The Ministry of Defence have confirmed that “there may be a requirement for Warrior to be used in some reconnaissance roles” until the troubled Ajax armoured vehicle is brought into service.
The Ministry of Defence previously stated that while they would no longer upgrade Warrior, the armoured fighting vehicle would remain in service until replaced by Boxer. A total of £430m had been spent on the Warrior upgrade programme. You can read more about Warrior upgrades here.
The information on Warrior also covering for Ajax to light via a Parliamentary question.
Tobias Ellwood, Member of Parliment for Bournemouth East Commons, asked via a Parliamentary written question:
“To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, whether his Department is taking steps to develop the (a) Boxer and (b) Warrior into a reconnaissance vehicle to replace the Scimitar.”
Jeremy Quin, Minister of State for the Ministry of Defence, responded:
“As announced in the Defence Command Paper “Defence in a Competitive Age”, Warrior is being retired from service and Boxer will be the primary mechanised infantry platform for the army. AJAX will replace CVR(T) in reconnaissance roles. CVR(T) is expected to go out of service in 2023 and there may be a requirement for Warrior to be used in some reconnaissance roles until AJAX is brought into service.”
The Ministry of Defence recently ruled out purchasing an alternative to Ajax as it “remains committed” to the troubled armoured vehicle. Trials of the British Army’s new Ajax armoured vehicles were recently halted for a second time after concerns were again raised over noise.
The Ministrty of Defence confirmed that following renewed concerns on the impacts of noise, “all Ajax trials have been suspended and will only resume when we are assured that mitigations are fully effective.”
Last month, Defence Minister Jeremy Quin visited the Millbrook Proving Ground where independent testing has been conducted on Ajax. He commented:
“This long-running troubled programme requires ongoing intense work by our industrial partners and ourselves to ensure its delivery. In achieving this, the safety of our personnel will always come first.”
Earlier in the year we reported that trials of Ajax armoured vehicles were halted at the end of last year to March this year due to excessive vibration and noise, leaving crews suffering from nausea, swollen joints and tinnitus.
General Dynamics UK said at the time that it is working with the Army on the issues.
“Recent trials have confirmed many of the required capabilities across the AJAX Family of Vehicles, including operations across the full range of speed and reverse step obstacle climb. A small number of remaining issues are being reviewed and closed out in partnership with the British Army and Ministry of Defence ahead of Initial Operating Capability.”
Just asking… what was so wrong with the warrior, that it had to be replaced completely?
Could it not have been upgraded?
Don’t get me started on the Warrior upgrade mate…
I take it you have a dim view of warrior, and upgrading it?
I suspect Goldilocks’ comment refers to the massive cost overrun estimates to upgrade Warrior.
Problematic gun not suitable for old turret as BAE told them and required new turret to be produced. However recoil causing turret to wobble when fired not resolved. Also rumours that side mounting of chain gun caused some ejection jams ! Bushmaster would have been a suitable alternative and would provide commonality of ammunition which is a well used argument for smoothbore for CR3 !
Have a look at the articles on the excellent Think Defence Web site… Everything you ever wanted to know about Warrior, FRES and some stuff you didn’t know about containers.
Excellent resource.
Just wondering out of Warrior upgrade and Ajax which is the bigger mess ? If as seems likely Ajax goes to the big scrapheap in the sky would it be worth reviving the Warrior upgrade ?
So if the boxer is to replace warrior are they sticking a turret on boxer or having glory holes like the original bmp to shoot out of.
They could just buy something off the shelf, that works and is in production, but that would just be crazy……..
We had a discussion on FB last night but some people were non to receptive to my argument of ditching it and replacing warrior and Ajax with the Lynx. Hungary is building a new plant to manufacture them so why not just buy them from Hungary off the shelf. That way we’d have commonality with lots of other NATO nations Inc the Yanks and Australia if they select it also. Lots of money has been wasted and lets not forget it’s our Tax money. Ajax is years and billions down the road.
No arguments from me Mark….
good call Mark
Just buy the BAE CV90 MK1V and manufacture as much as possible in the UK, that is what has just been offered to the Czechs.
CV 90 built in Sweden and final fit done in Czech, it would be interesting to see price of cv90 Vs lynx and what weapons and sensor fits they have. But I don’t think neither Rheinmetall nor Bae have the facilities at present without more money being spent.
It’s just a big cluster fuck.
There’s also Hanwah’s Redback IFV which the Australian army are testing alongside the Lynx. Hanwah do the K90 155mm SPH so I wonder if they’ll get a look in for their IFV too?
With a should be short lead time and existing CV90 supply chain right on our door step. Too sensible!!! Lol.
once again the MOD has over complicated something that just isn’t that complex.
If you have tanks, then make all the other assets in that formation based off the same hull (like the Israelis successfully do) one set of parts etc.
so, going forward, Strike and all things strike should be on Boxer and Heavy Armour should be based on whatever platform Challenger 4 is.
This is not rocket science – we end up with 2 hull types that deliver all the capability we need.
If we need something lighter and air mobile that would be a third platform etc.
what we have to stop is gold plating everything and then manufacturing less and less.
The above is possible as other countries do it..
from a manufacturing point of view we can have one factory doing everything tracked and one doing everything Wheeled. Preferably in the same location near a steel foundry.
the key is committing to an order and maintaining the fleet management (ie replacing on a regular basis)
Concur with you 100%. How come the UK ba**s this up each time when it is so simple to get right first time?
warrior was good i served in 2li and we had them, but they had flaws, the biggest one was rardon, having to manual load a clip of 3 30mm rounds lucky we only used HE or APDS and a good gunner could sharp knock them out, but it was constant training, and they proved there weight in gold out in Bosnia, even with the extra bolt on armour, but like everything they are now outdated and need replacing but why we as a nation cannot build what should be something simple i do not know, a lot of people blame the MOD yes they are not perfect but warrior and challenger were built by excellent companies back in the 80,s and 90,s where are those comapnies now, who owns them and more to the point which sticky fingured mp makes the most out of these contracts, thats the problem……
Those companies did no sold enough to exist on their own.
When Ajax enters service…that line made me laugh…If they can’t get these things right first time then the army needs to be relieved of its role in procurement and we need to go back to the days when we had SQEP people in the MoD with PhDs as well as engineering experience in industry.
Now that is a good idea. Problem would be a lot of very cushy desk jobs would disappear ! The Army would not like that.
I think Ajax and variant deliveries were planned to run until 2029 in the original manufacturing contract. With the delays and even assuming the faults can be fixed, Warrior could be in use for a long time yet.
I get the comment that there is no plan B ie to buy an alternative. But if Ajax has to be cancelled, we will need a tracked IFV. The only option is to upgrade Warrior without the problematic CTA and replacing Rarden with an automatic 30 mm. I understand LMUK have the capability to do this.
The info leaked doesn’t sound like a quick fix will be possible if the hulls have been manufactured outside of the design tolerance. I’m not sure how that’s even possible with modern manufacturing, it almost feels deliberate because of brexit. I assume GDUK will need to scrap the 100 original hulls and move everything to the UK to be built properly at their own cost or cancel the contract.
Ajax isn’t an IFV, it’s a Scout Vehicle.
You can use an IFV in a scout role (that’s what is going to happen short term) but not the other way round. After Warrior upgrade was cancelled, there was talk of Ares filling the IFV role, perhaps with an unmanned turret. But the Ajax problems seem to affect all variants.
It would make sense, not least financial, to use the Warrior hulls to cover both roles. Some of the roles planned for Ajax variants never needed a vehicle of such size and weight so could be handled by other lighter platforms. There are enough Warrior hulls to provide the planned number of IFVs and reconnaissance vehicles.
From the information provided, it seems most likely Ajax will be abandoned.
The problem is Warrior brings very little to the Scout Role that CVRT doesn’t already, only with a bigger footprint, and a big empty space in the back. As a stop gap, because CVRT is worn out and AJAX delayed, okay, but it’s not a replacement for AJAX.
And regardless of if Ajax is cancelled or not, the British Army is taking a tracked IFV holiday.
‘Holiday’ that’s a very polite way of describing it !
:wpds_smile:
Eh, as much as I dislike the Army cuts, really tracked IFV capability is one of the things that would hurt the least with Boxer coming into the fleet (especially if there is scope to procure a turreted variant). Ideally I’d like to see the Army expand to a triangular armoured division with a detached cavalry brigade, but that won’t happen until someone realises that Airforces and Navies don’t actually win wars without ground troops.
The Army as such doesn’t really exist at a policy, strategy level. It’s a loose collection of vested interests. The Cavalry want their tracked vehicles see Challenger 3 and Ajax. We were in the same place with horse Cavalry in the 30’s when a wise Def Sec backed by his PM finally succeeded. Even the first world war couldn’t get the Cavalry to abandon their horses. Sooner or later the Army will have to choose which are the future tracked AFV’s or UAV’s. They probably cannot afford both. The current Def Sec understands this I think/hope but even he couldn’t overcome the Cavalry Mafia lobbying the PM. In the end they will both compromise and will be slaughtered when they face an opponent who didn’t and chose wisely.
No offense, but the idea that the first world war should’ve persuaded the army to give up on horses is silly. Even the cavalry actions that where executed in 1916 and 1917 on the western front where successful, not to mention the fact that they where vital in 1914 and 1918 as well as on the Palestine front, to the point where cavalry was a better mobile arm in 1918 than the Whippet tanks. If anything the lessons of WW1 was that cavalry still had a role on the battlefield.
As for “Mafias” those exist in all three services, what the army lacks is a clear kind of war to prepare for, because the govt wants it to prepare for 3-4 different wars at once on a shrinking budget. (And neither CGS nor CDS is part of the “cavalry mafia” anyway).
No offense taken. I agree on Middle East in WW1 but we’ll have to disagree on W.Front. I think Ukraine and Nagorno Karabakh are examples of the scale of change UAV’s will bring to future conflicts. Time will tell. On Mafias yes they exist in all 3 services but I haven’t seen evidence of the Carrier, Sub etc Mafias being able to ‘I believe’ overturn a Def Sec/MoD decision by lobbying the PM. =
The Western Front issues with Cavalry where mainly to do with 2 factors: 1) Most Cavalry being held at Army-Army Group command levels, meaning that during 1916 and 1917 the number of levels information had to go through before it reached the cavalry was insane, and effectively meant that by the time cavalry had the information it needed, the opportunites had passed. *edit forgot to say 2)* 2) approaches usually had to be prepared through allied trench systems for the cavalry. Most Cav units had developed dedicated trench crossing units, but tactical trench crossing needed to be saved for enemy trenches, so “approach lanes” where built on top of trenches, but only on expected lines of advance. So if the approach lane was built in the wrong place… no cavalry advance happened.
However when they did get into action, eg at Arras, they proved that the cavalry was still a very useful arm, both as high mobile Rifle and Hotchkiss MG armed units, and in the charge with Arme Blanche.
Take for example the capture of Equancourt early 1917, by a (mostly Canadian) detachment from the 5th Cavalry Division: First the poistion was fixed by Royal Horse Artillery, and a Mounted MG detachment, then two cavalry squadrons engaged the town with Rifle fire, while two more squadrons outflanked the position on horseback and galloped into town, overrunning the position. Total casualties where 5 men killed.
After a similar operation a few days later the German commander outright stated that the speed of the cavalry attack was what overwhelmed his ability to react.
There’s another engagement, I think from the year before, where one of the regiments ended up in a multi-hour firefight with a German battalion, until one of the squadrons, mounted on horseback charged them with drawn swords, and over-ran the enemy, taking most of them prisoner.
The issue wasn’t quite that the cavalry was useless on the western front (contrary to what some Tank-proponents, *cough* Liddel Hart *cough* pushed), the issue was getting them to the positions where they could be useful.
I haven’t read anywhere about the op’s you describe. I will have to get hold of some new books. Thanks.