do wonder what would happen if we stripped all the extra goodies out and tried to take them back to the Baseline ASCOD 2 IFV but with the COTS turret ?
Taking a 28 ton IFV and then boosting it up to 38 or 42 (variant dependant) was just asking for trouble, the US have cancelled their Booker M10 variety and yep it was up to 42 tons.
Thing is there saying the problem only effects about 33% of the fleet so obviously they should be able to identify the problem just by comparing the 2 and fixing it if we order a whole new vehicle we are talking years before we see anything I also wonder where they stand on getting there money back as it’s been signed off twice I believe as fit for service it’s a very strange situation
Personally I would take everything from GD land vehicles that has already been build and delivered and see what can be done with it.
Then take them to court for breach of contract
Safety enquiry lasting two weeks? Anyone know what’s happened in the last five years? Rhetorical question guys. The answer is nothing. Best thing is to have a chat with Bae and buy what we should have bought in the first place, the CV90.
Is “Vim” still around ?
Poor maintenance on new vehicles?
How about we get some real men in the army not babies looking for a swift buck. I maybe too old but I can drive and I don’t need to sit in a rolls royce with hot and cold running water and a nappy changing station
That’s a bit harsh being sick is not voluntary is it also I heard somewhere the vehicle is like 4x louder than other vehicles of its type which as a recon vehicle isn’t a good thing soldiers are not weak and trying to get a claim there is a genuine problem that needs fixing
Next year, the British Army could well be facing down Russian forces, whether they open fire or not is down to gravity, but it will need the best kit available, and it simply is not there. A war footing can not be ruled out, and to make matters worse, Trump may detune US activity in Europe as a demonstration of his discontent with Ukraine and Europe over the peace process.
Question: Is Ares also suffering? If not, that programme could continue, and some form of rapid makeover of Warrior in terms of gun upgrade and digital improvements might mitigate the situation. An emergency recall of Scimitar to temporarily fill the Ajax gap must be a feasible option, and a proportion of the good old Bulldog’s could be fitted with its uparmour packages. The current situation is scanderless when you consider the safety of our troops is on the line.
Father Christmas will sort this out. I think reindeers are pretty good at reconnaissance and strike 🙂
On the upside, cancellation of Ajax would permit a complete rethink of how best to conduct recce in the age of the remotely operated land/air/sea vehicle.
As others have said, we are now at the back of the queue for CV90 so, perforce, plenty of time for any new CONOPS to be developed/(digitally)wargamed/written.
A mix of small, fast, wheeled recce vehicles and lorry borne configurable pallet systems of recce/strike drone launchers, missile launchers and conventional mortar/artillery systems might offer a quick short term fix?
Certainly, the idea of an ASCOD based IFV now looks dead in the water.
Do the infantry, I wonder, still even want a tracked (heavy, expensive, vulnerable) IFV or is dispersed high mobility/small size now the key to protection?
I think there is a lesson here.. the simple fact is our army is to small and the funding to tight to take massive risks.. the army had blown half its armoured vehicle budget on a gold plated white elephant that does not work.. the U.S. army can afford blow 5 billion on a gold plated see what we can build project.. the British army is simply to small and its funds are not big enough to do that..
The armies generals have gambled on its future and utterly fucked up. They have spunked untold billions and have literally nothing to show for it.. so the sorry story of the armies mission to piss taxpayers money up the wall and still make its soldiers drive around in 60 year old armoured vehicles means that in essence for 800 or so protected Mobility vehicles ( with another 600 or so binned), Ajax that does not work and about 600 boxers they will have spent about 16 billion pound’s.. just for a bit of context that would have got you about 32 FREMM frigates for the navy if we had decided to join that program. The French army in that same period spent 3.1 billion pounds on 630 infantry fighting vehicles….
Sadly the army did have its cake but it left it outside in the rain and can now neither eat it or keep it.
Is it what can be considered as too big to fail? I really don’t see any inquiry scrapping the whole program but then again injecting more funds is definitely not a solution
Reform cavalry as forward recon, after all, there are enough bloody horses trotting around London. Equip the riders with shotguns for drone protection and job done. Simples.
The fact that they are talking about weeks tells me that they are thinking about the impact on the equipment plan, also that cancellation is the most likely outcome. A thorough review of engineering solutions would surely take longer.
This Government can cancel it and blame their predecessors. If they choose to try to fix it, that is on them.
They already spent 10 years trying to fix the problems and they apparently haven’t worked. It would be sheer stupidity to try again. The only question to be answered really is do all variants suffer the problems. If not continue with them, but Ajax needs to go.