Only a few months ago the UK promised to supply 14 Challenger 2 tanks
to Ukraine, a move which helped persuade other western nations to
supply their own tanks to aid the fight against the Russian invasion.
Challenger tanks have been in Ukraine for some months now.
Since then the floodgates have creaked open, albeit sometimes slowly,
and parts of the UkrAF have been re-equipped with NATO armoured
fighting vehicles, most notably German-built Leopard 2 tanks, donated by
various European countries, and American Bradley infantry fighting
vehicles.
Written by Lt Col Stuart Crawford, a defence analyst and former army officer. Sign up for his podcasts and newsletters at www.DefenceReview.uk
This article is the opinion of the author and not necessarily that of the UK Defence Journal. If you would like to submit your own article on this topic or any other, please see our submission guidelines.
The equipment from the west has been sufficient to equip up to 15
Ukrainian brigades, each of perhaps 3,000 personnel or more and about
250 vehicles of all types. These brigades are considered to represent the
Ukrainian operational reserve, ready to exploit any breakthrough of the
Russian defence lines if and when it happens.
Ukrainian soldiers have also been taught how to operate their new
equipment and trained in the western way of war, in combined all-arms
operations where the various arms and services combine to best effect.
We now know that some of these brigades have been committed to battle,
if only by the photographic evidence of Leopard 2s and Bradleys
languishing burnt and forlorn in Russian minefields. A significant number
of these abandoned vehicles, however, can and have been rescued and
repaired.
What we are yet to see, though, at least from open sources, is any
evidence of the Challenger 2s in action. They may well have been, of
course, and have managed to survive unscathed so far, but I doubt it.
They are just as vulnerable to the mines and UAVs which seem to have
taken out some of the Leopard 2s.
We have seen other British-supplied vehicles in action, notably the Alvis
Stormer tracked vehicle which carries the UK High Velocity Missile
(HVM) which has proven potent against Russian helicopters. And in a
more sombre note there are photographs circulating showing British
Mastiff armoured troop carriers destroyed on the battlefield.
But no sign of the Challenger 2s yet. The BBC’s defence correspondent,
Jonathan Beale, who is in Ukraine, Tweeted recently that he had asked
two Ukrainian generals in charge of operations where the tanks were and
was told they didn’t have them. They must be somewhere else,
uncommitted so far.
I don’t think we should read too much into this, though, for there could be
many reasons why they haven’t seen battle yet. They could, for example,
be allocated to a formation that hasn’t been committed, or perhaps their
different logistic and training requirements may have slowed down their
deployment.
Who knows?
In fact some people do know. Since beginning this article I have been
informed from two sources that the British tanks are training with a
UkrAF airborne formation. This unit is also equipped with the US Stryker
and German Marder infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs). None of these have
been seen in battle yet as far as I am aware.
Plus we shouldn’t kid ourselves that the 14 British tanks donated to the
UkrAF are a significant addition to their combat power; they’re not,
sufficient only to kit out a weak-ish squadron-company group given
sufficient mechanised infantry and supporting arms. Their true value was
the symbolism of the gift and the subsequent galvanising of other
European countries into similar action.
President Zelensky reportedly asked the west for 500 tanks, and I think he
may have got 300 or so. He might have been better advised to have asked
for 1,000 in the hope that he might just get the 500, but we’ll never know.
We should also note that Britain’s donation here has reduced our
pathetically meagre number of tanks down to 134 which might be
deployable, plus a slack handful of others in training and trial facilities.
This is far too few for a country which seeks to be a recognised regional
(ie European) military power, let along a global one.
We should be looking at a fleet of about 500; any fewer than that and our
armoured regiments will be unsustainable in the sort of combat seen in
Ukraine. As I have written before, the UK’s current 134 tanks might last
a week if we were lucky.
Matters will not improve either when Challenger 3 replaces our older
tanks. Planners are looking at a fleet of 148 which might begin to trickle
into service from 2027 onwards, although experience suggests that 2030
is much more likely.
Yes, Challenger 3 will incorporate a brand new turret featuring the
German Rheinmetall 120 mm smoothbore cannon, a gun that I and my
colleagues recommended be adopted way back in 1988 when the
Challenger 2 programme was in its infancy. Better late than never I
suppose, and there are other modernising enhancements to sights,
protection, and mobility.
With the prospect of Ukrainian Challenger 2s going into action soon
we’ll know how good they are and what they can do. But the UK needs to
sort out its tank fleet before it’s too late.
Great article, thank you!
👏🏻 I endorse this article and give it the official Hermanos seal of approval for being grounded in reality😃👍🏻
The big takeaway for the delusional Ukraine promoters in here who were convinced those tanks were rolling all the way to Vladivostok.
Plus we shouldn’t kid ourselves that the 14 British tanks donated to the
UkrAF are a significant addition to their combat power; they’re not,
sufficient only to kit out a weak-ish squadron-company group given
sufficient mechanised infantry and supporting arms
&
the UK needs to sort out its tank fleet before it’s too late.
Aye abso F&*€@£g lutely the latter is way more important and what these morons in the political sphere have a primary responsibility for that is the United Kingdom end of. HM armed forces comes first before supplying every other shitebag regime around the globe.
🏴🇬🇧
Stuart comments that:
Ukrainian soldiers have also been taught how to operate their new equipment and trained in the western way of war, in combined all-arms operations where the various arms and services combine to best effect.
Difficult to achieve the above in a counteroffensive against one of the worlds largest militaries, or any half decent one in fact, without one of the most critical elements, namely effective aircover, for which the Ukrainians perennially await.
I am aware that many commentators, here and increasingly among those generally considered ‘uninterested in matters military’ (by politicians at any rate) *, increasingly highlighting just that issue. Yet, obscenely, Western States’persons’ continue to infer a level of impatience with people fighting and dying for our values and indeed our long term democratic survival for the amount of time it’s taking those Ukrainians to beat back Putin and his ilk. I seem to have missed your evidence of:
The big takeaway for the delusional Ukraine promoters in here who were convinced those tanks were rolling all the way to Vladivostok.
Personally, and probably not singularly, I’d be content for the Ukrainians to take their time, keeping Mad Vlad in check, until We supply them with a complete capability to effectively practice what they’ve been – taught.
* civilians soon show focussed interest when it’s their sons & daughters who lives are on the line – not something most politicians usually need worry about, excessively.
Rgs
Yer ‘tiz
Good Afternoon, LP. I did submit a response to your above earlier, but received a banner that it’d gone into the Spam folder – a 1st 🤔. Trust George’s team manage to extract and post soon enough.
Rgs
Ah much better my tuppence worth (Gold plated) has returned😉
Aye Double G I bid you good day sir always a pleasure to hear a reply whether good bad or indifferent👍🏻 Having been involved in some epic ding dongs over the years with characters who funnily enough no longer appear on here or felt they had to change their names through embarrassment 😂
anyhoos your other comment not yet visible I have no disagreement with your take on matters.
🏴🇬🇧
Cheers. Double G – may well adopt if need to go incog any time👍
Maybe but – The 14 C2 tanks given to Ukraine would hardly have made any difference strength to the pathetic 148 C3 we have now .
Alright son I’m no fan of the reduction in numbers but one thing I believe in 100% is the 148 you call pathetic wipes the floor with any peer adversary you know why ? Because we Brits are straight up the greatest nation on the face of this earth and nobody defeats us ever so please reflect and stick pipe smoke 👍🏻
🏴🇬🇧
I never got a notification so I never saw your answer. I was not calling C3s pathetic – It was the numbers that was pathetic.
But we don’t have any C3s yet?
No and that is worse, Starts in 2027 with full Operating Capability in 2030.” That is sad.
Sadly, there is not a chance of the UK getting more than 148 CH3s and that is due to a universal blind spot in both the Army and MOD. Someone somewhere convinced the Government the MBT was a dead weapon system on the modern battlefield, hence the current pathetic fleet status. In fact, the concept of just enough is prevalent throughout the UK’s three services. The current mindset is dumb and not fit for purpose even with a raging war in progress at the centre of Europe.
it is sad to see that we invented the tank and we should have been at the forefront of evolution on and with them but, typical MOD and ministers who do not have a clue have ruined the very concept, everyone else has gone mad increasing the defense budgets and quite a lot of those budgets are for tanks ifv,s and artillery, meanwhile we have gone backwards, no ifv,s a few tanks and as of yet a mixed bag of artillery,while cutting boots on the ground..
The wilderness years all over again and the constant answer to the vexed question, ‘War as we knew it is all but over’ the emphasis must now be on cyber and other high-tech threats. Admittedly, that is true but the war in Ukraine is not over and the NATO border has grown expediently as a result. These extended regions will need an international component if they are to be properly patrolled against any future Russian adventure. Sadly, Russia will continue to harbour ambitions of expansion long after the current conflict is resolved if Putiniusm is allowed to remain in charge. That being the case, we need military mass and fast, but like Churchill we who advocate strong defence remain lost voices.
👍
Very true post 🇬🇧
It is not only the MOD and ministers, it is UK culture.
Treasury . Its still Thatcherite Central
No. Tell me how many citizens care about defence…
Do the people of France or Italy care about defence either but both those countries have the defence infrastructure humming along nicely supporting the military . Italys navy is well supported such as a new 38,000 ton Helicopter amphib vessel the Trieste and 3 x 18,000 LPD starting construction.
Even better to be in the forefront of whatever deals with tanks, no?
I agree, in Normandy attempting a breakthrough with massive air superiority we lost 400 tanks in three days. We need to double up on everything with massed reserves because the way this is going we are likely going to be involved whether we like it or not. The USA is going wobbly and the future is increasingly murky.
I’m old enough to remember many military depots around the country with huge sheds supposedly full of tanks, artillery and trucks. Slowly but surely they have been closed and replaced by houses or supermarkets. The peace dividend you may say but too much has been cast without a second thought. Before Lugershall was closed hundreds of tanks were stored there awaiting their fate and most died by the cutter’s torch. The UK Government is embarrassed by military inventories due to social pressures and anti-war lobbies that constantly complain about the total waste of public funds on defence.
I remember Ludgershall very well and went there once, when serving. Great large site – quite near Salisbury Plan, with a railhead.
I don’t recall tanks being cut up. Many 432s, Abbots, Strikers, Chieftains etc went to private collectors, ‘experience’ centres and museums (at home and abroad). Some redundant CVR(T)s were sold to Spain, Ireland, Chile, Venezuela etc
All CR1s (less a few to museums and gate guards) to Jordan. All A Vehs on the active list moved to Ashchurch.
I don’t think HMG reduces military inventories (and head-count) due to embarrassment – it is to save money, which enables larger spends on eduction, health, social services and servicing debt interest.
Agree w/ proposition that economics is dictating defence policy,. Would presume that if Big Ben, ex-Army and a successful politician and administrator, was unable to convince HMG to provide additional funding to increase the number of CR-3 conversions during the midst of the largest European land conflict since WW II, no realistic circumstances would permit an increase, short of an actual invasion of UK. At that point, any decision re tank conversions would be irrelevant. 🤔
MBT in the UK, if we are using a CH2 on our shores we have lost allready. better bet for Apache
Apache is good, but we need air superiority to allow it to operate. That is risky considering how few operational fighters we have. Few warships, few aircraft, few tanks, few troops. All is setting us up to fail. Is that what all the Russian & Chinese money we’ve courted & the Tories accepted has boiught, or is it our home grown imbecility & ultra monetarist dogma to destroy the state?
We are a permanent member of the UN security council, so have a standing responsability to provide muscle where needed in proper & legal causes. Without a strong armed force, what are we doing?
I find it baffling that the IR Refresh 2023 and the resulting DCP 2023 which specifically looked at the war in Ukraine did not advocate increased defence spending/uplift of manpower & kit especially tanks. Sunak and his mates in the Treasury had nothing therefore to either agree to or reject.
Don’t you presume that every word of IR Refresh 2023 and DCP was pre-vetted through Treasury and PM’s office before release? The hypothesized machinations of HMG would make Machievelli blush. 🤔
You know HMG all too well! Hopefully Project Wavell will be more forthcoming and recommend increases but if it wasn’t said in the 2023 IR and DCP, Treasury will not play ball.
No! They didn’t cut defence funds due to social pressure or anti-war lobbies. They made cuts in the defence sector because it’s always the first to go, then education and the health sector. When you have an over-bloated government with thousands of bureaucrats and pencil-pushers from Cabinet ministers, special advisors, Privy Council advisers to the Monarch, civil servants you need to make cuts somewhere. Even some of the Cabinet positions are pointless… eg. theres a Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, three seperate Cabinet offices for each of those regions. And they all employ secretaries, advisors, drivers etc all at the expense of the taxpayer. They should instead make one Secretary of State for the Union encompassing all the territories. Problem is politicians when they come to power only care about employing everyone from their Party in government jobs and organising kickbacks for their friends and donors. Those bureaucrat positions are always the last place where they make cuts.
Social pressures are always at the route of government policy regardless of party. The elephant in the room is the perception that in peacetime defence is an unwanted burden and this is not just privy to the UK. However, when a military crisis hits the headlines the recriminations begin about the parlous state of our forces. The UK’s mountain of bureaucracy is unique and needs a dam good pruning but sadly, the savings won’t find their way into the MOD’s coffers.
Money could be found elsewhere, For instance, I think we should put stricter rules on foreign aid where we do not give anything to countries that have nuclear weapons (e,g Pakistan) and or / sizeable armed forces.
…or very expensive space programmes!
Count Ukraine’s payments and aid as ‘foreign aid’, but instead its coming out of Defence budget
Go figure
Thats the Home secretary you are thinking of.
The individual secretaries of the smaller regions dont amount to much as of course they have their own governments
148 is the number of the existing that can be upgraded, the rest are current in various states and configurations. Hull numbers
The numbers to be converted to CR3 is based on two armoured regiments as per FS plus what is deemed sufficient for the Trg Org, Repair Pool and Attrition Reserve.
rumour has it Ukraine has reverted back to there own way of fighting instead of how the west fight,s..Mainly down to the fact Russia have managed to heavily fortify positions and laid mines 3 or 4 deep on top of each other in places, making progress slow, As for the challengers maybe they are waiting for a good opportunity before unleashing them, Or maybe UK gov told them to be careful with them in the hope Russia does not capture one,Russia already have a pretty intact cv90 so i would not be surprised if that is sent to China or Iran for reverse engineering, and no doubt do the same if a challenger is captured, even though they are old the armour is still pretty damn good so they would love to learn how to defeat it or replicate it..
Ukraine has only just (within the last few days) started to commit its main force (10th Corps).
That’s just an excuse for the politicians to distance themselves from the Ukrainian losses and setbacks on the battlefield. When UK announced they would deliver only 14 Challenger 2 tanks, I predicted they wouldn’t be sent to the front lines but would be used in the rear for training purposes and PR photo-ops. If you remember soon after that announcement in May the Challenger 2’s were filmed tearing through dragons teeth defences and they claimed these were Russian defences on the front lines, yet if you look closely at the video footage you will notice they are newly erected dragons teeth lines with clear track markings beside them (they must have been recently transported and unloaded from trucks) on these open fields. Also, the surroundings were pristine with no signs of artillery bombardment or mortar craters anywhere. This means the entire footage was for PR purposes, filmed most likely in Poland or Western Ukraine far away from the front lines.
It was never claimed by the Ukrainian or British MOD that these videos were of the challengers on the frontline. That was pure speculation from uninformed commentators. Plenty of Ukraine-supporting commentators were saying that the videos were not from the frontline. It’s not some big conspiracy theory…
It was never claimed that it was combat footage? Where did get that from?
See my reply to Andy, above…
“Russia have managed to heavily fortify positions and laid mines 3 or 4 deep on top of each other in places, making progress slow…”
I’ve often wondered whether or not the Ukrainians pounded or harassed these defence works whilst they were being built? Surely constant artillery fire poured down on the Russian army would have slowed or stopped construction? Just a thought…
Well I think the issue (for both sides but the Ukrainians more) is that artillery ammunition is lacking, hence why the Ukrainians have been targeting supply dumps as they can get more value from their limited stocks.
I could make many comments but shall stick to just one or two.
It was decided, after a quite thorough and analytical review (Options for Change), that the British Army needed 386 CR2s for the post-Cold War world. Why do we now need 500 tanks?
Where is the evidence that we would lose 134 excellent & well-armoured tanks in combat in a week?
Agree, but I would like to see the entire remaining challenger 2 fleet converted to challenger 3. As we have had the conversation a number of times that 148 is too few.
Fully agree. The carefully worked out figure for the post-Cold War army was for 386 tanks.
Hi Graham Odd but I can’t reply to your reply to me. Maybe it is seeking approval. So for the main I’ll wait, but will answer one of your questions. Why 300 ? Well we are rebuilding 148 CR2, if we add 300 new build hull that gives us 448, which allows us to field 2 full Armoured Divisions of 158 (3 x 56) so 316 plus training and spares for replenishment. When you are kick starting a commercial system you need sufficient mass to encourage participation.
If it was me and to ensure continuity of production I’d add an adapted hull for and SP90 replacement and new ARV, Drive Trainers and Bridging Tanks,
Hi Rodney, I see your angle now. 448 tanks! That is more than the CR2 fleet (originally 386) or the CR1 fleet which was bought in Cold War times (Qty 435). It would have been had to justify 448 in the later half of teh Cold War, let alone now. Treasury would not stump up the budget for an extra 300 new tanks and there isnt the manpower to crew or maintain all those additional tanks.
Hard to justify two armoured divisions – what is your thinking there..
Definitely need a new ARRV as CRARRV is over 35 years old now and has much very old CR1 technology (its really a CR1/2 hybrid). Titan and Trojan are our newest heavy AFVs and are barely 20 years old – there is a lot of life in them yet.
I can see two armored divisions being barely enough. One in Estonia and one in UK with rotations of units every few months.
One to fight and one to carry on.
Or one to guard Estonia and one to follow up the Litoral response group which the UK chooses to deploy.
Russia started this current war thinking that it could win. We need enough force to make them know for sure that they can’t win. That’s how deterrence works. The rot didn’t start in 2014 with the Russian take over of Crimea it was already in evidence in 2012 when we didn’t follow up the no fly zone in Libya with one for Syria.
I would suggest two armoured divisions for the UK and an equivalent armored brigade for Estonia which is trained to work hand in hand with the UK brigades. The division could be two UK brigades and an Estonian one with command taking turns between Estonian and UK generals with the 4th brigade able to transfer north to Finland or south to Latvia as required.
Absolutely no-one expects the UK to field two armoured divisions. One div in Estonia? NATO asks us to station a BG there as a tripwire – don’t need a div to be a tripwire. Usual rotation is after 6 months.
RUSI recently painted 4 possible scenarios for deployment of a LRG. None to be seemed to suit the follow-on of an armoured div.
“The Royal United Services Institute provided four example uses for a Royal Navy LRG in its publication, titled Requirements for the UK’s Amphibious Forces in the Future Operating Environment, which are:[9]
Where you pull the crew from. ???????
Sorry Jon. What does that mean? What crew? For ABC Rodney’s 448 tanks?
we dont have the crew numbers for those tanks
The third armoured regiment still exists and crews 56 tanks. So we can crew 168 tanks in total today.
No desire to build new CH3s when the design study is out on the Future MBT.
When was the figure of 386 decided on, 1991 or much later?
The world has changed massively since then, hence should the number of tanks needed.
Wiki: “ In June 1991, the UK ordered 140 vehicles, followed by a further 268 in 1994; these were delivered between 1994 and 2002. The tank entered operational service with the British Army in 1998 and has since been used in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo and Iraq.
Yes, the world has changed massively since 1991, beyond the end of the Cold War. We found ourselves fighting the Iraqi army at divisional strength (twice), deployed armoured forces to the Balkans three times. Thus confirming the ongoing usefulness of armoured forces.
We engaged in long-running COIN in Iraq and Afghanistan, which focussed the eye away from armoured manouevre warfare which suffered – no AFVs ordered for over 20 years and little to no upgrades… hence we cannot now deploy a modernised, digitised armoured division for a few more years yet.
A resurgent, aggressive, war-mongering Russia led by an evil dictator with much blood on his hands was not predicted in 1991- but now that has transpired, the 1991 assessment that we needed only a 120k regular army with 386 tanks may well have been an under-estimate.
Definitely the thought of Russia going on the war path was not predicted or expected and it was also not expected they could barely take over a 25% of a neighboring country.
Underestimate maybes but also the main ground threat to us doesnt exist anymore.
We arent going to go invading Russia and Russia cant take over Europe as originally thought.
NATO, a defensive organisation, has no intent to invade Russia and had none to invade the USSR.
Russia has no interest to take over Europe but has frequently invaded or militarily interfered in neighbouring or nearby countries just as the USSR used to.
We need to side with friendly nations even if they have not joined NATO.
The Berlin Wall (part of the Iron Curtain) came down on 9 Nov 1989.
Wiki: “ In June 1991, the UK ordered 140 vehicles, followed by a further 268 in 1994; these were delivered between 1994 and 2002. The tank entered operational service with the British Army in 1998 and has since been used in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo and Iraq.
Again, Where do you think the 148 Came from strange number why not a round 150. condition survey on the Remaining hulls, and dont forget the variants. only 148 chasis are suitable.
It is a bit of an odd number…the 2 type 56 armoured regiments need 112 tanks…that only leaves 36 tanks for the training establishment, for maintenance pool and an attritional reserve. That’s just not enough hulls for all that…personally I think the 148 may simply be how many they could get converted with the specific allocates budget and not how many then need as in really for the two type 56 regiments you want:
112 tanks in the regiment
12 ish for training establishments
20 in maintaining pool
30 attritional reserve
thats around 175 hulls. Essentially we should be keeping the 220ish hulls we have and convert them all..after all the material state is pretty irrelevant as they are all going to gutted and rebuilt and the hulls themselves are bomb proof ( literally and figuratively).
But personally I think it’s really bad judgement to have dropped to two armoured regiments and we should have maintained three type 56 regiments…this will allow one to deploy…one resting…one generating for deployment. That’s 168 hulls….with the training establishment, maintaining pool and attritional reserve we could just do that with the 220 hulls we have…just.
Evidence? Are you for real? Have you been watching this war unfold? Tanks are now very vulnerable to numerous weapons. What evidence are you looking for? We, UK, are so weak now it is scary. All 3 services are undermanned and underfunded. In this day and age we need to double our fighting soldiers and really man up on equipment.
I have been watching this war very carefully. Many Russian tanks and other AFVs that have had poor logistic and engineering support and have been ineptly tactically handled (not used in Combined Arms groups), have been poorly camouflaged and which have not used cover where it is available – have been destroyed in quantity.
Anti-tank weapons are not new – the first one was fielded by Germany in 1916 and the first ATGW in the late 1950s by France – so the vulnerability of tanks is not new. Drones with an A/Tk capability are new – and the Russians are paying the price for their poor equipment and poorer tactics, which leave them vulnerable to drone attack.
The evidence that would be needed to convince HM Treasury to stump up money to fund a huge (rather than small) Attrition Reserve is the evidence that our much better British tanks, well supported, and well handled tactically in Combined Arms groupings and operating under air superiority alongside strong allies which include the USA – that we would lose as many tanks pro rata as the Russians have. The author claims we would lose 134 tanks in combat in a week – I very much doubt that – and so would the Treasury.
I agree that all our three services are underfunded. The army is especially weak. Realistic arguments from MoD to Treasury to generate a credible Business Case is needed to unlock further funds – not just to point out what a crap tank army Russia has!
Crawford, Never saw combat, which kind of proves a point.
It kind of gives you ammunition for innuendo, but it kind of proves nothing. Play the ball not the man.
He talks Cold War tactics, i went to School doesn’t mean i can teach. living in a different war when Defence was a huge cost
A bit harsh. I served 34 years and was only posted to a combat zone once (6 months in Afghan, at the age of 53). It’s luck of the draw if you see combat – the Infantry/Paras of course see a lot of combat – or did before the end of Op Herrick. I was of course very frustrated at my lack of Ops time over 34 years.
Stuart served in the RTR from 1979-1999, which included a stint as a staff officer in HQ British Forces Middle East during the first Gulf War, so he was not far from combat! He has a wealth of experience in tanks so deserves to be heard but I do not agree with his blind worship of Leo2 and his opinion that it is/was better than CR2, and unrealistic thoughts about having a super-sized tank fleet.
Harsh but true he comes out with some right old Cold war stories. yet if someone was shooting at him, wonder what he would hide in. LEP2 or CH2. we know the answer. he is a clickbaite consultant
Your whole text seems farcical like if there is some bizarre place that makes combined arms some sort of magical wand that
denies artillery precision of today against post WW2, the range of 1973 ATGW vs today , plus drone and loitering ammunition.
And then the magic camouflage how do you think it is possible that a tank a metal object cannot be detected by the many radars in battlefield?
For some weird reason you also think that 134 tanks are impossible to loose in one week. Well i will tell you you can loose them in one day. It depends on the fight.
If you want mass you concentrate which makes you vulnerable to long range area missiles, rockets artillery. You disperse it makes you vulnerable to precision attacks.
If you are fast you cannot have security and time schedules imply a very precise trained army and breaking radio silence when things change, you go slow you have better security but the enemy can react to your moves on time.
You text lead me to believe you never wargamed seriously.
Alex, clearly I should have been doing some wargaming to understand the perils and pitfalls of CA warfare. What do you recommend for a beginner like me?
😀😀😀
😀👍 Not sure if Alex knows your history mate.
If he is a professional he knows already the huge number of tanks losses in peer to peer combat unless the enemy is incompetent or have structural deficiencies like the French in 1940.
And today tank combat has no big secrets while in 1940 it was only a bit over 2 decades from first tank.
Alex, I was waiting and hoping (for a few days now) that you would tell me about your wargaming experience which I could learn from. You seem to have gone quiet.
My posts have never before been described as farcical. It is not farcical to conduct (and advocate) Combined Arms (CA) manouevre warfare to gain benefit by greater likelihood of achieving the mission (and quickly achieving it), maximising the strengths of certain equipment and minimising their weaknesses (vulnerability). Do you understand how CA operations can do this, or do I explain? I don’t see magic has much to do with it.
We agree that tanks are not undetectable, and neither is anything else on the battle field from the dismounted soldier to strong points, fuel dumps, tac HQs and all types of vehicles and artillery systems.
But everyone seeks to minimise the signature across the spectrum (visual, aural, thermal etc) of themselves (dismounted personnel), their vehicles and other equipment (easier achieved when static but measures can be taken when moving).
Of course I am not denying the existence of precision fires. You seem to think we have no counters to enemy artillery systems, and that we don’t know how we can reduce our signature – and that we will just get annihilated.
In FS we have two armd regts (ie 112 tanks). You think we could lose all of these and another 30-odd replacement tanks in a day to a week. Even the Russians aren’t losing a division a day or so.
The British Army would do far better in contemporary combat than the Russians – we have better equipment, better leadership, better training, understand how to do CA manouevre which minimises certain vulnerabilities, have better TTP, better logistics, better engineering support.
Remind me how many tanks we lost to enemy action by Soviet-era T-series tanks in both Gulf Wars? What our kill ratio was? Why might we have been so successful? Do you know when we last lost any tanks to enemy fire in combat? Why has that been, do you suppose?
Sure, new weapons have come along – eg. the much-feared attack drones and precision artillery fires – but you are very pessimistic to think our army would fall prey to these systems so dramatically and so quickly, exactly as the Russians have done – we are better than them in every way, as stated.
Alex, it sounds as if your wargaming or other research (if you do any) isn’t giving you enough insight to make up for a clear lack of military experience.
Now that was a reply! 👊
Thanks mate! Now off to enjoy the weekend!
Agreed but how do you solve the personnel shortage, Navy is now the most popular choice to enter. RAF is busy ticking boxes, Army no one wants to be told what to do. funding for all current and ex is your budget
Hello Graham M, it’s that thorny old issue again. Options for Change was a badly concluded assumption leading to too many assets being consigned to the tip. I agree with 500 MBTs and always will and as an ex-tank man, I suggest you should too!😀
Hi Maurice, I have never heard that we should have kept all our Cold War inventory and head-count following the collapse of the Warsaw Pact, the collapse of the Soviet Union, the freeing of eastern European countries, and the enlargement of NATO. I was serving then and was broadly content with Options for Change as the Threat had clearly changed. Defence cuts since then have only been about saving money not about relating to the Threat.
Wher do you get the 500 figure from? We bought 435 CR1s from 1983 (middle of the Cold War) and ran some Chieftains on alongside for a few more years – and then replaced CR1s and residual Chieftains with 386 CR2s (post Cold War figure) from 1998. I could defend the 386 number post-91 but not 500.
I am ex-REME and served in Germany 4 times (3 times in the Cold War and once afterwards). I would not advocate 500 tanks (ie more than 386) as there is no justification.
Agreed. The manpower requirement alone would be impossible for the current recruitment levels of the army. That or convert most of the other regiments of the RAC to operate 500 Tanks.
And people forget or are unaware of the other vehicles an Armoured Regiment operates. So additional up lifts in the Ajax or Boxer orders needed too.
It’s fairy tale stuff. A slight uplift to around 200, so most of the current inventory, and in the process retaining the 3rd Armoured Regiment, would be realistic and feasable.
All agreed. We can only justify one division configured as ‘armoured/warfighting’. I have always thought that an armoured div should have around 200 tanks (including attrition reserve).Definitely need to retain the 3rd armd regt within a proper 3rd manouevre bde, as we have both said before.
Agreed mixed fighting force, a Mobile brigade Tanks as proved by Russia, if you had 500 and send them in without support, day 1 of your Idiot tactics you would lose your 500.
When Options for Change was published we still spent 3.6% of GDP on defence. Calculating requirements without accounting for budget is why we have expensive kit in too few numbers. There’s no opportuntity to say, given the budget I’d rather have 400 medium quality tanks than 148 expensive ones. We look at specification and quantity divorced from each other and from the budget, and all too often end up with neither.
We spent 3.6% in summer 1990 as we had not yet started full rampdown from Cold War spending.
The start point for a project is the Service Requirement, which states the quantity required and the ‘spec’ to generate an effect. It is then that horse-trading starts and the MoD gives up ground on numbers as Treasury will never agree to fund the initial figures.
Given our taut manpower we cannot man a lot of equipments. Also we need to have very high capability equipment to offset the small crew numbers/equipment numbers. Our tanks have to have a much higher kill ratio than enemy ones. Hence ‘gold plating’. The RAC in FS could not man 500 (or 400) medium quality tanks – and the REME in FS could not maintain that number – and the RLC could not crew enough fuel tankers to fill 500 (or 400) tanks.
Ha yes. And I know we have at least one, or possibly two, Tank Transporter Squadrons left in the RLC.
19 TT Sqn at Bulford.
People never think of the supports needed to maintain such a force.
I count only one – 19 TT Sqn in 27 Regt RLC. Not sure how the FastTrax PFI fits in with its Sponsored Reserves (AR) drivers and maintainers – that is surely additional to 19 TT, and called up by MoD as and when required – I think for both non-exercise tank lifts and General/Major War.
Previously 7 Tk Tptr Regt RCT (RLC from 1993) existed – the regiment consisted of 16 Tank Transporter Squadron, 3 Tank Transporter Squadron, 612 Tank Transporter Unit, 617 Tank Transporter Unit (Polish civvies from the MSO, a strange lot), 607 Mobile Civilian Transport Group, and 625 Mobile Civilian Transport Group.
By 1972, the regiment had been reduced to 3, 16, & 617 Tank Transporter Squadrons.
Today 7 Regt RLC has no TT role and comprises: 617 Headquarters Squadron,
68 Supply Squadron, 9 Transport Squadron – consists of multi-discipline Driver Specialists in MAN SVs and Close Support Tanker drivers.
REME LAD (rather than Regt Wksp).
Concur on 7 RLC, 9 Sqn I had as fuel & GT Sqn.
Yes, I too had another look, can only find 19TT.
Yes, another stealthy cut of key enablers happened.
Graham, I think I may have misunderstood your post. I thought you were arguing in favour of 386 tanks, rather than using the number to contrast against 500, which on a reread I now understand your point to be.
It may not be a bad thing to have more tanks than you can crew or maintain in the field, to keep a reserve and to cover attrition. I don’t know if the 148 includes enough, but 386 felt like too much.
My comment that 386 tanks delivered 7-10 years after the Cold War ended is its own statement that 386 tanks were deemed necessary for the post Cold War army. The regualr army was reduced from 160k to 120k in light of the Russian threat disappearing (!) and that 120k figure was deemed necessary.
That was as a result of Threat analysis.
Since then the only cuts to the army in men and equipment has been to save money to put to social programmes (health, education, social services, debt servicing) and not because of a reduction of threat. Indeed arguably the threat from Russia has risen since 1991.
So logic says the army needs to have 386 tanks and 120k troops, possibly more if you accept the threat has increased in the last 30 years.
But you get shot down in flames as being unrealistic if you say that, so I better had not – and so I must learn to accept, embrace and tolerate the multiple cuts for purely financial savings reasons since Options for Change.
There is a case for 386 tanks (made by the (historic) government themselves) but not a case for 500 tanks.
386 only feels too much because you have been conditioned into accepting a cut of 40 tanks (2004) to a savage cut of 40% reducing fleet to 227(2010) to 213 (2023) to 148 (2027) – ie that an impoverished government and a desperate Chancellor knows best.
The 148 figure is: 112 tanks in the 2 armd regts, and 36 tanks shared between the Trg Org, Repair Pool and Attrition Reserve roles. The 36 figure is definitely NOT enough.
The 112 figure is only acceptable if you consider that the third brigade in 3xx should have no tanks – and that you need no tanks in 1xx.
I would agree with your assessment of why 386 “feels” too many, and I certainly concede “feels” is a pretty dumb way to come up with a number anyway. However, I don’t believe that threat assessment is somehow scientifically used to come up with the number of tanks needed.
First, there are multiple ways to counter any threat and cost always comes into the equation at some point. A purely threat-based assessment simply isn’t enough. We should seek the best solution we can afford. If we now have less than 60% of the budget we had back then, the equation has changed and a different balance of forces will be the best counter we can afford. Our ability to operate 386 tanks, with all the combined warfare panoply that has to sit around them is no longer affordable on the budget.
Even if we raised the overall Defence budget back to 3.6%, the mix and applicability of technologies has changed. Not to mention how much the threat profile will have changed by the time we’d actually brought new tanks into operation.
Third, based on human nature, I believe these exercises will use a lot of back-filling logic to reach a feels-based number. Brigadier: we’ve crunched the numbers and we need 542 tanks. 2* response: that number won’t fly. My name has to go on that recommendation too; do it again. Brigadier: how does 386 suit?
In any case, I think the results of an assessment from 35 years ago aren’t valid.
Threat assessment has to be the start point in determining what force structure an army (or air force or navy) requires. Military Tasks may be generated outside of a Threat assessment – there is a military task to provide troops for Public Duties, and one for having military music and an aerobatics team etc.
Threat assessment should identify the effects that we require to counter the threat; I agree that there are many ways to counter a threat not just ‘we therefore need x tanks and y IFVs’ etc. Then the mix of capabilities to achieve desired effect is considered, scored and costed. Finally budget reality comes along to spoil everything!
An assessment today that starts…’what can we afford’ is wrong. That is the last thing you should consider. But is that how we got the figure of 148 tanks?
its the like of old Crawford, Well in my day we had 3000 tanks and 9000 planes and 3000 warships. UK is a Partner in NATO together they have the numbers, if you still think Calvary charges are the tip of the spear. MODERN WARFARE passed a lot of people by.
If Challenger 3 won’t start to enter service until 2027 (at earliest) is it not better to purchase Leopards straight from the factory rather than extend the service life of the very old chassis of Challenger 2?
Do keep up this has been discussed over and over again🙄just to recap the CR2 hull will under go a complete refurb with upgrades to engine and suspension,the actual hulls are not ‘very old’ they are in most respects newer than the hulls that are refurbed for Leo 2 or M1s! The author of this article will continue to bleat on about Challenger as he is/was a Leopard fan.
Unfortunately that Train left the station years ago when the CR3 was chosen over Leopard 2 or M1 Abrams. I actually think we will end up with a better tank than either but in insufficient numbers to be effective.
The real Elephant in the Garden isn’t the choice of the CR3 nor the inadequate numbers that are or can be produced. That is just a symptom of the underlying condition.
It is the lack of vision in not using CR3 as an opportunity to regenerate our own ability to design and produce our own AFV’s. To do that we really need a long term 25/30 years Roadmap of rolling replacement to make it sustainable.
The National Shipbuilding Strategy would be a Blueprint.
We do not have to build every single bit and it would be daft to think we should, but we need the ability to produce the hulls, running gear, armour and heavy guns.
IMHO the immediate action should be inwardly invest and challenge U.K. industry to produce 300+ New build CR3 hulls. One lesson to be learnt from the Ukraine war is that British ingenuity is alive a well and so is our engineering industry (just).
And use the breathing space to formulate a long term sustainable strategy and bolt it to the floorboards in MOD.
Very good ABC, agree entirely with you.
I agree with you that we should and could produce a Ch4 using adapted parts from around the free world. Its not rocket science.
Future MBT design and feasibility between UK/Germany/France. also USA/Canada/UK/Australia/Japan. current MBT is a out of date model.
My recent armchair curiosity about ajax boxer warrior and ch2 . Has confirmed that the uk does indeed still have all the skills to build excellent afv ifv and tanks at competitive prices. We still have all the skills production lines for armour weaponry chassis suspension engines and other bits and bobs. It just requires simple will power and good management.
The problem is when you reduce your requirements to 148 MBT’s, you are effectively producing a bespoke UK solution. A sales cul-de-sac.
As our armed forces are now so small, with corresponding small fleet requirements, it makes it harder and harder to justify the huge cost of bespoke UK equipment, as it will just eat the entire defence budget.
There’s no point designing a brand new MBT because we couldn’t possibly sell it, why, because the unit cost would be excessive , as we can’t produce the platform in the numbers that would make it attractive to any potential customer.
The South Koreans and Americans have the market cornered and dominated, now and into the future.
this is very valid point. The UK MOD seemingly has gone under the wing of General Dynamics USA and Rheinmetall Germany for most of our new heavy modern tracked and wheeled vehicles, so at the moment i think we could say the UK has chosen USA and Germany to align with. With 1 GD production plant and 2 Rheinmetall plants in the UK.
I think Pearson Engineering UK are building manufacturing the Turrets and the Ch3 will be put together at Rheinmetall Telford. So at least many skills are still retained in UK if we have a brainstorm. I think as a rough guide the UK now has a forward plan in place, its just a good 5 yrs behind. Hopefully in 5yrs time with all the ajax 🙂 boxers ch3 being rolled out potentially looking good kit .
Small orders, sadly, yes.
I recall it being said in the 70s or 80s that the British Army was a minority buyer of LandRovers! The bigger customers were farmers and NGOs.
Vickers Defence Systems used to make high-spec AFVs for the British Army and cheaper equipment for export (Vickers MBT Mk 1, 2, 3, 4, 7 and ARVs). Customers (mainly of the Mk 1 or Mk 3) were: Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania, India, Kuwait, Iraq. Long time ago, I know! But an idea (of a two-tier product range) still worth pursuing.
I think the problem is called our government 👍
all the same mate, makes you wonder how they all got it wrong.
Whether the end result offers the capability or value is debatable but there is massive investment going into our Armoured Vehicle Industry – GDLS in Wales,RBSL in Telford,Pearson Engineering in Newcastle to name the obvious ones.
LMUK in Ampthill (was Hunting Engineering) is a main player in terms of building medium-weight turrets.
WFEL (was Fairey Engineering) in Stockport is co-making Boxer and have built a new facility.
I am not over-pessimistic. We need to re-generate ability to design & develop complete vehicles from scratch…and live with the fact that we largely have Assembly Halls and not ‘Tank Factories’.
Just to get it up to date. WEFL (which was Fairey) became a subsidiary of German company Kruss Maffei Wegmann, which has since merged with the French Nexter, forming the company KNDS, nominally held in Holland.
WFEL is now KNDS UK.
Simples!
Thanks mate. Think you have mentioned that before. Hard to keep up with these constant changes. Anyway, more important is the number of manufacturing sites for AFVs in the UK, even if they are more akin to assembly halls rather than proper tank workshops.
From the above
‘It is the lack of vision in not using CR3 as an opportunity to regenerate our own ability to design and produce our own AFV’s’.
There was an early & I believe logical assumption on this site that indeed the small numbers of CH3 would be instrumental in such such a regeneration. Clearly that requirement has in no way diminished under current, and multiplying, national security risks. Is there evidence that the MoD has failed in this axiomatic vision that you’re aware of?
Regards
Would it be cost effective/worthwhile to design, tool up and build 300 ‘new’ CR4 tanks? Or better to buy off the shelf tanks from Germany or Korea?
Both options are difficult – to design,develope and manufacture a Brand New CR4, if it were possible, just wouldn’t be cost effective in the numbers the BA would need,but Buying off the shelf from abroad would make sense in most situations but would be politically unacceptable.
The amount of waste and time that has been lost in the past due to sensible options being ‘politically unacceptable’!
We have bought foreign kit off the shelf many times before but not tanks since the acquisition of M4 Shermans in WW2.
Given that CR3 FOC is 2030 and could well be in service to 2050 or so, then CR4 is a long way off. It’s maybe a bit premature to speculate that we would buy German or Korean tanks in about 20 years time.
Agreed as it stands. The point is that when we do need a replacement, or if we decide to increase the size of the tank force rather than reduce it, we will have to decide whether it is worthwhile to make our own or buy in. And believe me – 20 years will arrive faster than you think. To have a new British designed tank in service for 2050 we need to start initial development work now!
I meant 30 years (ie. 2050 is about 30 years away). It usually takes about 10 years to initiate project, design, develop, test, bulk manufacture and field a new tank – so start in 2040, rather than now.
I suspect that it may be a collaborative tank.
I was thinking (but didn’t make it clear) that wouldn’t expect anything to happen until 2030 – I wouldn’t expect anyone to start thinking about it until the CR3 was fully operational. How long would depend on how ‘new’ the new tank was – Challeger itself was based on the Chieftain,so we have had 3 successive tanks that are basically just major upgrades.Starting from scratch I think that 10 years would be optomistic. As for collaborative tank – yes, that would be the only way I can see to make it viable. But if so, same issue you have re exports – need the permission of your partner!
Look at the problems the euro countrys had with buying off the shelf from Germany having to ask permission to send them to Ukraine what we should have done Is set up a tank production line yes we would only order 150 or so but imagine if we had that line wouldn’t Ukraine buy anything we could produce
True. But we have the same issue with Typhoon and F35. If we could sell enough to make a profit, going alone fine. However, our defence policy shouldn’t be based on a possible Ukraine scenario. It should be based on our own defence needs – and that involves financial restraint when it comes to developing things that we could get cheape (and at least as good) as we can make ourself. If we need enough of the things to make it cost effective, or if we can guarantee sales – fine, do it!
300 tanks when we would struggle to man them 150 CH3s future MBT is on lots of countries wish list. Buying from Abroad is a complete loss of tax payers money, if they assembly them in the UK from parts employs uk tax payers and pays back into the system
👍
We do of course have the Land (military equipment) Industrial Strategy, but that was very broadbrush and shied away from detail.
True that we do not have to build every part of a vehicle – I don’t think any AFV maker or car maker in the world does that. Turret is quite a challenge to make if it includes castings.
Key would be finding a company (BAE springs to mind) that would set up a tank factory rather than an Assembly Hall, both being quite different beasts.
Pearson Engineering are in the former BAE Newcastle tank factory, but Pearson is now owned by the Israeli Rafel company)
https://www.pearson-eng.com/news/pearson-engineering-expands-facilities-to-include-former-bae-systems-armoured-vehicle-manufacturing-plant/
There needs to be confidence of sizable orders and therein lies the problem. British Army orders are now tiny, so products must be surefire exports successes.
AFV orders should always have been staggered – given a nominal 25 year service life, we should have been producing FV 430-series replacements from mid-80s, CVR(T) replacments from mid-90s, Warrior replacements from mid-2010s, AS90 replacements from late-2010s etc.
We should have also been giving major upgrade work to Industry/ABRO/Babcock several times (typically 2-3 times) during an equipment’s in-service period.
Not sure why British Industry needs to build 300+ new build CR3 hulls, when RBSL has started converting 148 CR2s to CR3s?
Two points – firstly there are no Leopard 2 Tanks ready to be purchased straight from the Factory,new orders are piling up but it will be years before deliveries can be made,the means of production have to be ramped up.Secondly the CR3 will in effect have a Leo 2 Base Turret as it’s core so in effect we will have the best of both worlds.
I have high confidence in CR3 being an excellent tank, but pity they cost so much, the army has to wait so long for them and that there will be so few of them.
I think that CR2 is better than Leo2 (especially in terms of survivability and maintainability) and that CR3 will also be superior to later versions of Leo2 or its Franco-German successor, MGCS.
I suspect we are pretty well stuck with the numbers of C3 as no Politician will commit to building more. But recently those same Politicians have committed massive amounts of money to protecting and regenerating capabilities for the future.
So the big question has to be what follows CR3 ? If we look at the CR3 as a short term bridge to a new design Tank built in collaboration with another user then that would make sense.
Everyone is talking about Franco/ German, US or Korean MBTs but they really don’t fit in with our way of designing tanks.
If you look at the design lineage for U.K. MBT from Centurion to CR3 we have always had heavier and better armoured than our allies or enemy’s.
So as designing our own for maybe 4/500 tanks is a very expensive option, but there is an alternative.
The Chieftain actually has 2 very separate but related MBT design families based on it. One is the Challenger series and the other is Merkava (1 to 5). The start point for Merkava was the few Chieftains that Israel had for trials, prior to purchasing others to replace the Centurions (Politics got in the way).
The Merkava family of Tanks follows the same ethos as the CR’s, heavier, but better armoured than others, and they are in the early stages of designing its successor.
So my curve ball suggestion would be to sit down with Israel and partner up on a new MBT design and restart our own production in the next decade.
That’s an interesting suggestion. Putting effort into a new line of modular lighterweight armour could merge traditional strengths of both countries. Challengers have a reputation for durability that even the Israelis would want to take notice of, but would they give up on their old chasses with forward engines for the Mk VI or would we be willing to adopt it? I’ve read that Merkavas have inherited a lot of idiosyncrasies.
At the end of the day though, I wonder if tanks designed to fight over small distances in the Middle East should end up the same as tanks designed to fight in Northern Europe and the steppes.
If you take a look at the Merkava it has virtually the same range as the CR2 and is slightly slower. But in terms of Chassis, Weight and dimensions it is very similar. It does have a fairly unusual layout but like us the Israelis value the survivability of the crew.
Merkava 4 is the only tank currently with top armoured turret against ATGWs.albeit not the major ones.
While the Ethos of both Tanks was similar there is no direct lineage from the Chieftain to the Merkava.You are right Israel did Trial the Chieftain but the Merkava was a clean sheet design.
The only chance of increasing the 148 number is if Project Wavell recommends it.
I agree that CR3 may be a short term bridge. In some ways CR1 was in that it was replaced only 15 years after its ISD by CR2.
What would CR4 look like? We are observors on the Franco-German MGCS but it does not seem to be cutting edge and the timesacel does not fit with us. Many Korean fanboys advocate K2 Black Panther but again the time line does not fit. A US tank based on the Abrams X technology demonstrator – maybe…or a UK design. Who knows.
I would be surprised if we partner with Israel but we have bought Israeli kit in recent years, so its possible.
2027 is only 4 years away.
Tank hulls rarely ‘wear out’ – occasionally they can become distorted slightly in exceptionally hard use over decades (very, very rare) or welds can crack but re-welding is done at Base Overhaul and is very standard practice. Hulls of FV430s and M113s are still in service 60 years later. The hull is the least important part of a tank.The important bits on a tank is everything but the hull.
CR3 will be excellent but this project should have been done a decade ago and to all of the CR2 fleet.
I doubt even the latest Leo2 is better than CR3 – and many Leo2s have been lost in combat – I would rather fight in a CR2 than a Leo2. I have heard that maintainability of Challys is better than that of Leo2s.
Think the main issue is CH2s were built in 2 batches and in different locations, so some tolerances are not the same with the Hulls, older models were the 1st to become 140 1st order followed by the 2nd of 268, of these 22 chassis are or were driver training. 33 Titan conversions. 35 Trojan, CRARRV was around 50, now some of these were based on CH1 chassis but REME did confirm that these early options would be swapped over to CH2 Chassis. which just happens to number 140. ???? leaving a poss of 268 chassis for conversion recorded loses are limited. so if you pin that 268 and planned 148 hulls available, or able to take the engine pack. ?????
Certainly CR2 was built both at Newcastle and Leeds – but to a master drawings pack. It beggars belief that each factory would have built a slightly different tank, dimensionally. Jigs would have been made to a single master drawing.
Titan and Trojan (33 of each) were not gun tank conversions (they were a bespoke design) and they were not built at the same time as the CR2 gun tanks – they were built just a few years afterwards.
81 x CRARRV were built not 50 – they were based largely on the CR1 hull (bespoke design not a converted gun tank) but with CR2 powerpack etc. I was REME for 34 years years including service in the Tank Systems Support IPT at DLO and never heard that CRARRV special-to-role kit would be swapped over to CR2 chassis – none of that makes sense – are there 81 spare gun tanks? it is hard to impossible to convert a gun tank into a CRARRV especially due to fitment of a main winch.
What is with the 140 figure? Did some MP say that was the number of tanks that were available, in storage, deployable – or what?
I’ve read Leopard 2 is even more expensive. Where does the money come from to buy them above the commited 1. something billion that CH3 is costing?
Cranky Crawford is a Lep fan, bit like lusting after your brothers wife because she is a little slimmer and runs faster. the Numbers were compared. LEP 2 and the start up and entire package compared to CH3s was you would get 50 Lep 2s for the same price of the 148 CH3s Cranky even mentioned lease and return on the MBT. he ignores the images of destroyed Leps posted over the net.
Given the number of Leo2s in Yemen, Syria (Al-Bab) and now Ukraine that have been totally destroyed in combat, I would much rather be in a Chally2.
The main question needing to be answered is where do we think the next conflict involving the sort of numbers of all arms is going to occur, and will we be in it alone or with NATO?.
I don’t see another 1940-45 scenario happening so will our NATO allies be using their armour in conjunction with ours? Then we need to ask ourselves what weapons better suits an island nation wishing to project power across the globe. The bottom line will always be what is most cost effective.
from observing the Ukrainian conflict it would seem sensible to have a powerful airforce cutting edge artillery and surface to air missiles.
Don’t get me wrong I would love us to have 500 new tanks and up to strength divisions, I just don’t think it will happen.
The Integrated Review is supposed to look ahead in the way you advocate, but we should not just look to the next conflict (but that has always proved difficult), as the next tank will be in service for 20 or more years.
I doubt many in 1955 would have forecast sending tanks to Suez just the next year, or those in 1989/90 knowing that we would be joining in a US-led MN coalition ejecting the Iraqi Army from Kuwait by warring in the desert in 1991, followed almost immediately by operations in Bosnia then Kosovo, then invading Iraq. Forecasting the future is difficult to impossible.
I agree that WW3 is unlikely but everything else is possible. We have deployed our tanks (and other AFVs and artillery and Infantry etc) on more kinetic operations than surface ships, submarines or fighter jets in the last 50 years. So on that basis Britain needs effective AFVs more than almost anything else.
We don’t just have armed forces to project power across the globe – fundamentally our armed forces should protect the nation and given that forward defence is best that means ensuring the security of the continent, where the most beligerent power is (and always has been) Russia. The ‘global Britain’ piece then follows as ‘second order’.
We don’t need 500 tanks. 386 was deemed the correct number for a post-Cold War army following the quite thorough Options for Change review. Under-strength divisions are not effective.
It’s an unanswerable question, Mick, at least with any accuracy. Who would have predicted ten years ago the need to arm another country to fight a war we aren’t even in? Who predicted Afghanistan, the outcome of a surprise attack on the twin towers? Or the Falklands? Wars sometimes come where you think, but often they don’t. We need to be ready with flexibility. If we heavily bias our forces to fight the expected battles, we may be heavily biasing them against being able to fight the unexpected ones.
Very good point, but both Afghanistan and Falklands didn’t require main battle tanks in numbers. I do agree that all arms need to be capable of operations sadly we don’t have politicians that either understand that or even care due to short sightedness and abject stupidity.
Col Crawford is right in his inference that our planned tank fleet of 148 is pretty pathetic by any yardstick.
All the leading NATO nations apart from the UK are expanding their heavy i.e. tracked armoured infantry brigades, for good reason.
The reason is that, apart from Poland, the other nine eastern European border countries have very small populations and therefore limited financial/military resources.
Quite apart from Ukraine, if Russia stirs up grey zone agitation, as a prelude to armed insurrection as per Donetz and Crimea, in the Russian-speaking parts of Estonia, Latvia Moldova, or its political satraps in Bulgaria, Serbia, Montenegro etc regain power, we just know there is trouble ahead. And there are serious doubts as to whether Turkey and Orban’s Hungary, not to mention a Trump USA, would participate in or sit out any NATO confrontation with the Orcs.
The only assured military assistance to Eastern Europe must come from Western Europe. To that end, each of the leading Western European nations plans to deploy a heavy armoured infantry division, and two in Germany’s case, plus some light, airportable brigades for lower intensity conflicts.
To that end, Germany, France, Italy and Spain are all reviewing and increasing their armoured infantry capability and tank numbers. The UK alone is going backwards in both areas.
Italy is a good comparison. They have 200 Ariete tanks of a similar vintage to our 214 Challenger 2s. While we are cutting to 148 and from 3 regts to 2, they are increasing numbers to 350 tanks and going from 3 small tank regts of 41 to 4 larger ones of 54,
plus 130 in reserve. All modernised or new builds plus125 of the latest Leopards.
Basically, we are not pulling our weight in this NATO land response force and nor are we in the air equivalent. No wonder the US is getting a bit critical.
The argument that we should let the others carry the weight while we ‘specialise’ in other capabilities is pretty wafer-thin, with our 3 Wedgetails (!), measly number of Poseidons, miniscule fast-jet numbers etc. It is primarily a naval inter-service lobby which does not stand up to closer scrutiny any more than the we-don’t-need-tanks-‘cos-we-have-drones school of militarily uninformed thought.
Just saying…
Spot on very true ,other nations increasing there IFV ,Tanks not sure what our game is 🙄
2017 was the Year of the Navy, and it seems like the Navy has had a few more good years of procurement since. Bravo the RN for largely cracking procurement, although clearly not everything is 100% perfect. The RAF and especially the army need to get ‘on point’. I am concerned at the RAF’s loss of C-130s, the small number of fast jet squadrons and Wedgetails and Poseidons as you are.
The army is virtually a basket case, with a very poor history of AFV procurements and upgrades in the last 20 years, as well as savage manpower, tank and artillery cuts. Current and future procurements are problematic to disastrous.
You are right that we are in opposition to many of our European allies in diminishing our manpower and platform counts. HMG seems to have failed to hoist onboard the real lessons from the current European war.
I don’t want our Tanks just thrown into the meat grinder.
As I commented a while back, this is like Kursk all over again. Going into prepared positions knee deep in minefields on a front with the Dneiper on one flank and the Donetsk on the other.
With no air superiority.
No wonder the UKR are taking their time. The lives of their troops matter.
I also remain concerned as to just what intelligence Russia and China would get with a captured example.
The Challengers will be used in the Ukrainians own time, when they’re ready, with any caveats we have included.
Agree, Russia aimed to bog the war down, unfortunately they have the man power edge to do that and Ukraine cannot and will not spaff away its army to break it…It would matter less but the Ukrainian campaign season is short and if the US election goes the wrong way next year Ukraines support will be cut off at the knees.
I heard somewhere that the challengers are part of the 10th corps/army/grouping and so far only the 9th corps has been sent into battle. More of the better trained units are in the 10th presumably waiting for a breakthrough or a counter attack.
CH2s are to be used as defensive and not offensive action only.
Is that right. I’d not heard of that condition. I agree with that.
The CR2’s have rarely been seen for whatever reason – only small snippets available – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYJ1ggOTer0
Maybe the Ukrainians had good reason not to trust the BBC with such information, such as:
Goose Green
Informing the Argentines that the bombs they were dropping on British Ships werent fused correctly and so were not detonating, not to worry once the BBC made them aware of their error, they soon put things right.
Or even last month when Sally Nugent one of the presenters of BBC one News describing the flyby of a Lancaster Bomber over the UK (in honour of the Dam busters) came out with:
I wouldnt trust the BBC with any secret .Unless of course its them defending one of their own with :
Antisemitism
Anti-British viewpoint
A penchant for boys
Drug taking
Looking down on those they feel are beneath them.
So why should the Ukrainians
So true
Remember the BBC announcing the bomb article .Hope Argentine thank them for it 🙄
Which neatly misses the point that the info must have been given to the BBC by the military; but hey, let’s bash the BBC.
BBC correspondents were entrenched with the task force. They saw what was happening with their own eyes and ears and probably put 2+2 together. And made a concious decision to broadcast it.
And that is pure conjecture or a counter factual.
The BBC were invited to sit in on sit rep briefings on the gentleman’s agreement that they wouldn’t report what they heard. Instead they diverged sensitive information which cost lives. The MOD put in place restrictions into the information the BBC received after that, complete with censors on their embedded personal during subsequent campaigns, this we saw at first hand during the first Gulf war , when before any report the BBC prefaced with “ this report was compiled under Military censorship”
As for a bash at the BBC, I have the right as I am forced by law to fund them. (Goes up to £175 next year)
Spot on.
I would hope that embedded correspondents are selected for their understanding of history and with rules of engagement that prioritise operational security.
Col Crawford’s view is that we need around 500 tanks. How many do we actually need?
In a 3 sabre sqn regiment, you need 56 in total (3 sqns of 18, 2 at RHQ). We should add a troop of 4 as HQ reserve, taking the total to 60.
We need 3 regts as the basis for 3 armoured infantry bdes, which is the absolute minimum 3 Division should field. We really need 4, like the Italians are increasing to: one of their brigades is an armoured one with 2 tank regts, giving the division some armoured punch.
Additionally we need at minimum a forward tank sqn to support the Estonia battle group. We also badly need a forward sqn to safeguard, with allies, the Suwalki Gap in Poland. It is the narrow land corridor from Poland to the Baltic Republics, which could be closed by enemy action from Kaliningrad and Belarus, cutting off the land reinforcement route to Lithuania and leaving NATO’s Baltic troops in a Courland-type disaster.
Then, the volunteer regt, R Wessex Yeo, really should have tanks of its own. Following our usual niggardly and hopeless approach to reserves, they are seen as a pool of individual BCRs.
Once the regt mobilised its regular and volunteer reservists, there would be more than enough personnel to both man a tank regt AND provide individual reservists to reinforce the regular regts.
A useful peacetime strength for the RWY would be 44 tanks – 3 sqns of 14 plus 2 at RHQ. – plus a detached regular sqn of 18, to bring the regt up to strength and provide a leavened of experoenced regulars.
Add 24 for Phase 2 recruit training and trials plus 20 for the field training squadron at BATUS/Sennelager and it totals 366 tanks.
To that total, add a minimum of 25% in reserve, so 92, and you come to a total of 458, of which 366 are frontline.
I 5hink Col Crawford is pretty much on the money with his 500 figure.
Why are we needing to forward deploy battlegroups? Poland is buying tanks, Germany is a bigger economy, France is a similar sized economy, the Netherlands and Belgium are on the same land mass etc etc.
Personally, we should have more SSN, surface escorts. MPA, anti ship missiles and bolstered amphib and airmobile units to support the Norway flank, and high Arctic.
Let the “eu army” bear the cost.
Lots of cheap wheeled vehicles with Brimstone, arty and MLRS , and hunter killer drones would be a better bet.
You obviously think that NATO has got it wrong then deploying battle groups in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, etc.
They are there as part of NATO’s Enhanced Forward Presence, basically a tripwire that would trigger a Clause 5 response if crossed. They deliberately involve all NATO members to demonstrate Allied resolve and unity, so the UK leads a multinational battle group in Estonia, as does Canada in Latvia, Germany in Lithuania, the USA in Poland etc.
One key reason they’re needed is the limited population and military capacity of most of the border states. Estonia’s population is just over a million (1.3), Latvia is 2 million, Lithuania now under 3 million. They are all spending well over 2% of GDP on defence and have small, capable forces, just nowhere near enough of them to deter or defeat the Orcs.
Poland is seen as our forward shield. It has 12 brigades and a limited air force to cover a lot of front. Ukraine has three times Poland’s strength yet is still outnumbered by Russia.
Hence we have a tripwire EPF in Poland too.
Concentrating our efforts on naval things around our little island, as you seem to be advocating, is not really a practical answer to either the defence of eastern Europe or the need for the NATO allies to demonstrate their solidarity to Putin.
If you push that argument, no need for a Navy or Air Force either. The “EU army” has far more destroyers, frigates, 5th generation airplanes. It can protect Norrway and UK better…
You are looking at this nationalistically. NATO doctrine is forward defence. Hence forward depoyed BGs. We are part of NATO which defends the Euro-Atlantic area and also we in the UK have a history for assisting continental neighbours against aggressors. We have a very combat experienced army. Why would we not deploy a BG forward in line with NATO doctrine? This is not a case of Poland and Germany are nearer Russia so they must do most of the heavy lifting – and we can do other stuff miles from ‘the front line’. It does not work that way. All countries pull together.
How does a bigger Navy bear down and bring pressure on Putin and his largely air-land war?
I agree with most of what you said, but your last sentence seems to draw a specious boundary around the nature of the war, which I don’t see as just encapsulated fighting between Russian and Ukrainian troops on Ukrainian territory. It sits in a larger context of an information war between the autocracies and the democracies, which has hard power expression. It’s Von Clausewitz.
The autocracies are trying to unbalance the global status quo and will use hard power or the threat of hard power to further their ends. The Royal Navy is instrumental in ensuring that Russia does not threaten Western Europe with its Northern Fleet. Containing that hard power ensures that we can act more freely in the land battle as well as in other areas of disagreement. Not to mention it stops Putin circling an area of Northern seas with dashed lines and claiming it for Russia.
Putin deems it worth putting a significant amount of money into the fleet, even when he could be putting it into the land/air war in Ukraine. Admittedly the new Lada class AIP submarines are not coming operational the way Putin might have liked, but it doesn’t mean he isn’t also building new frigates, corvettes, amphibious transport ships and nuclear submarines. He seems to think a bigger navy helps.
Jon, I was focussed on the current air-land conflict in Ukraine as that is what this thread is about.
But, yes, it is fair to look at this in the round. To square up to Russia and challenge aggression, we need to engage in every domain (including the Information War, cyber, sanctions etc) and across a wide geographical area – hence there is a place for the Navy in this, peripherally, at arms length.
Indeed. We provided the BAOR to over contribute to the central defence of Europe. So absolutely time for Germany to pay it’s way alongside France.
Unusually the former US president was factually correct about this funding shortfall by nations that chose to invest in their industrial success not defence.
Our contribution to JEF is rational and aligns with both our capabilities and relationships.
If the French and Germans don’t support a very credible British NATO secretary general they can’t be surprised that we don’t prioritise what they should do.
We already have collaboration with France at industrial and military levels so let’s hope the political will leave that alone..
If you don’t want to contribute then you might as well go full ireland and shut yourself off from everyone.
We’re in NATO, and one of the biggest players in NATO. That means we deploy to the eastern front. The attitutde you have is effectively saying “If you live near Russia you should be on your own.”
Such a small force with non standard ammo isn’t worth the logistical burden of deploying at the front. They’ll be used as a reserve somewhere to blunt any breakthrough. At the end of the day they were a political gesture rather than a serious military commitment.
The above post encapsulates everything that needs to be said with a brevity sadly lacking in the above article
Leopard 2s also have non-standard ammunition as the Ukrainians do not use 120mm smoothbore ammo in their T-series tanks.
The Ukrainians have to supply 100mm rifled ammo for M55S, 115mm smoothbore ammo for T62 – and 125mm smoothbore ammo for T64, T72, PT91, T80, T84U and T90 – so providing 120mm rifled for CR2 and 120mm smoothbore for Leo2 is just 2 more types of ammo to add to the mix.
I agree that 14 CR2s was a paltry number to donate – we should have supplied 25 or more.
They are all available in greater numbers though so there’s value in adding to the logistics burden.
The 14 was only ever a political gesture to speed up the delivery of leopard 2.
If we are assuming that the main threat to our tanks are mines then we should be more focused on anti-mining equipment as I think many of us think our tanks are better one-to-one to Russian tanks (ignoring T14). What happened to that anti mining spinny thing that we were using in the Gulf war? Give Ukraine all of our de-mining equipment. And if our main threat is Russia, what is the point of us keeping it for a rainy day?
We proved our tanks are better than Russian ones in two Gulf Wars. I would guess the flail systems are in storage in a UK depot somewhere.
The Russians are reportedly using densly planted double and triple level mines and remotely-detonated anti-tank mines as well as scattered anti-personnel mines. Would something like the Aardvark that flails at lightly distributed anti-personnel mines work, or would the Russians simply wait until they drove over a choice spot and remotely detonate an anti-tank mine under it, turning it into anti-mine scrap?
Jon,
In situations like this you ;
1) Bypass the place altogether
2) Send guys in at night to clear a path
3) Use something like a Python Minefield Breaching System (replaced the giant Viper) to clear a path that said there are videos of the Ukrs using US supplied M58 Mine Clearing Line Charge (MICLIC)
The use of a flail is usually reserved for when an area has been taken and clearance can be done in slow time. In an advance on a well defended position speed is of the essence so rollers and mine ploughs would be used instead. However the deployment by the Russians of the advanced PTKM-1R land mine makes the situation on the FEBA just that little much harder. In a nutshell it can be dropped from the air and has paddles on the underneath which then prop it up in the correct postion. It uses acoustic and seismic sensors in which to scan a huge area and if anything in its database comes up as an enemy it lobs its main charge into the air for a top attack. it is believed to have a range of 50 metres.
1st attempt sent to purgatory:
Jon,
In situations like this you ;
1) Bypass the place altogether
2) Send guys in at night to clear a path
3) Use something like a Python Minefield Breaching System (replaced the giant Viper) to clear a path that said there are videos of the Ukrs using US supplied M58 Mine Clearing Line Charge (MICLIC)
The use of a flail is usually reserved for when an area has been taken and clearance can be done in slow time. In an advance on a well defended position speed is of the essence so rollers and mine ploughs would be used instead. However the deployment by the Russians of the advanced PTKM-1R land mine makes the situation on the FEBA just that little much harder. In a nutshell it can be dropped from the air and has paddles on the underneath which then prop it up in the correct postion. It uses acoustic and seismic sensors in which to scan a huge area and if anything in its database comes up as an enemy it lobs its main charge into the air for a top attack. it is believed to have a range of 50 metres.
I hate purgatory! Thank you twice.
The names Python and Viper reminded me of the WW2 Bangalore system used to clear obstacles, but on looking them up they appear a lot more sophisticated. Phew!
4) don’t give them the chance to prepare minefields or defences.
The Aardvark company claims the flails work on At as well as AP mines.
https://aardvark.group/amcs/
Politics surrounds the EU. Counties like Latvia and Lithuania voted as part of the EU in a way which results in the Northern Ireland mess. We got no favours ( and probably shouldn’t expect any), so in one sense why are we concerned about basing tanks in the Baltic. Let Germany , France and the countries that played hard ball chip in. Let the EU Nato members who won’t pay 2% chip in.
Poland will buy 1000 modern MBT, if Ukraine joins the EU, and at some point Nato , their tank fleet and combat experience army will join.
So why are we concerned with MBT mass?
The northern flank of Nato should be our aim, and some expeditionary capability.
Are we really going to contribute to a tank on tank war with china?
Would lighter forces suffice?
I would rather more SSN than 200 more tanks, or GBAD, or long range anti ship cruise missiles.
148 C2 should do, then get a lighter IFV with a 105 or 120mm turret and Brimstone option that we could deploy to the Arctic or an expeditionary jaunt.
No point buying more tanks unless you buy heavy transports, spend on rail units and logistics.
It’s a dick waving competition.
The Northern Ireland ‘mess’ is entirely of Boris’s making. He pretended that there wouldn’t be a tariff border down the Irish Sea but of course that was the only available solution.
We voted to leave the EU and thus be outside their tariff barrier. We can hardly blame the EU countries for our actions and their trade consequences!
The problem is that your stance confuses the EU with NATO. The idea that if Europe doesn’t play nice and help us out of the jam we have got ourselves in, we won’t help them militarily, alas won’t cut any ice in either NATO or Europe. And not a lot with the British public either, going by the latest polls.
I think if the British public were told or understood a couple of skysabre batteries protects our vital infrastructure. They would choose GBAD or a few ABM equipped destroyers off our coast then pie in the sky ideas of basing 1000s of troops and buying 300 MBTs at £10m a pop to defend continental nations.
I don’t object to doing the Nato bit. But it should be the northern flank.
At one stage we based 70k service personel and families in Germany and elsewhere, pumping billions into the German economy which wad stronger than ours.
If choices need to be made, spending billions on tanks to bolster the Baltic shouldn’t be our responsibility.
In the cold war we provided 55% of European nato frigate strength, that’s more like our interests.
Not even sure how many skysabre batteries we have but would think most in Poland, one in the Falklands .Would be wise to Get more of theses platforms .There again what don’t we need for our Armed forces 😕
Funny you should mention Skysabre. Surface to Air missile systems have really come of age this past year inside the Ukraine and with a real life conflict in which to hone their skills (Thanks Russia) I can only presume that much has been learnt in which to make such systems even more potent. Which brings me to this tweet I saw the other day
It was interesting. You can ground launch AMRAAM via NASAMS so someone though ASRAAM…Hold my pint, opened up the garden shed and cracked on.
Ok range isn’t going to be the 50km for air launch but its going to be pretty respectable.
If its the early version of ASRAAM there are loads around as they are due to go out of service and are being replaced by the latest Block 6 version.
On a side note integrating such a launcher it into a Sky Sabre battery/command system would be an advantage to UKGBAD. Its now been proven that a ground based launch is possible so it would be a good way of providing another layer of coverage
Have a look on the drive warzone website. They have an article about a supacat 6×6 with an asraam launcher on the back. A few are in Ukraine. I don’t think they have many but it’s a good addition and has good mobility.
All this British ingenuity going on, why doesn’t more of it make its way into the British armed forces? Some other country will do it if we don’t. There’s even the Supacat with a HLMRS like system done back a decade or more ago. Now look at how popular it is, especially the wheeled. UK industry should get more backing and rebuilding what we used very good at.
How can it get to the Army? First, we are always overspent on the big stuff and don’t put funding aside for opportunistic purchases, only for research and testing.
Second, we suffer from an abundance of process and governance, with insufficient delegation. The answer to things having gone wrong in the past seems to have been let’s layer the process with more governance and hierarchy to make sure it doesn’t happen again. This ensures decisions are taken furthest away from the point of knowledge by people whose jobs mean they don’t have the time to master the detail. So it goes wrong again. Rinse, repeat.
Jon, you are so right. The amount of bureaucracy and governance is what kills all but the main players in defence. As you say, if just a small percentage of the budget could be allocated, with limited paperwork to SME’s to design and build some of the more “British Garden Shed” companies we would be back up there with world leading technologies. Sadly you need to submit paperwork greater and more in depth that the old Encyclopedia Britannica to even get an invite to present your ideas.
Morning farouk ,shows what can be done thanks for that 👍
It’s not a tweet it’s an X😂😂😂😂😂
Just wait 10 seconds or so.
The EU could have quite easily taken the pragmatic route that Ireland and NI are on a landmass separated by sea, and there was really no “risk to the single market”. The EU nations decided on a power grab to stop divergence, and so k would have been quite relaxed in pointing out that the battlegroup guarding Estonia would have been bought home.
Agree to differ David. I am not anti-Europe, not militarily isolationist, and not a ‘little Englander’, so cannot share your views or bother debating them.
100%
This approach of a landmass separated by sea would have made Good Friday a very, very Bad Friday. Trying not to ignore that US didn’t like it either, so not all EU fault
Your introduction was a load of tosh. Latvia, especially, rued the day that the Bluffer pushed through brexshit, as most sane people on these islands rue it today.
The Baltics have always been trenchant in their support for the UK. Should I have one misgiving, a la Helmand, we took on a far flung piece of earth which in war will be difficult to resupply, and no escape.
The UK has investigated resupply by rail, I know someone who rode a train from Poland to the Baltics and reported on the material state of the line – several months later, UK military trains traversed the line.
Another misgiving is that the Germans took on Lithuania, I’d rather the Brits, Canuks or US had done so as the Suwalki gap will need units with the political support to fight, all I ever saw and heard in Latvia was German appeasement of Russia.
As to your comment about more SSN, ask BAE Systems about their workload at Barrow, good luck.
There is also the question of reliability of the new Challenger 3? in 2001 I was attached to a tank regiment that went to batus for a major exercise with the then brand new Challenger 2, we had numerous breakdowns due to the variant the British Army uses, with cooling problems and dusty conditions blocking filters! All these problems had to be ironed out at great expense rather than getting the right variant in the first place!
All new complex equipment has teething troubles. PoW?
Any Mechanical Issues with the running of CR2 will be well known and mitigated by now,20+ years of service experience learnt.The only unknown with the CR3 is how good the new Turret will be.
“We should be looking at a fleet of about 500; any fewer than that and our
armoured regiments will be unsustainable in the sort of combat seen in
Ukraine”. But that is not the strategic role of the modern British Army, in the context of NATO it provides battalion size battlegroups (often including one company of Challenger’s) to act as forward deployed tripwire formations and high availability rapid reaction forces, occasionally up to Brigade size. The supporting “mass” is provided by the USA, and perhaps Poland and Germany in the near future. Reforming a 1980’s style I (British) Corps with two or three armoured divisions that go toe-to-toe with a Russian Tank Army would be a fantastically expensive exercise. Without a big increase in defence spending (which Sunak and Hunt have vetoed) it will mean massive cuts to the RN and RAF which will appal our allies worldwide and directly weaken the security of the UK.
I don’t think anyone is proposing to form a UK corps. The UK, Germany, Netherlands etc would serve in the ARRC.
There doesn’t seem much point in having 500 tanks – as the article’s author recommends – if you are not going to then use them. 500 is enough for several tank divisions, which in turn usually form an Armoured Corps. Alternatively, if most of the 500 tanks are mothballed and stored pending the UK becoming directly at war with Russia, I question whether their purchase is the correct prioritisation. Assuming 150 CR2 to CR3 conversions at £6 million each, and 350 new build CR3’s at £20 million each, we are looking at c.£8 bn worth of MBT’s in procurement CAPEX alone. Spending all that money on tanks will inevitably mean other major projects being cancelled, e.g. development of the Tempest combat aircraft and the Type 26 Batch 2s.
eFP is just one part of NATO’s posture. Because UK contributes to eFP does not mean that it does not provide anything more than up to a brigade in addition. 70% of our forces are committed to NATO on average.
The provision of ‘mass’ is not restricted to the US currently.
I fear that provision of ‘mass’ for land warfare is actually restricted to the US currently. Turkey is currently next up as far I can see. For the avoidance of doubt, my Armchair General view is that the old rule of thumb that everything should be provided in three’s applies to tank regiments as much as warships and aircraft. But in the face of other urgent priorities, the MoD apparently just doesn’t have the money to increase to the CR3 buy to the necessary c.225, or then maintain them in service.
A superpower is in a category all of its own. Certainly the US brings mass to every military operation it does.
Then you have the countries with large but not enormous armies and hence mass in artillery or tanks or whatever – Turkey, Poland, France. [No longer is Germany in that ‘club’]
For the rest of us we have to pool or aggregate resources to create mass.
We are stuck with a 73k army with 148 tanks. Good job we will always fight alongside NATO/UN/US allies, such that mass is collective not national.
I keep hearing of the “14” Challenger 2 tanks sent to Ukraine. In fact the count was doubled to 28 tanks, a few months later.
It’s just 14. But if you can quote any official source for 28, I will apologise for doubting you!
It was the official line to send 28, but apparently the number was rowed back for now. Link from defensenews.com
https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2023/03/06/double-the-challenger-tanks-for-ukraine-british-mod-says-no/
UKR thought somehow we were doubling to 28. The 28 figure only came from UKR not UK sources. UK denied the 28 figure. We have only sent 14.
Well that’s what it says in the report I put here earlier. I DID read it through before posting the link!
Hmmm… believe that while a minimum of 500 MBTs may be a necessary precondition for meaningful UKR advances, it is by no means sufficient. Supply of mine clearance equipment should be among the highest equipment priorities of NATO. Obviously,
the resupply of vastly increased supplies of munitions is self evident. In addition, NATO sources have critiqued UKR for not following NATO combined arms assault doctrine. Er…exactly how the hell is that supposed to work, w/out at least first establishing air superiority, if not dominance?!? Shall we coin a new phrase (e.g., semi-combined or partially combined arms)? Anyone here receive instruction and training in that? Believe, as Snoopy (famous US cartoon character), that it may be time to ask the Great Pumpkin for a new battle plan, starting w/ a substantial, meaningful tac air package of F-16s, surplused A-10s and potentially, some Gripens. Add in helicopter gunships (preferably Apaches, but almost anything is better than nothing). Stir in every weapon certified for usage on above a/c, except nukes. Now, not optimistic enough to believe this could come together for a 2024 counter-offensive, but surely the 2025 campaign is feasible, given sufficient priority by NATO! In the interim, conservation of both men and materiel is paramount. BTW,, certainly not a tactician, but realize that even the Wehrmacht did not directly challenge the Maginot Line, but rather chose an end run through the Ardennes Forest. Feasible either in the north or south? 🤔
How can quickly trained troops handle the sophisticated combined arms battle using a hodge-podge of NATO/Soviet equipment, when even the Russians can’t handle significant air evolutions using their own equipment? By 2025 the Russian position will be so entrenched it will be next to impossible.
So how about adding air transport to move the battle? If you can’t get around, perhaps you can get over. Especially if you could dominate in the air locally, maybe overnight. It is the US (and UK) policy that marines don’t storm defended beachheads anymore but go around or over. Maybe the Marine Corps should be the Great Pumpkin.
I doubt this will be popular, but I feel there may come a point where NATO troops will have to bite the bullet and fight in Ukraine, although not as NATO. I’m starting to think this should be sooner rather than later. Before the Trump joker in the pack has had chance to rewrite history and reveal Putin to be the good guy.
🤔 Your concept of airborne assault/paratroop capability is intriguing and ambitious. Suspect that it would require a significant commitment of time and effort by NATO.
Do not foresee direct outside assistance for UKR, unless either the Orcs use WMD, or manage to trigger Article 5 response. However, my cristal ball has proven to be somewhat cloudy. 🤔
I don’t think the mix of equipment in CA warfare is an issue for Ukraine. It is their lack of experience at doing CA manouevre warfare, but at least they are up against a foe who is clueless in that regard. Rather worrying to be contemplating the war in 2025!
You are concerned at the Ukrainians’ slow progress and think they need AT to jump over Russian positions. There is no safe place for AT to land. UKR is being cautious as they don’t want to lose to many men and equipment too soon. They want to determine the precise area to commit 10 Corps to; they may only get one chance – if the Orcs destroy 10 Corps then it may be game over for Ukraine.
I cannot think that any NATO nation would enter the war independently – who do you think would do that?
You may be right about a safe place to land. It was just a thought not an expectation.
As for who might break first and join the fighting in Ukraine, Poland came to mind. Depends on how (or if) the Belarus/Poland situation warms up. But it doesn’t really matter who. The question is will every NATO country allow Ukraine to fail without taking the next step, or will someone jump in? Might they make the determination that it’s containable as long as Russian land isn’t touched.
But if it’s going to happen anyway to break a stalemate in 2025, it would be a lot easier just to get it over with now.
Yes, if you jump over Russian forces to land your C-17 and A400M Atlas, you will be landing in the Sea of Azov.
Plenty of NATO countries allowed the Soviet Union to take over Afghanistan in Dec 1979 and to invade Georgia in 2008 and Crimea in 2014.
If Poland is attacked from Belarus by Wagner group, they would possibly cross the border into Belarus on alimited operation (high rsk though) but I doubt Poland would enter Ukraine to assist Ukraine forces against Russian forces.
The tank is dead. The threats are too numerous, too capable and will improve significantly in the years to come. We should donate the rest of our large slow logistically draining targets to Ukraine and be the at the forefront of the post-tank era. We will never sanction the wholesale losses in blood and kit necessary to wage war in this old outdated way. The game has changed.
People were saying the tank is dead in 1916 when the first AT weapon was fielded by Germany, also when the PIAT and US bazooka were fielded in WW2 and when the French introduced the ATGW in the late 1950s. Now the new threat is from drones. They have had some success, helped by poor Russian tanks and their handling, but drones are vulnerable too.
If the tank is dead, remind me how many nations have phased them out?
Whether nations have yet phased tanks out is not an argument for whether they might in light of the present conflict. To develop and retain a credible tank now requires an impossible hedgehog monstrosity in the vain hope it will, at some point in a conflict, overmatch the opposition’s equally impossible hedgehog. Any future tank capable of fulfilling its primary roles in the face of sophisticated drones, not just today’s almost and actually home made first generation attack drones, the enemy’s version of excalibur, of javelin, NLAW etc will also sit useless while any enemy with a brain adopts deep mine defence … in the vain hope of the great break out and the finally unleashed tank on tank great manoeuvre battle of staff college dreams. A self-licking lollipop to rival the Navy’s two great white elephants.
The poor showing from the second best army in Ukraine should illustrate that even against them and their relative lack of sophisticated anti-armour weapons, the tank is, even in dream tank country just down the road from the ‘greatest’ tank battle of WW2, of limited utility except in it’s stripped down role of infantry support.
Unless we decide to invest very heavily in credible tanks and in credible numbers and everything that goes with it to get the beast to the battle, which we will not for sure, and we are prepared to fight wars where we lose a large number of men and kit quickly, which we are not, we must rethink. The only armies actually capable of fielding an armoured force worth a candle are inevitably so heavily invested, they will not be leading the way forward.
If we didn’t have tanks now, we wouldn’t be going into tanks.
Your final paragraph contradicts your first post?
Not really. I’m saying that we or anyone else could choose to build the ultimate tank but it is unaffordable in the small numbers we would operate, eye-watering in the large numbers China or the US would need and in any case would be surpassed quickly by the rapid advances in the means of their destruction. They’d be behind the curve from the off. Kit has to be reliable, maintainable, affordable and effective … fit for role. But even if reliable and affordable are achieved … what is the role … capabilty .. and is an uber expensive, heavy, hard to conceal gun platform the tool for the job? What else can do the job now (we could start with a £500 drone and work upwards)?
I think a balance is needed. That means retaining the capability, because getting rid entirely causes great problems when it is needed again. And they will be, otherwise nations would be dropping them, and they’re not.
So balance, keep them, but in limited numbers, as the army is doing. I want a slight increase in Ch3, no more than we have in Ch2 now, simply to enable a 3rd manoeuvre Brigade for 3 Division.
Priority should be in RA, in AD, in EW, in Sigint, in AI, and Drones, as you say. Which is what we are doing, as FS is moving in that direction. Sadly the cuts have been so great since 91 we are at minimum levels already in those areas and even the increases will see us with few of those assets.
On the RN and carriers, I totally disagree but that is another subject.
Agree on artillery …. but what is the ‘tank’ capability we should keep? We should not be looking for a task for our equipment but the equipment for our task.
Morning. As I suggested in my post, 3 Regiments. The same as we have now.
No increase, just maintaining the capability.
This drone anxiety has spread like a pandemic. I can almost hear Pte Frazer saying ‘we’re all doomed!’
I think I once counted nearly a dozen ways to kill or disable a tank. The attack drone is just one more novel weapon that has to be countered.
The Ukrainians are developing a growing (though not 100% effective of course) counter-drone capability.
You think there has not been tank-on-tank manouevre warfare since Kursk or that it exists only in Staff College dreams? Seriously? Gulf War 1 and 2, for starters.
The tank is only of use in an infantry support role? Tanks can also deliver shock action, can dominate ground, and are effective at killing other tanks and medium armour and defeating strong points.
What are credible tanks? Tanks that offer 100% protection to the crew? Not possible. But tanks offer more protection to the crew than any other vehicle on the battlefield. If you scrapped the tank because they did not provide 100% protection, then you would logically scrap anything with a lower order of protection, ie all medium and light AFVs, all SPGs, all soft-skinned vehs – ie everything.
We can get our beasts to battle (we have freighters, rail flats and tank transporters), and sustain them logistically and with engineering support. We have done so since 1916.
We have fought wars and sustained casualties, with and without the presence of tanks. You speculate that we would lose a lot of tanks and men in a drone-heavy environment – well only if we did not develop good technical counters and TTP.
The tank has not reached its ‘battleship moment’. Nations continue to buy tanks, man them, upgrade them, field them, use them – especially our potential enemies.
If we didn’t have tanks now we might be defeated by a tank army.
You wrote .. “You think there has not been tank-on-tank manouevre warfare since Kursk or that it exists only in Staff College dreams? Seriously? Gulf War 1 and 2, for starters.” Let’s address what I did say, not what I didn’t. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one here who was also in the gulf … as a 7Bde FOO at the time. I left the RA after BC of a cdo bty and a tour as Senior IG and spent the next decade as an RAC reservist officer including command followed by GS. I’m not completely ignorant on the subject or the kit.
Let’s explore the ideas and think outside the box rather than decide that the only way forward is more of the same. It’s evident that no major war-fighting nation has made any radical change but that doesn’t mean they’re not considering it at certain levels … while fighting for budgets predicated on justifying what’s already in the pipeline or approved.
I’ll amplify one of my points – that not only has the close battle threat to the tank increased significantly through new means and old (mines) but the vulnerability zone is far far deeper than it ever was before. An opponent with competent asymmetry would start knocking us off before we got to Marchwood.
Thanks for the very interesting post. Most of the changes we are seeing with equipment and munitions are just evolutionary, such as RWS, unmanned tank turrets, OTA & Fire & Forget shoulder-launched A/Tk weapons such as NLAW – and some are a tad more ground-breaking such as unmanned ground vehicles, attack drones. Not enough examples of radical change in equipment design, as you say.
Interesting idea that peer or near-peer opponents may or should conduct asymmmetric warfare which has generally been the province of insurgents. A strike on BZZ with its single runway and without the alternative of RAF Lyneham would screw up our AT effort if we were about to mount an overseas operation by air.
I’m going to give you a big no sorry wrong there me old China! See previous replies to similar comments. But briefly platforms and weapons adapt, passive and active defensive systems, tactics, training etc, all adapt to new and different weapon systems. If the tank is dead, what about other big armoured platforms, AS90,Ajax, Boxer, Engineering vehicles, and not just armour, HETs are also bloody big, fuel tankers, bridging wagons are big……anyway you know where I’m going with this. Cheers.
I gonna give you an agree, in a sense ….. that all these systems are large heavy targets, easily tracked and targeted not least asymmetrically long before we get them across the channel and ever after. Armoured warfare requires by necessity a huge and sluggish build up and work up. In the past we could keep most of the delivery and assembly out of range but those days are gone.
Too slow into action, too obvious, too vulnerable. Too fat and too late, too expensive to use, too expensive to lose.
Platforms adapt, sure, but unless you protect to the same degree the big guns, the bridging kit, the POL trucks … the supremely protected CRx’s aren’t going anywhere.
‘Wrong’ is a matter of opinion.
Not a fan of old Crawford and his rather whining ways! He continues to swing that “I was a tankie officer” so he will always know best! Maybe yes but maybe know as his time in tanks was 25 years ago. But today he is along the right track (excuse the pun). Yes we do need more tanks, but not the large amount he states. What we do need for the tanks (and all other very expensive and time consuming to construct armoured vehicles) are active and passive defensive kits (trophy etc) ready to be fitted as required.
We all know the Army is in a bit of a shit state, and needs a thorough sorting out, but to do so will need a full re-assessment of our needs and requirements. Mass and depth does matter and (as many of us here have said) the need to replace destroyed or damaged kit and people is essential, something the UK mil does not have. However the first things that are needed to be sorted out, in my order of priority are:
1. Combat service support increased so we can actually utilise the formations we have. HETs to move the armour and other “none fancy” but essential areas, railway units etc.
2. A reduction of a few Light Role Inf Bns to use the PIDs for other areas (as we know increased recruitment will not happen).
3. More investment in the RA, to include LLAD, depth fires (maybe slowly getting their) drones and anti-UAV systems. The replacement of the AS90 should be now seen as a priority.
4. Investment in more Boxer variants, and a reality check in regard to Ajax variants being ordered. Essential variants would be overwatch Brimstone, 120 mm Mortar and a bloody turret with a decent 30/40 mm.
Aside from these, I have to say with the limited cash which seems to be available and as an island nation I believe the RN are priority, then the RAF and then the Army. We do have some outstanding areas where we are second only to the US in NATO, and we should ensure those areas remain somewhat of a niche capability for us, as our main contribution to NATO. Will we as an island nation do the heavy lifting in armoured warfare in Central Europe, unlikely, but we do need as a minimum a fully deployable Division with both heavy and light forces to remain credible and useable. Anyway we could go on for ages but it’s the same old issue, a lack of will from politicians and a lack of money. Cheers 👍
Yep it’s that old problem money again💰🙄
Yep, nice summery there and I’m 100% in agreement.
On the LI Bns, for example. 7 LMBCT has 5, and 4 LBCT has 6. Do they need so many?
Our AI Bdes had 3, and so did 16AA til that was increased to 4.
How about reducing each to 3.
So that’s 5 Btns worth of PIDS to create – as an example.
1 RA Regiment.
1 RE Regiment.
1 RLC Regiment.
1 REME CS Bn.
1 RMP Pro Coy.
Assign them to 4 LBCT, and we now have anotger deployable Bde with, crucially, it’s own regular CS CSS, which it lacks.
Deployable Brigades should be the no1 currency of the army. And our 73k army can put 4 in the field, 5 if you include DSRB which lacks it’s own CSS and also relies in the reserves to augment 6 REME.
Alternatively, use the lot to create additional RA Regs, Archer, Brimstone Overwatch, SHORAD, CUAV with AA Guns, or even a 2nd MRAD Reg.
I assume those LI Bns are still around 600 men and not reduced like the SFAB ones.
Top response full of info as per normal mate. Cheers.
Interesting point about 4 light brigade having 6 infantry battalions and 7.light ‘mechanised’ having 5.
Sounds excessive on paper but I suspect it’s a lot of double counting by the MOD.
Of the 6 in 4 Bde, 2 at least are not available, one is in Brunei (1 GHU), one in Cyprus (1 LANCS). Deployment plans are changing so rapidly that I can’t see which battalion is the second one in Cyprus or the resident infantry battalion in Northern Ireland or the two public duties Guards battalions, but they must be included in these 4 and 7 brigade numbers, otherwise the overall number of 30 battalions doesn’t add up.
So basically I doubt that 4 bde is deployable at all prior to mobilisation and doubt that 7 bde would take the field with more than 3 battalions.
If the army grouped the overseas forces in one 2 star command – overseas garrisons, SFABs and Rangers — and the UK Home Forces in another – public duties, Northern zireland, districts and training – I think we would see a much clearer picture of what’s actually available to the manoeuvre brigades.
The answer would be 12 infantry battalions, enough to man 4 bdes (12, 20, 7 and 16) and the Estonia BG. There would nothing left over for 4 bde. So it looks like a paper formation that could possibly be raised on mobilisation, which is probably why the 4 cs and css regiments are reserve ones.
Basically, smoke and mirrors by HMG and MOD to pretend we have 5 bdes when the reality is 4. They do the same with Typhoon, claiming 7 squadrons when there are actually only 5 frontline (and weak ones at that).
This descent into pretence is quite worrying, Parliament and people are being misled into thinking we have adequate resources when the real picture is much more gloomy.
Hi Cripes.
Yes, good points, and lots to address so I’ll respond with my thoughts on each?
“Of the 6 in 4 Bde, 2 at least are not available, one is in Brunei (1 GHU), one in Cyprus (1 LANCS).
1 have 1 RGR at present in Brunei, and in Cyprus 1 PWRR and 1 LANCS. Assume I’m not out of date and they’ve moved.
On the 4 LBCT point of Cyprus and Brunei Bns being “unavailable”, to me it depends how you look at 4 Bdes role, and assumes the Bde musters and deploys from the UK as a complete formation. Which we know it clearly doesn’t as it does not have its own regular CS and CSS formations, beyond a Light Cav Reg, I think the Lt Dragoons. So it is not a fully deployable manoeuvre Bde like the others, which has been highlighted here often.
However, I also believe the Gurkha Bn is Cyprus and one of the two Cyprus LI Bns are not just there as garrisons, but act as “Theatre Reserve” for the Middle East and Far East. So available for ops and in effect forward deployed.
So, with the announcement that the GRF will now be 16AA, a Light Bde ( surely 4 and not 7 ) and a Logistics Bde, then that places 2 of 4LBCTs formations overseas already, Makes sense to me at least.
But again, the GRF announcement for me is just more rebranding and re announcing from the MoD, as something new, what already exists. They just put more existing formations into it and re package.
Previous with this sort of thing – Theatre Troops – Force Troops – Field Army Troops. Same organisations, different name, getting smaller as pieces are cut or resubordinated elsewhere, but woohoo, new name so new start.
“Deployment plans are changing so rapidly that I can’t see which”
I know the feeling. Very hard to keep track, and I’m sure I’d read they were doing away with the Arms Plot ( as it was ) back when FAS came out, to “give certainty to families” by placing Battalions at permanent locations. But rotation by some Battalions, like the 4 in the Cyprus rotation, continues.
“that I can’t see which battalion is the second one in Cyprus or the resident infantry battalion in Northern Ireland”
Note on below, this may be out of date, as me keeping up with the ORBAT and locations of the entire British military is hard work. But…and one of Dern’s ORBAT charts will show things more clearly.
1 PWRR I think is the other Bn in the ESBA and 2 Rifles the one in NI at Lisburn. There is another in NI, 1 RRS, as 1 Ranger., at Palace Bks.
Public Duties…, 1 Bn WG at Pirbright and….?? Cannot find which now. A closer study is needed, If Dern sees this he will know and has all the charts.
“for 4 bde. So it looks like a paper formation that could possibly be raised on mobilisation, which is probably why the 4 cs and css regiments are reserve ones.”
Yes, as discussed above. I’d love to see it become a proper 5th Bde with the CS CSS enablers, sitting next to 16AA and 3 Cdo in 1 UK Division as a GRF. 3 Cdo acting as partially forward deployed, with the LRG concept.
“They do the same with Typhoon, claiming 7 squadrons”
Indeed, I’ve covered that many times here. That came about when the ratio 5 Typhoon, 3 Tornado, was about to become 5 Typhoon, 1 F35, as Tornado was curt early. A mere 6 Squadrons left, half that in 2010.
Utterly scandalous…
So the 7 Sqns fiddle, with the same number of Typhoon, to keep the Sqn numbers at 8.
It is what it is. With nuclear weapons capital costs in the core budget and the billions that go directly to industry rather than the military, what else to do?
If Labour remove the nukes from core and invest in the military I vote for them tomorrow. And I’d eat my hat if they do…..
Okay so:
Keeping track of Cyprus is not hard, it’s listed in the Future Soldier Document who is going there when and for how long. I don’t really bother putting that kind of info into my orbats, suffice to say 1 Battalion from 7 and 1 Btn from 4 will always be in Cyprus. In effect the actual “deployable” (assuming CS/CSS) strength of 4 and 7X is 5 manuver units each (1x Light Cav, 4x Infantry btns) which puts them pretty much in line with most other British Army Brigades (AI= 1 Recce, 1 Armoured, 2-3 Infantry btns. AA= 4 Infantry btns).
1 Ranger was supposed to go to Aldershot but… well… maybe not the forum for that.
Re Public duties: The commitment seems to have been downscaled/rebalanced. 1 Battalion from the Footguards is on PD under command of the London District, which the remaining (presumably) 3 will rotate through (Irish Gds being SFA’s will be reduced in manning and presumalby unable to rotate through the position). The shortfall in Public Duties appears to be made good by grouping the Incremental Coys into a “pseudo-battalion” that is on permanent PD. So as it stands, the list for 4X and 7X is not double counting public duties units.
Ahhh yes, good point re the Incremental Coys, we discussed that a while back.
Should also have mentioned that the 1st Btn the London Guards sits under the London District as well, no idea how much use is made of them but, if tracking PD’s is your thing it’s worth mentioning.
Ah yes, the old London Regiment.
To be fair, I try to track everything.
Update, I count 31 Bns. Some may now be out of date as they move station so hope Dern sees this to correct any errors.
12AI – 1 MERC / 1 RW
20AI – 5 R / 1 RRF
7 LM – 1 SG / 1 YORKS / 4 RRS / 1 R / 2 RA /
4 I – 1 GG / 2 RRS / 1 CG / 2 R / 1 RGR /
16AA – 2 PARA / 3 PARA / 2 RGR / 1 RI
S Ops B – 4 R / 2 PWRR / 2 LANCS / 1 RRS
11 SFA – 3 R / 3 RRS / 1 IG / 1 RA
LD – 1 WG /
Cyprus – 1 PWRR / 1 LANCS
Others – 2 YORKS ( Ex Bn ) / 1 PARA ( SFSG )
Cyprus rotation I have as 1 SG / 4 RRS / 1 R / 1 RA / 1 PWRR / 1 LANCS as some re role to Boxer or back to UK.
Goodness, your knowledge is immense!
You are quite right, total is 31 bns, I’m always forgetting 1RRF.
3 questions:
1. What is ‘LD’ ref Welsh Guards?
2. What is ‘Ex Bn’ next to 2 YORKS – assume exercise, testing the mini uavs, but is that a temporary deployment or a new army role?
3. Where are the 3 training bns at Catterick? These used to be 3 regular bns but I no longer see them in the Orbat, do they still exist or have they been replaced by some ersatz arrangement of contingents?
Just made an extensive reply but it is “awaiting approval”
Morning.
My long reply earlier is still in moderation, so just a short one instead.
1/ London District.
2/ 2 Yorks is the army Experimental Battalion, grouped in the E&TG with the various TDUs like ATDU,ITDU,RETDU,CSTDU and so on.
3/ At the ITC at Catterick there are 1st and 2nd Battalions, and the ITC Support Battalion. All part of the Infantry Training Centre which sits under the School of Infantry.
It must be noted these are not like other regular Infantry Battalions of the varied administrative Infantry “Divisions” that are in the Brigades, these are training formations, with Companies from the varied Divisions and regiments.
If my longer original reply ever surfaces I went into a lot more detail on each.
Nit pick: 1 PWRR is going to re-roll to Boxer under 20th AI, Lancs is to remain under 4X.
Also 4 Rifles, 2 PWRR, 2 Lancs and 1 RRS don’t exist anymore.
Not at all mate, I need it, keep me in line! 😄
Re the Rangers, I’m in the habit of still listing them like the format with the RRS Bns in keeping they’re old IDs.
So thanks, I’ll remove the refs.
Yep, all about the enables, No good having 500 tanks if we have only 99 HET’s.RA very short of equipment etc etc.
Agreed mate.
You are not going to get 500 HETs!
I think 99 HETs is quite a lot.
Another reduction of Light Role Inf Btns? There aren’t many left. 😛
Should the Royal Armoured Corps not be renamed to the Royal Armoured Brigade?
(I’ll git mi coat!)
Of course we have dozens more CR2’s in storage and could easily supply Ukraine with a whole regiment or more. Yes, they are not impregnable, and while in a tank on tank situation they are a very tough nut to crack, mines – who’d have thought – and overhead drones as we are seeing can knock out anything. From below and above the tank is proving highly vulnerable. The Ukranians have been unable to breach the minefields and pour through and both sides are lacking any impetus it would seem.
They might mothballed the challenger 2 tank when the 3 cones out ..even given the 2 a upgrade..you have 300 tanks then..be most cheaper and viable option for a reserve tank
When CR2 is declared Obsolete (about the same time CR3 comes out) they will be withdrawn from units and moved to MoD Ashchurch and then disposed of asap, by sale, or gifting (or in last resort by scrapping). How do you have 300 tanks then? You don’t. You have 148 CR3s.
CR2s as a Reserve tank – no such thing. They will be gone.
Some of the CR3s will be earmarked as Attrition Reserve.
We do not keep Obsolete equipment.
I started my working life at Royal Ordnance Factory Barnbow. The whole production facility was modernised and privatised. Now most of it seems to be a housing estate.
The UK capacity to produce MBTs is a fraction of what it was. A significant order needs to be offered to develop the infrastructure and capacity to become a significant manufacturer of tanks and other FVs to support UK needs.
It is not a capability that can be built up overnight and procurement needs to be improved and enhanced significantly.
If future orders (beyond CR3) are even less than 148, would any company invest in setting up a tank factory? Maybe if it were to be a runaway export success too.
Came a cross very odd Article last night reading that in a disclosed location an Ukrainian reporter was checking out 60 Chieftain tanks in July getting fixed up .I kid you not guys could they really make there way to the Battlefield ,check it out .🤔🇬🇧
The only place that would currently have 60 chieftains in ‘running order’ could really only be Jordan with their Khalids!
There were about five articles on this subject one give the impression the 60 Chieftains were somewhere in UK.However Jordan was also mentioned say they have around 300 in storage,but don’t want to be taking sides.So I wonder could the UK buy them from Jordan and gift them to the Ukraine ?
I thought it was odd that some Leo1s were gifted. Chieftains have a better gun than Leo1 and better armour, but its so old and reliability would be very suspect, with spares being quite hard to source. Still UKR will take anything.
They’d have value even as camouflage dummies or stationary gun emplacements.
Yes, thats a fair point.
Leo1s were mentioned in the Article as Chieftains and Leop1s were in service at the same time,giving Leops more mobile but Chieftain bigger gun and more Accurate even now they range finder top noch it’s big let down was Engine trouble which we all know ,your right spares would be hard to come by unless Jordan have kept them in big nice box. And word has it the Ukrainians will take anything on offer.🤔
Khalid has a different engine to chieftain, it’s fitted with a condor V-12 and has a completely different engine compartment. Wiki says Jordan ordered 274 after the deal with the shar fell through so who knows?🤔
Yep. But Chieftain engines did gradually get more reliable over the years – but always was behind Leo1 in terms of engine reliability. Pack change on Leo1 was much quicker too.
Any link to the article ? 🤓
Just Google Chieftain Tanks and the articles will come up which we’re from July 👍
That was pretty much a non-story,the Ukrainian Journalist in question didn’t know the difference between a Chieftain and a Challenger Tank.
Yes. Nor would most to be fair.
I can not think why if all this information is true is disclosed for the enemy to see.
Tank design needs to evolve as a result of this war.
Tanks are not obsolete, but they are now vulnerable to a new generation of anti tank missiles, drones and new techniques for laying mines.
Tanks need to evolve to encompass systems that detect and neutralise drones and ATGMs before any impact, such as high energy lasers, as well as having systems to detect mines.
The technology is there and these new designs need to be built in sufficient numbers as autocratic regimes are once again pursueing territorial ambitions.
The ‘peace dividend’ years are over. Re-equipping our military would also provide many high skill jobs that our economy is crying out for.
Tanks have always evolved to become ever more survivable since the first A/Tk weapon introduced by Germany in 1916. I agree that tanks are not obsolete – if they were due to ‘vulnerability’ then everything that was less well protected would be also obsolete – which would be ….everything.
The Cold War was over in 1991. I view the ‘peace dividend’ years to be 1991-c1995.
There’s an article analysis of the defence paper
https://www.defense-aerospace.com/looking-for-scarce-nuggets-in-uks-new-defence-command-paper/?utm_source=mailpoet&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=les-newslettertotal-derniers-articles-de-notre-blog-11
Tusa is a bit of a mixed bag, but usually worth a read. He expresses his views as though they were proved fact, but if you know that and are expecting something closer to polemic than carefully objective journalism, there are nuggets in there worth digging out.
The area I have the biggest disagreement with him is on the Euro-Atlantic vs Asia-Pacific balance. He seems to feel that if we can’t do a lot globally, we should do nothing.
He seems to have missed the commitment to station an Astute submarine in Australia. Astutes aren’t low-tech, OPVs, light infantry, nor particularly small. Although I still want to know why he feels OPVs or low tech engagements are so valueless. The possibilty still exists to forward base a couple of Type 31s in Asia-Pacific, and our commitment in the Gulf remains. The speculated shift away from LRG(S) is yet to be announced. I doubt it’s entirely dead yet.
Everyone wants more tanks because it looks “sexy” to have them. But based on lessons from Ukraine, we might do better to focus on more mundane enablers such as having enough artillery shells for a long conflict. I’d stick with the numbers of CR3s but increase the number of arty platforms.
Correct. RA assets, EW. Intelligence, and other CS CSS assets should all come before Tanks.
By offering a near handful of MBT’s the British got others better placed to stop sitting on their hands; that is all it was about. From the beginning of this invasion the U.K. has been determined to help Ukraine resist. I do not see failure except for Putin’s vaunting ambition.
Tanks were invented to break the stalemate of trench warfare. They did not. That came when Germany re-started the manoeuvre war in Spring 1918. The present situation is another stalemate. I see no possible breakthrough before a moral collapse. It is an artillery (tubes, missiles) slog for the present; significantly switching away from the front to break the will of the people. However, the Russians by building such massive defences in depth shows how little they relish the prospect of resuming their offensive; they are hanging on having conceded their plan to conquer Ukraine is stone dead. Their punishment must be long and certain and not simply pinned to weapons, regardless.
Ridiculous numbers of MBT in the British army , less than 140 units, the same as the ridiculous numbers of RAF fighters around 160, Britain is no longer a global power except for the Navy but don,t worry , in some future defence review wich as usual means more cuts politicians maybe they decide sell/mothball one of the Carriers and the disposal of one or more SSN and everything solved , the Navy can be excluded as a global power too In a quick decisión.
Agree a bunch of Monkeys could do better🐒🐒🐒
We are low on numbers but challenger 3 should be a decent step up from the challenger 2, more than 148 would be better but we can hope the MOD change there mind and upgrade more. The RAF has around 107 FGR4 Typhoon which is one of the best fighter jet on the planet, again the number should be higher, a tranche 4 order of 40+ would be great before we start work on tempest but it still is a strong force which I think other air forces admire/respect. Navy is getting decent investment for T26/T31/T32/T83/dreadnought/AUkUS subs, I can’t see us dropping a carrier when we are spending big on assets to protect them on a deployment.
Dropping a carrier? I know Cameron wanted to do that way back, but surely no-one is talking about that now?
The army needs a lot more new kit than just CR3.
Cameron and is little pupit mate and those before really did the damage .Always through if only you could put all the PMs from 1991 in front of a panel and shoot Questions at them to hear how they would defend cuts. 🙄
It’s worth noting that the Navy is not yet getting investment in T32, just some concept development money, and they aren’t even getting that yet for T83. Investment in 13 frigates over twenty years (2015-2035) is certainly something, as are the SSNs and five OPVs too. Oh yes, and the delivery of two carriers (so easy to forget). But the Army also has had billions thrown into armoured vehicles over the last twenty years and that it has nothing to show for it should not lead the Army from navel gazing to naval gazing, as it seems they are wont to do of late, sniping at the Senior Service. Comparisons are invideous.
As for Dreadnought, that isn’t an investment in the Navy; CASD is a huge drain on the conventional Navy. It’s a one trick pony that sucks up a significant proportion of UK defence spend to create, base and sustain, not to mention the hydrographic, SSN, airborne and surface assets needed to keep it safe. The Army and RAF are well out of that one.
I agree that we need an order of Tranche 4 Typhoons asap, although I’d settle for a more realistic 24 to replace the remaining 30 Tranche 1s. Even if Japan gets its version of Tempest by 2035, I doubt we will.
Why on earth should we be a global power?
Most of navy is in port, with just enough manpower to operate the ones that can still float on their own. Sell both carriers if anyone is mug enough to want them.
Similarly, the army can’t man the orbat it complains is too small and won’t man the orbat it is reduced to. Armoured regiments are nearly as undermanned as the infantry.
The airforce … lets not go there; that’s just embarrassing.
And we are still pathetically useless at making proper use of reserves
When they announced they would send only 14 Challenger 2 tanks, I predicted they wouldn’t be sent to the front lines but would be used in the rear for training purposes and PR photo-ops. If you remember soon after that announcement sometime in May the Challenger 2’s were filmed tearing through dragons teeth defences and they claimed these were Russian defences on the front lines, yet if you look closely at the video footage you will notice they are newly erected dragons teeth lines with clear track markings beside them (they must have been recently transported and unloaded from trucks) on these open fields. Also, the surroundings were pristine with no signs of artillery bombardment or mortar craters anywhere. This means the entire footage was for PR purposes, filmed most likely in Poland or Western Ukraine far away from the front lines.
Nobody claimed anything off the sort it was obviously just showing what will happen when any tank gets near to these ‘dragons teeth’! To be effective they need to be dug in much like an iceberg two thirds in the ground and only a third above! We have all seen the orcs just lining them up in rows just sitting there,ANY tank will just push them aside! The problem is the mine fields at the moment.
A country fighting for its survival would not put some of the best tanks in the world (CR2) merely to work on PR stunts. PR is part of war, and UKR is good at it, but I don’t doubt that the Challys will be used in action in the near future.
Cranky Crawford just cannot help himself, has no idea about playing poker to get what you wanted. CH2s were a token to get something they could supply and not just chuck at the Russians, as proved driving stuff like you stole it straight into a mine field, showed little understanding of tactics straight from the Russian book. Crawford never faced a enemy, so has no combat experience. Like that famous line FROM A COLD WAR, in a different generation
Another question is…where are the M1 Abrams tanks?
They have still not arrived in country.
Would of thought the USA would rather send M60s and hold on to the M1s .
I agree. US should have sent hundreds of late-mark M60s (and immediately) rather than 30 M1’s some 9-12 months after first promising them.
That is because they no longer exist. They are parked in every small town city park and VFW club all over the nation. Thousands of others were given to our “allies”
This link
https://www.19fortyfive.com/2022/06/idea-why-not-send-old-u-s-m60-tanks-to-ukraine/
says the Sierra Army Depot has a good number.
I guess it is out of date.
Thanks for your more modern info.
I had to look up ‘VFW’ – sounds like a great organisation.
Which Mexican Allies?
Good posting. As a German, we regularly asked ourselves why we havent seen any Marder yet. It appears the Ukrainians added Leopard 2s with CV90s and Bradleys, and Marder with Challenger…
The Leopard seemingly saw a lot of action and also took a beating in the minefields.
I do understand the eager throw-it-away/scrap-it mentality of the MOD. Especially when you have something as good as a Challenger 2. Other countries would store expensive military assets as reserves.
Oh no but not the UK 😕
A pretty dim comment on the operational employment of Challenger in the Ukraine AOR.
Agreed. I am glad we don’t know where the 14 Challys are. It means the Ukrainians OPSEC is good, and the Russians probably don’t know where they are.
500 tanks needed for UK army, thats actually quite a laughable number to come out with.
We need a strong navy, surface and sub surface and a strong air force including unmanned.
We arent going on a massive ground offensive against anyone. Russia isnt coming to get us on a ground war they have shown they cant take land effectively but can defend it very well (admittedly with air superiority).
If China invades Taiwan we dont need tanks. As it stands we have no major ground wars to fight, unless Iran, China, North Korea all pour troops and equipment into Russia’s cause they are of zero threat to us in a conventional sense.
James, how many ground wars have we fought in the last 35 years compared to naval wars? How many dogfights has the RAF engaged in? We ignore history at our peril.
We have but a token tank force that wouldn’t last long in a real war.
Heard BBC new channel mention briefly new Ukr missile hits on N Crimean bridges a few times last or Saturday night. Found nothing on their website.
Frank, our Challenger tanks (CR1, then CR2) have been in several real wars – two Gulf wars (against Soviet T-series tanks), three Balkan wars. They distinguished themselves – none destroyed by enemy action, very high kill ratio, longest range tank kill ever, good availability.
Clearly you think little of our three regiments of Chally2 in 3 Div and predict that they would all be wiped out if we were in a war with Russia? Do you think the Russians are that good? No-one else does!
I would like to add we are an island nation and to move these heavy bits of kit is not easy, light and mobile is the way forward but with a heavy punch. Look at ISIS screamed through Iran in pickups, we are not in the frontline. A reaction force that can mobilize and react quickly is the way forward..
Where have all the Challenger tanks gone? Fear not…they are exercising on Salisbury Plain….learning how to fight ‘differently’ 🙂
https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/challenger-tanks-work-out-on-salisbury-plain/
A most interesting and informative thread, what a lot of technical knowledge, military experience and expertise, good insights and ideas on display. It should be compulsory reading in the MOD and Parliament.
To sum up, the majority view among those who have served or have military expertise looks to be:
a) The tank remains a potent asset on the battlefield, being essential in defence, assault and the best-protected kit on the battlefield.
b) All tanks and armoured fighting vehicles should have their defensive capability enhanced by fitting a defensive system like Trophy, which is only planned for 40 (or 60?l tanks so far.
c) 2 regiments of tanks (148) is too few, we should at minimum field 3 regts to equip 3 Division (210 with none in reserve, 262 with a minimalist 25% reserve, 315 with a 50% reserve).
d) As there us next to no chance of new tank production for a decade or more, the best that can be hoped for is that all 214 remaining CR2s are upgraded to Chally 3.
It would not be that impossible to add a new batch of Chally 3s, the extensive upgrades to CR2 turret, tracks, power-pack, running gear etc mean that we would mainly need some new-build hulls, which would not be beyond KMW and BAE’s expertise or our manufacturing capability.
However, it is all academic, the chances of getting more than 148 tanks are remote under the present and probably future government. The MOD, which has to cut billions in expenditure to meet Treasury targets, is in slash and burn mode.
To pay for the 1,230 planned Ajax, Boxer, Challeger 3 and extra Jackals, they are removing 3,150 AFVs and PPVs from the fleet, some because they are ancient or obsolete, others just to save money.
In this downwards spiral, with the accountants running the show and a massive amount of money going to the SSBN programme, the chances of any additional equipments look about zero.
Undecided on the requirement for increased tank numbers.
Any tanks we have will need to be transported to the theatre of conflict.
Therefore if we had increased tank numbers it would be sensible to forward deploy them to potential areas of conflict.
If we do this, a logical question is why don’t the countries where we would be forward deploying our tanks increase their tank numbers instead?
I genuinely see UK tank deployment as a token effort to show our allies we are pulling our weight politically as opposed to a military necessity at this stage.
That said I do feel 148 is still too few for this endeavour, I think this would allow us to deploy around 48 tanks as a maximum? Ensuring we have replacements and spare capacity. As a minimum I feel that this number should be doubled at the very least and ideally tripled. I believe this would give us a token force to be deployed abroad that would also have significant heft.
Too much is made of the effort required to transport tanks and other AFVs to a new Theatre. We invented the tank and deployed them to France in 1916 – we have tons of experience – and the means to deploy equipment overseas.
We deployed 221 tanks and thousands of other vehicles to (much of it from Germany) for Op Granby (Gulf War 1) – they all arrived in time for the Desert Shield activity and then the warfighting phase Desert Storm!
Same was true over a decade later when we also deployed a division to Iraq (120 tanks) on Op Telic.
We have some equipment forward deployed in a depot in Germany. We have some troops and equipment forward deployed in Estonia (a BG) and others in Poland (a light recce sqn). Not sure we can do more than that by way of forward deployment…until a major conflcit broke out which involved us.
With 148 tanks in the fleet, we could deploy up to 2 armd regts – 112 tanks…plus an Attrition Reserve.
Whilst grateful for your service Mr Crawford, your argument that we had lots of tanks in the past so we should have lots of tanks in the future strikes me as a tad weak! What are we to do with these tanks? Let’s try a logical analysis;
1) Post-war in continental Europe the allies faced the Warsaw pact in a potential land war. There is no longer a Warsaw pact. There is no more USSR. The ex-soviets are now European nations who would fight against Russia with their own tanks. Germany doesn’t field 500 tanks, France doesn’t field 500 tanks. So again, what would we do with 500 tanks when Europeans are more than capable of fielding enough tanks against any Russian threat.
2) Scenario 2 sees the U.K. in a non-European conflict, either in Asia or with a Muslin state. With the latter, been there done that. Didn’t need 500 tanks, in fact, never even used 50 tanks. As for a conflict in Asia, presumably over Taiwan, the probability of contributing tanks is between 0 and zero.
Times move on, 158 CH3 is plenty for any foreceable scenario. To many common living in the past devoid of logic. Nothing to do with money or politicians.
These challenger 2 tanks will soon be scrap metal!