Efforts to speed up the delivery of the troubled Ajax armoured vehicles have been outlined by the Ministry of Defence.
The information came to light via the response to a Written Parliamentary Question.
Andrew Rosindell (Conservative – Romford) asked:
“To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what steps he has taken to improve the delivery rate of the Ajax armoured vehicle programme.”
James Cartlidge, Minister of State (Ministry of Defence), responded:
“As a result of revised contractual terms with MOD, General Dynamics UK have introduced a number of measures designed to improve the delivery rate. These measures include:
– Extending the current shift patterns and building contingency throughout the production schedule;
– Optimising the build line to balance activity and recruitment of additional resource to anticipate potential pinch points in the schedule; and
– An increase in collaborative practices, such as the introduction of joint acceptance, to reduce overall timelines.”
That answer………… 😂
Your laughing Frank, if Vlad reads this he’s probably peeing himself.
From what i heard, He does that already……
That explains his silly walk. Incontinence trousers.
Blah,Blah,Blah. 😎
So nothing as usual. Idiots.
Bit of a non-answer really. I wonder what “building contingency” actually means and what are the “pinch points”?
Exactly.
Pinch points, Vladimir Vladimirovich will know exactly what they are – caused by extra strong elastic in those incontinence trousers.
Pinch points or extended Tea breaks on the production line 🤔
It’d be the Welsh Cakes, take a lot of chewing!😉
And causes a lot of blockages on and of the line perhaps?
Speed it up?
It already does 42mph!
Ahh, Humour….. 😄
A little levity in these dark days.
A sense of humour failure can be fatal.
Only to a comedian
Not really. Having a laugh when things are becoming a little too serious and life threatening. Forces people to think differently and come back around. A failure to laugh it off can push the best of us over the edge. It’s the time when dark humour works best. For example:
A black Sailor and a white Royal Marine are at the urinals. Black sailor says. “I just bloody made it mate.”
White marine looks down and says. “I wish you would make me one like it.”
I served for 24 years, black humour is a staple of life. I still have to explain to my wife why something I find funny is just that.
You and me both. Stay well brother.
👍 you too
I just get lots of tutting.
That and the audible eye roll!🙄
I wonder if they could shoehorn in an engine from one of those amazing racing trucks they enjoy in Germany?
Those things really shift.
Hi Peter, from TG: “The official FIA European Truck Racing Championship may look agricultural, but in 2021 the series switched to using a 100 per cent sustainable fuel (HVO). This reduces net CO2 emissions by around 90 per cent. The engines are capped at 13 litres in capacity and power the rear wheels with 1,100bhp and 4,794lb ft of torque. They come from standard production, but teams change the internals to make these proper racing power units.” The downside would be coupling it to the 6 speed auto transmission of the AJAX platform I think. The MTU V8 199TE21 produces… Read more »
the introduction of joint acceptance,
Therein lies a tale I suspect.
When both sides agree “Yeah, thats good enough.”
Nitrous oxide injection, that will speed Ajax up a treat……
does that work in a diesel? Already has 805BHPees
I’m not sure Ian, but for a trifling £500,000, I’ll fit a bottle to Ajax and we will find out….
Make it a million and I’ll fit Halfords reversing sensors and a set of mud flaps too .. Only on a limited trial basis obviously for that bargain basement price.
John, you have all of the makings of a first rate defence contractor Sir! I salute your business acumen!
😂😂👍 Now let’s talk go faster stripes…..
😎
👍
Just be careful you don’t put them on backwards…we can’t afford any more delays…
😂
😂😂
Oh that was a low dig. 😂
You beat me to it.Should have bought CV90,but must have greased the wrong palms
CV90 recce variant. That was a candidtae, as I am sure you know. Pity we never get the story as to why one bid is selected over the other. Most think there was an anti-BAE faction amongst the politicos; I can’t think of any other reason…unless jobs in Wales was more important than jobs at a BAE UK site.
If there’s one area that shouldn’t be trimmed back it’s checking and testing every vehicle thoroughly.
Is there any plans what to do with the factory and skilled staff when the order gets near finishing?
You got that right. We should have bought a version of 1000BHP CV90, with plans to standardise all our AFVs on it’s variants and future derivatives. I’d pick BAE over GM every time, especially with that engine. Take a look at the CV90 Mjölner. The fact BAE were going to reopen the Vickers Elswick Works for a production line, has something to do with my admitted local bias. I used to drive past the Elswick Works on a regular basis and marvel at the history of Vickers Armstrong. The location where tanks were produced since almost day one. The actual… Read more »
Unfortunately BAES had no intention of building their AJAX proposal in UK. It would be based on Terrier chassis and manufactured in Hagglunds. It was only after they lost contract they tried to change proposal to build in UK. By then it was too late.
BAE’s AJAX proposal was based on Terrier? Surely you mean it was based on CV90 suitably modified for the recce role.
Terriers were surely built at BAE Newcastle, but you suggest they were built at the BAE’s Hagglunds factory in Sweden?
Terrier was designed by BAES before they bought out Alvis Vickers. Most of the design work being done at Leicester. They had an eye on FRES at the time and Terrier Chassis was the required weight class, especially with the new hydrogas suspension and all the reliability growth trials that Terrier went through. After the BAES buy out the FRES SV bid was also led from Leicester, but the plan was to build the vehicles in Hagglunds if they had won. For the life of me I cannot remember what platform we put into the “Trials of Truth”
Thanks mate. I had not followed the Terrier story that closely. Seems like another good piece of kit for the RE. [Probably not been upgraded over the years though!]. Its predecessor, the CET, was a RO plc Leicester product as I recall.
George, ARES has no cannon, so is not an IFV…it is an APC and carries a specialist team of up to 4 men, not an Infantry section.
Yes Graham I know. It’s a replacement for the small Spartan APC and the others in that family, Samson, Sultan etc. I’m sure you know better than I do. Having mended them after Toms bent them. Any IFV replacing Warrior would need to accommodate a full sized infantry section plus kit. It goes without saying. Hence my suggestion of a stretched version of ARES. I’ll explain where I think that will come from and why. But first, Austria and Spain already have fully fledged IFV versions of the original ASCOD, one is called the Ulan. General Dynamics Land Systems again.… Read more »
Thanks George. You seem to be thinking that the MoD having cancelled WCSP and declared (bizarrely) that the Boxer MIV is to replace our IFV in the two armoured brigades…. that they would then fork out £billions to buy some other IFV. I really don’t see that happening.
I think MoD have lost the plot and are running scared, trying to play catchup. The fact remains, if the army still intend to field MBTs, they need mechanised infantry to keep pace. Meaning tracked IFVs. Along with tracked self propelled artillery and air defence assets etc. I do not accept that tracked fighting vehicles can be replaced by wheeled 4×4, 6×6 or 8×8. They are complimentary assets rather than interchangeable. In my humble opinion, an army without MBT divisions is not worthy of the name. It’s a police force! The manufacturer of Boxer, now market a tracked hull. So… Read more »
I agree mostly George. The army has many roles and only one (but the most important one) is warfighting. For that, we need one warfighting armoured division as a minimum. It should have three identical armoured brigades each with tanks, IFVs, tracked SPGs, AD etc – just as you say.
Sure there is tracked Boxer (a KMW product) which has been demonstrated at arms fairs since June 2022 but not yet ordered by anyone.
I too have a soft spot for the Newcastle site. I did my 3 months REME Industrial attachment with Vickers in the Elswick works (old tank factory) in 1980. We built the last CHARRV when I was there, as I recall. That’s CHARRV, not CRARRV.
Was that a Chieftain based armoured recovery and repair vehicle by any chance. The one with the crane on top, not to be confused with the equally impressive Chieftain AVRE.
Yes, CH is short for Chieftain. CR is short for Challenger. Although plenty get that wrong on UKDJ posts.
It would be hard to confuse CHAVRE with CHARRV, the former being RE kit and having a mineplough at the front and fascines on the engine decks…and the latter being a REME equipment with winch and crane.
The GDUK factory in Wales could go back to making fork lift trucks!….and spare parts for the Ajax family.
George (author), why is the main picture at the top, captioned (bottom right corner) “The troubled AJAX”? More accurately, it could be labelled “The very clean AJAX” or something similar.
What a load of double speak, is it possible for them to speak in simple english.
The issue is, it’s not phrased like that for you or for me, it’s phrased that way to be accurate.
You mean to be vague and noncommittal should it al go belly up.
No.
Or in plain bloody English, working longer hours, hiring more people, and getting people to work more closely together
Bigger key for the clockwork action 🤪🕳️