Ajax Armoured Vehicles (British Army)

Contains threads on British Army equipment of the past, present and future.
Jake1992
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Re: Ajax Armoured Vehicle Variants (British Army)

Post by Jake1992 »

Lord Jim wrote:This does all point to the idea that the British Army could truly consolidate is AFV fleets on basically two platforms, that being Ajax and Boxer, and all the benefits such a decision would bring.
This is what Iv been saying for ages, the entire medium armour fleet should be based around just 2 platforms Ajax and boxer. The reduction in operating cost from reducing from 5 families to 2 would be very significant and should allow for a increase in numbers of fine right.

The same could be done with the light armour fleet by using JLTV or foxhound families to replace the 6 or so different families we have now.

Just think of the savings that could be made between the medium and light armoured fleets by consolidating down from 11-12 families down to 3 odd

Lord Jim
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Re: Ajax Armoured Vehicle Variants (British Army)

Post by Lord Jim »

I agree but you have to convince the Heavy Brigade of that.

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ArmChairCivvy
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Re: Ajax Armoured Vehicle Variants (British Army)

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Going to war anywhere near Europe without a heavy brigade would be like going to Grand National without a hat :shock:
Ever-lasting truths: Multi-year budgets/ planning by necessity have to address the painful questions; more often than not the Either-Or prevails over Both-And.
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jimthelad
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Re: Ajax Armoured Vehicle Variants (British Army)

Post by jimthelad »

I attended in a kilt and no hat, as a true Scot also. My other half of the time (Lancastrian lass) insisted in wearing a grenade in a henhouse-whoever said they made sense?

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Halidon
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Re: Ajax Armoured Vehicle Variants (British Army)

Post by Halidon »

Apologies is this is too much American news for the Ajax thread, but thought it might be noteworthy that the Ajax-adjacent Griffin came out of AUSA as the early favorite, according to Breaking Defense. The potential for the UK and US to be using heavily related combat vehicle families seems to be getting pretty serious.

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ArmChairCivvy
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Re: Ajax Armoured Vehicle Variants (British Army)

Post by ArmChairCivvy »

Halidon wrote:The potential for the UK and US to be using heavily related combat vehicle families
...
was where the [so far ill-fated] programme started from; a long time ago
- OK, with a recce/ recon orientation
Ever-lasting truths: Multi-year budgets/ planning by necessity have to address the painful questions; more often than not the Either-Or prevails over Both-And.
If everyone is thinking the same, then someone is not thinking (attributed to Patton)

mr.fred
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Re: Ajax Armoured Vehicle Variants (British Army)

Post by mr.fred »

Halidon wrote:Apologies is this is too much American news for the Ajax thread, but thought it might be noteworthy that the Ajax-adjacent Griffin came out of AUSA as the early favorite, according to Breaking Defense. The potential for the UK and US to be using heavily related combat vehicle families seems to be getting pretty serious.
They’d be mad to, unless the Bradley desperately needs replacing.

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Halidon
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Re: Ajax Armoured Vehicle Variants (British Army)

Post by Halidon »

mr.fred wrote:
Halidon wrote:Apologies is this is too much American news for the Ajax thread, but thought it might be noteworthy that the Ajax-adjacent Griffin came out of AUSA as the early favorite, according to Breaking Defense. The potential for the UK and US to be using heavily related combat vehicle families seems to be getting pretty serious.
They’d be mad to, unless the Bradley desperately needs replacing.
It does. The vehicle can't support the equipment that's getting bolted on now, to say nothing of what's coming in the years ahead.

Lord Jim
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Re: Ajax Armoured Vehicle Variants (British Army)

Post by Lord Jim »

New video regarding Ajax and its family members. A few interesting facts come out of it but the one that struck me was that they are not due to be declared operational until 2025, another six years away!

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ArmChairCivvy
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Re: Ajax Armoured Vehicle Variants (British Army)

Post by ArmChairCivvy »

At the very end of that Janes video, before it stops with a teaser about JLTV, Ajax and Boxer are shown together - with a turreted version for the latter?
- borrowed from materials relating to a different country (Oz?)?
Ever-lasting truths: Multi-year budgets/ planning by necessity have to address the painful questions; more often than not the Either-Or prevails over Both-And.
If everyone is thinking the same, then someone is not thinking (attributed to Patton)

Simon82
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Re: Ajax Armoured Vehicle Variants (British Army)

Post by Simon82 »

ArmChairCivvy wrote:At the very end of that Janes video, before it stops with a teaser about JLTV, Ajax and Boxer are shown together - with a turreted version for the latter?
If you mean the computer generated image right at the end, I don’t think that’s a Boxer. In fact it looks more like a member of the Piranha/LAV family, so I think it’s just a bit of product placement by General Dynamics.

mr.fred
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Re: Ajax Armoured Vehicle Variants (British Army)

Post by mr.fred »

ArmChairCivvy wrote:At the very end of that Janes video, before it stops with a teaser about JLTV, Ajax and Boxer are shown together - with a turreted version for the latter?
- borrowed from materials relating to a different country (Oz?)?
Get your vehicle recognition in order, that’s a Bradley and a LAV 3. ;)
And is it me, or are the current crop of Janes’ videos poorly narrated?

Lord Jim
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Re: Ajax Armoured Vehicle Variants (British Army)

Post by Lord Jim »

Probably just asked for volunteers from the office, and told them to go into a room on their lunch break and do a voice over.

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ArmChairCivvy
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Re: Ajax Armoured Vehicle Variants (British Army)

Post by ArmChairCivvy »

Votes for "borrowed image inserted" and "out of context" won :D hands down
Ever-lasting truths: Multi-year budgets/ planning by necessity have to address the painful questions; more often than not the Either-Or prevails over Both-And.
If everyone is thinking the same, then someone is not thinking (attributed to Patton)

mr.fred
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Re: Ajax Armoured Vehicle Variants (British Army)

Post by mr.fred »

ArmChairCivvy wrote:Votes for "borrowed image inserted" and "out of context" won :D hands down
Looks like they are Computer generated images of those vehicles equipped with CT40, so not as out of context or unrelated as they might otherwise be.

Lord Jim
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Re: Ajax Armoured Vehicle Variants (British Army)

Post by Lord Jim »

True, I am sure I have read somewhere that the CTA40 is being pushed as an option for the US Army's programme to up-gun many of its AFVs. Recent articles mention a 50mm weapon though, but the compactness of the CTA compared to weapon of a similar or larger calibre should be in its favour as long as the US Army doesn't have unrealistic performance criteria compared to size and weight of the system.

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Re: Ajax Armoured Vehicle Variants (British Army)

Post by RetroSicotte »

US Army often has a big thing about ongoing development potential. That is one of the weaknesses of the CT40. Its rounds have no real room for enhancing the size of the dart.

Not a major weakness, but still, it is the sort of thing the US have used in the past as reasoning.

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Re: Ajax Armoured Vehicle Variants (British Army)

Post by Timmymagic »

RetroSicotte wrote:US Army often has a big thing about ongoing development potential. That is one of the weaknesses of the CT40. Its rounds have no real room for enhancing the size of the dart.

Not a major weakness, but still, it is the sort of thing the US have used in the past as reasoning.
I wouldn't have thought that would make any difference with an autocannon, a manually loaded tank gun with an opening breech is one thing, but for an autocannon you'd need a totally new gun to all intents and purposes, and at that point you can do what you like with ammo.

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Re: Ajax Armoured Vehicle Variants (British Army)

Post by ~UNiOnJaCk~ »

RetroSicotte wrote:US Army often has a big thing about ongoing development potential. That is one of the weaknesses of the CT40. Its rounds have no real room for enhancing the size of the dart.

Not a major weakness, but still, it is the sort of thing the US have used in the past as reasoning.
I'd have thought that if we find our IFVs/Recce vehicles suddenly needing more than 140mm of RHA penetration in a fight, then we have likely brought the wrong tool to said fight anyway.

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Re: Ajax Armoured Vehicle Variants (British Army)

Post by mr.fred »

Where is the break point though?
150mm?
200mm?
300mm?
100mm?
What determines the requirement?

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Re: Ajax Armoured Vehicle Variants (British Army)

Post by RetroSicotte »

~UNiOnJaCk~ wrote:I'd have thought that if we find our IFVs/Recce vehicles suddenly needing more than 140mm of RHA penetration in a fight, then we have likely brought the wrong tool to said fight anyway.
All I'm saying is this is the reasoning they have chosen in the past with similar things. The US are notoriously specific about upgradability in design.

As a note, several IFVs these days can resist 140mm ammunition from the frontal arc, and some from a frontal 30 degree arc, at the ranges that were noted as occurring in say, Ukraine, or in Syria and Iraq (while ISIS still had autocannons).

CT40 is an excellent solution, but if it ever requires to put out more grunt (especially in an Army that has a critical lack of anti-armour capability should the CT40 not be enough) then there will have to be some interesting solutions compared to the US Army's outlook of that penetrator length historically increases within the casing when upgrades occur, such as on the Bushmasters or Bofors.

Exactly how easy it is to modify the CT40 to accept longer ammunition is not something we know about. For all we know it could already have margins built in to allow the full round to expand, but we just don't know. Hence why I term it a "minor" flaw and not a major problem.

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Re: Ajax Armoured Vehicle Variants (British Army)

Post by ~UNiOnJaCk~ »

RetroSicotte wrote: All I'm saying is this is the reasoning they have chosen in the past with similar things. The US are notoriously specific about upgradability in design.

As a note, several IFVs these days can resist 140mm ammunition from the frontal arc, and some from a frontal 30 degree arc, at the ranges that were noted as occurring in say, Ukraine, or in Syria and Iraq (while ISIS still had autocannons).

CT40 is an excellent solution, but if it ever requires to put out more grunt (especially in an Army that has a critical lack of anti-armour capability should the CT40 not be enough) then there will have to be some interesting solutions compared to the US Army's outlook of that penetrator length historically increases within the casing when upgrades occur, such as on the Bushmasters or Bofors.

Exactly how easy it is to modify the CT40 to accept longer ammunition is not something we know about. For all we know it could already have margins built in to allow the full round to expand, but we just don't know. Hence why I term it a "minor" flaw and not a major problem.
It's a fair point, but i think we may be trying to second guess our cousins a little too much in this case. As you say, the ins and outs of potentially upgrading the CT40s ammunition in the future aren't well known at this stage.

Regarding the CT40s capability against AFVs in terms of RHA penetration, i can't say any examples of IFVs offering that level of protection spring to my mind. What examples were you thinking of in particular? The only vehicles i could think of at a stretch would be something like the MBT conversions that some nations have dabbled with, like the BMPT or Namer.

I mean, 140mm+ at 1500m. That's got to be some hefty addon armour package at the very least.

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Re: Ajax Armoured Vehicle Variants (British Army)

Post by RetroSicotte »

~UNiOnJaCk~ wrote:I mean, 140mm+ at 1500m. That's got to be some hefty addon armour package at the very least.
Things like the Puma with its latest package, the Kurganets-25, a Chinese one who's name escape me for the moment, the US Army's upcoming requirement specification asks for STANAG 6+ on the frontal arc. Even Ajax itself has a very heavily armoured front.

Essentially, if it can hit STANAG 6 (which is protection against 30mm APFSDS from 500m) then it will at the very least be resistant at actual combat ranges.

The direction of AFVs is definitely pushing above then.

It's effective against most things, I'm just saying that I hope they've born it in mind in some other fashion to ramp that up. Because armour and vehicle sizes are getting bigger again; and the traditional method of improving KEP performance is not possible on the CT40's case dimensions.

We don't want to end up in another "Challenger situation".

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ArmChairCivvy
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Re: Ajax Armoured Vehicle Variants (British Army)

Post by ArmChairCivvy »

RetroSicotte wrote: For all we know it could already have margins built in to allow the full round to expand, but we just don't know.
Isn't the real benefit of the Coke can that the length (all other things, like armour penetration or available ammo varieties, constant) has been decreased and hence the weapon system overall (feed system, associated storage, with auto-selection) is more compact? So starting to put in "longer" penetrators would seen eat all that away?
RetroSicotte wrote: if it can hit STANAG 6 (which is protection against 30mm APFSDS from 500m)
+
RetroSicotte wrote:The direction of AFVs is definitely pushing above
+
RetroSicotte wrote:armour and vehicle sizes are getting bigger again
All of that takes us back to the IFV vs. APC (battlefield taxi) dilemma. The trend in IFVs is quickly closing the price gap vs. MBTs.
- so, to have meaningful numbers of infantry available, APCs are needed in the mix
- and, for effective use of them taking back the infantry half mile is an imperative, as 30 mm autocannons proliferate on battlefields, and (REF the first quote) they set a limit on the distance for dismounting, and then closing in
Ever-lasting truths: Multi-year budgets/ planning by necessity have to address the painful questions; more often than not the Either-Or prevails over Both-And.
If everyone is thinking the same, then someone is not thinking (attributed to Patton)

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Re: Ajax Armoured Vehicle Variants (British Army)

Post by RetroSicotte »

ArmChairCivvy wrote:
RetroSicotte wrote: For all we know it could already have margins built in to allow the full round to expand, but we just don't know.
Isn't the real benefit of the Coke can that the length (all other things, like armour penetration or available ammo varieties, constant) has been decreased and hence the weapon system overall (feed system, associated storage, with auto-selection) is more compact? So starting to put in "longer" penetrators would seen eat all that away?
The advantage is that it permits smaller sizes relative to the equivilent using a non-cased round. It is still desirable to increase the power of your main gun. Thats why things like the 50mm Supershot are being treated very seriously, and why the Bofors 40mm continues to see development, or why Russia briefly wanted the 57mm (before France pulled out of helping them with it and they weren't able to make its handling system or gun-to-sights tech on their own.)

There's a definite trend picking up, thats for sure.

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