Watch Challenger 2 Main Battle Tanks of The Queen’s Royal Hussars being put through their paces in challenging weather conditions as part of their final preparations for BATUS in Canada.
For Commanding Officer, Lieutenant Colonel Alex Porter the live firing exercise was the culmination of months of hard training, as he explained:
“We commenced the Exercise refreshing the basic skills of operating the vehicles and getting the crews working together as cohesive teams, from this we moved into crew firing packages on the ranges to give them experience and confidence before finally progressing to troop firing packages.”
Challenger 2 is the British Army’s main battle tank. The CR2 is based on the Challenger 1 tank, which served with distinction on operations in the Gulf War and the Balkans.
Only five percent of Challenger 2 components are interchangeable with its predecessor, which has had more than 150 major modifications including a completely new turret, L30 CHARM 120mm gun and second generation Chobham armour.
I just wish we had more of them
What’s the progress on their refit? Last I heard they didn’t even know if it would even go ahead because of lack of funding.
Amazingly soon we will have just 2 Regiments left. 2.
At the moment we still have three: KRH, QRH and RTR but the KRH will reorganize as an Ajax regiment soon I believe. So only two in the future.
Not to worry..Ajax has a 40mm gun, so it’s a ‘medium’ tank according to Whitehall. Cheaper and is as big as a tank..so it’s a tank!
They are in the final stage of selecting which upgrade package to use- the basic package is merely an upgrade to electronics, although all the contenders are offering extras.
There are a few hundred in storage or did I miss read that?
Are they upgrading the entire fleet? Including those in storage or just the ones left in active service?
We might need to reconsider reductionist just 2 regiments as the CR2 gives huge standing power and fighting capability to the army. With increasingly worsening tensions with an ever more beligerent and hostile Russia we might just need all these amazing vehicles in the future.
I doubt even the A14 Arimata series are going to be able to stand against the challenger 2. Superior armour and hitting power. I do not believe Russian material science is able to develop armour that can effectively stop a sabot round from a challenger 2 without the tank weighing 100+ tons. The Arimata is untested (unlike the challenger) and to me is nothing more than a gimmick.
the CR2 isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. the gun hasn’t the hitting power you think either. there’s some serious flaws on it in terms of its survivability and I’m not talking about the armour.
the minimum it needs is new optics and a trophy style defence suite. if money were no object a new power pack and new gun.
If you want to go for a new gun with single piece ammo then you are looking at a new tank really. The amount of work required means that you might as well start with a fresh design.
exactly. a new platform entirely is the best solution. decades away though.
Why the flashing light? I’d think that a tank on a test range would be pretty hard to miss, and any smoke screens would obscure both the tank and the light.
If you’re in a fair fight (i.e. Tank vs Tank) then you didn’t plan properly. If we plan properly then our tanks don’t need to be tank killers. A medium tank to support our infantry against enemy troops without tanks is enough. We should plan for this to happen rather than the tank vs tank by putting more into ISTAR followed by Typhoon+Brimstone or Apache.
The problem is the EU hasnt planned for anything. It has virtually no ucavs outside the UK and limited attack helecoptors. The Russians have a huge sam network so it will be 200 eu tanks against 2000 russian tanks if ever there was a conflict and the US stayed out of it.
Think there are currently about 227 Challenger 2’s plus 70 in storage and 48 adapted training tanks.