Warrior Armoured Vehicles (British Army)

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

Post by ArmChairCivvy »

Lord Jim wrote:re equipment plan built around a greater number of Boxers (800), around 150 Challenger 2 CIP, a reduced Ajax purchase to around 150 and a modernised Precision Fires Capability.
Other than for Ajax, sounds like the Russian army plan, until
1, the doctrine was changed for "a" war in their West (Zapad)
2, transformation from tracks to wheels was reversed, and
3, brigadisation was also reversed (back to divisions, although there's still only 4 of those - and the 1st tank army would come together... by calling enough bdes :idea: ). Which is exactly what is NATO's counter
... including us slotting into the NE MND
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Lord Jim
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Re: Warrior Armoured Vehicle Variants (British Army)

Post by Lord Jim »

ArmChairCivvy wrote:Other than for Ajax, sounds like the Russian army plan, until
1, the doctrine was changed for "a" war in their West (Zapad)
2, transformation from tracks to wheels was reversed, and
3, brigadisation was also reversed (back to divisions, although there's still only 4 of those - and the 1st tank army would come together... by calling enough bdes ). Which is exactly what is NATO's counter
... including us slotting into the NE MND
You are being far to clever for your own good with this and I am so confused my head hurts! :D

On a serious note, I cannot think of anywhere where the Boxer could not keep up with the Challenger 2. It won't throw a track and can survive losing one or more wheels to unforeseen events. It is easier to maintain in the field and has a far smaller logistical footprint. Any terrain that may cause problems for the Boxer would also affect the Challenger and require specialist vehicles like the Viking.

If we had the money then sure lets re equip the two planned Armoured Infantry Brigades with a new IFV such as the Lynx or maybe a Ajax/ASCOD hybrid, but not waste money of a platform that has reach the end of its growth and would be pushed to its maximum without even further major upgrades such as replacing the whole power train and upgrading the suspension.

But we haven't got the money and the WCSP as it stands is unaffordable without taking money from somewhere else and that is simply not going to happen, there are far higher priorities already. Boxer can do the job even if it initially lacks the desired level of firepower. We are already going to probably use it to replace the specialist FV432 and CVR(T) variants that exist in both the Armoured and Armoured Infantry units, such as ambulance, command and mortar carrier already, as the BASV is for all intents and purposes dead.

CMOR
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Re: Warrior Armoured Vehicle Variants (British Army)

Post by CMOR »

It's also worth noting that the British Army has the biggest deployability problem of any European Army in any kind of Russia scenario, simply because it's starting furthest away from the fight. The ability of Boxer to drive itself there is genuinely valuable, especially since we don't have many HETS, which will desperately be needed for Challenger and Ajax.

The French have a similar problem wrt the stuff they do in Africa, and notably they've switched to all-wheeled, with the sole exception of MBTs. Everything's a compromise and there are downsides, but for Britain, I think on balance wheels should take precedence.

J. Tattersall

Re: Warrior Armoured Vehicle Variants (British Army)

Post by J. Tattersall »

Lord Jim wrote: I cannot think of anywhere where the Boxer could not keep up with the Challenger 2.
Apart from the anywhere where the laws of physics still apply, e.g. on the terrain in much of Poland and the Baltic states.

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Re: Warrior Armoured Vehicle Variants (British Army)

Post by SW1 »

J. Tattersall wrote:
Lord Jim wrote: I cannot think of anywhere where the Boxer could not keep up with the Challenger 2.
Apart from the anywhere where the laws of physics still apply, e.g. on the terrain in much of Poland and the Baltic states.
Did the poles not order lots of patria amv and Lithuania boxer?

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Re: Warrior Armoured Vehicle Variants (British Army)

Post by Lord Jim »

J. Tattersall wrote:Apart from the anywhere where the laws of physics still apply, e.g. on the terrain in much of Poland and the Baltic states.
Such as?

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ArmChairCivvy
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Re: Warrior Armoured Vehicle Variants (British Army)

Post by ArmChairCivvy »

SW1 wrote: Did the poles not order lots of patria amv and Lithuania boxer?
I guess the plan to stay well clear of the Priper Marshes https://cdn.britannica.com/62/130062-004-675F00CB.gif
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: Warrior Armoured Vehicle Variants (British Army)

Post by Luke jones »

CMOR wrote:It's also worth noting that the British Army has the biggest deployability problem of any European Army in any kind of Russia scenario, simply because it's starting furthest away from the fight. The ability of Boxer to drive itself there is genuinely valuable, especially since we don't have many HETS, which will desperately be needed for Challenger and Ajax.

The French have a similar problem wrt the stuff they do in Africa, and notably they've switched to all-wheeled, with the sole exception of MBTs. Everything's a compromise and there are downsides, but for Britain, I think on balance wheels should take precedence.
Its all well and good saying we need vehicles that are good for long distance road moves. What are these Boxers going to do when they get there?
I wouldn't fancy running up against a solid Russian Brigade in one of those with just a 50cal or GMG on the roof. The whole Strike Brigade thing is total bollocks.
Its easy to play fantasy and say they need turrets with cannons, we all know that.
The problem with that is they are so fucking expensive we can fairly confidently say they aren't going to get those turrets.
They are just (well) armoured battle field taxis.

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Re: Warrior Armoured Vehicle Variants (British Army)

Post by CMOR »

They're much more likely to get the turrets if Warrior CSP does not go forward, though....which I would have thought is quite an attractive option at this point. You're getting a wheeled, modern, well-protected IFV, and even if the integration costs are a crazy £400 million, you're still saving £400 million (£800 million being the estimate for the production costs of Warrior CSP at this point).

I agree the Army buying Boxer as is makes absolutely no sense, but hey, it's Army procurement, nothing makes sense.

Luke jones
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Re: Warrior Armoured Vehicle Variants (British Army)

Post by Luke jones »

CMOR wrote:They're much more likely to get the turrets if Warrior CSP does not go forward, though....which I would have thought is quite an attractive option at this point. You're getting a wheeled, modern, well-protected IFV, and even if the integration costs are a crazy £400 million, you're still saving £400 million (£800 million being the estimate for the production costs of Warrior CSP at this point).

I agree the Army buying Boxer as is makes absolutely no sense, but hey, it's Army procurement, nothing makes sense.
But going down that road means you are using a huge budget to do the same thing.

Whichever way you look at it, Warrior upgraded is half the price of Boxer, and thats the Boxer without the turret.
Picking up 500+ Boxer is serious cash.

If they upgraded 500 Warrior instead they would literally save billions of the Boxer budget.

The saving could pay for all 220 Chally to get upgraded not the rumoured 150 and maybe an upgrade on AS90 too.
Add the Ajax on order into 4 recce regiments and you have the basis of 3 full fat armoured brigades.

I would rather be sat in a Warrior with a 40mm turret than a Boxer with 50cal any day of the week.

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Re: Warrior Armoured Vehicle Variants (British Army)

Post by SD67 »

It is not half the price if you work out your costs correctly, which is cost per unit of capability delivered, not cost per platform.

Upgraded Warrior buys you 10 years at best of marginally competitive capability, likely with component obsolescence problems towards the end of that. Versus 30 years for Boxer plus upgrades plus additional modules, sharing of future developments with allies, and ability to acquire new build platforms when required.

There is also the reality that Warrior CSP does not exist, certainly not as a bankable production proposition, despite 10years of development.

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Re: Warrior Armoured Vehicle Variants (British Army)

Post by mr.fred »

SD67 wrote:It is not half the price if you work out your costs correctly, which is cost per unit of capability delivered, not cost per platform.
Boxer will require upgrade/refresh at the 20 year point, if not sooner, so I don’t think that you are working out your costs correctly either.

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Re: Warrior Armoured Vehicle Variants (British Army)

Post by Luke jones »

SD67 wrote:It is not half the price if you work out your costs correctly, which is cost per unit of capability delivered, not cost per platform.

Upgraded Warrior buys you 10 years at best of marginally competitive capability, likely with component obsolescence problems towards the end of that. Versus 30 years for Boxer plus upgrades plus additional modules, sharing of future developments with allies, and ability to acquire new build platforms when required.

There is also the reality that Warrior CSP does not exist, certainly not as a bankable production proposition, despite 10years of development.
I would go further to suggest Boxer would be more than double the cost if you roll the turret cost on top. Without a turret and cannon its just an armourmed box.

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Re: Warrior Armoured Vehicle Variants (British Army)

Post by RunningStrong »

Luke jones wrote: I would go further to suggest Boxer would be more than double the cost if you roll the turret cost on top. Without a turret and cannon its just an armourmed box.
But it's modular, it'll be so cheap and easy! :roll:

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Re: Warrior Armoured Vehicle Variants (British Army)

Post by Blandy »

How many dismounts could a turreted ajax carry if you stripped out the extra recce equipment?

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Re: Warrior Armoured Vehicle Variants (British Army)

Post by mr.fred »

Blandy wrote:How many dismounts could a turreted ajax carry if you stripped out the extra recce equipment?
Not really relevant when the rear door looks like this:
https://www.tanks-encyclopedia.com/wp-c ... n-tank.jpg
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6AO_n6z0FAo/ ... AAbcc3.jpg

CMOR
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Re: Warrior Armoured Vehicle Variants (British Army)

Post by CMOR »

Luke jones wrote:
CMOR wrote:They're much more likely to get the turrets if Warrior CSP does not go forward, though....which I would have thought is quite an attractive option at this point. You're getting a wheeled, modern, well-protected IFV, and even if the integration costs are a crazy £400 million, you're still saving £400 million (£800 million being the estimate for the production costs of Warrior CSP at this point).

I agree the Army buying Boxer as is makes absolutely no sense, but hey, it's Army procurement, nothing makes sense.
But going down that road means you are using a huge budget to do the same thing.

Whichever way you look at it, Warrior upgraded is half the price of Boxer, and thats the Boxer without the turret.
Picking up 500+ Boxer is serious cash.

If they upgraded 500 Warrior instead they would literally save billions of the Boxer budget.

The saving could pay for all 220 Chally to get upgraded not the rumoured 150 and maybe an upgrade on AS90 too.
Add the Ajax on order into 4 recce regiments and you have the basis of 3 full fat armoured brigades.

I would rather be sat in a Warrior with a 40mm turret than a Boxer with 50cal any day of the week.
I think the way to look at it is this: the Army has 4 or 5 big things it needs or plans, and doesn't have the money to pay for all of them, so something has to give:

1. Ajax. (3.5 billion + VAT)
2. Boxer. (£2.8 billion)
3. Warrior CSP. (£800 million at least, maybe more like £1 billion in reality)
4. Challenger 2 LEP. (£1.3 billion)
5. Artillery modernization. (£????, currently unfunded requirements left, right, & centre)

Challenger 2 LEP seems fairly non-discretionary; having thought about it quite a bit, and gone back and forth a few times, I think gapping tanks for 10+ years is probably not prudent, so the LEP needs to go forward, and may as well be done properly (with a whole new turret).

While cancelling the Boxer order certainly saves you more money than cancelling Warrior CSP, I think the fact that you're still getting a vehicle with a tired hull and inadequate powerpack, versus a brand-new, highly deployable modern vehicle, pushes me towards thinking that over life course of the respective vehicles you're probably saving money in the long term by going with Boxer and putting the turrets planned for Warrior on it. Let's say we save 500 million-ish here.

So we come to Ajax, which is the biggest single expense, and arguably the dodgiest in terms of actual utility. It adds back in all the deployability problem that the Boxer purchase is supposed to help solve, and the planned usage of Ajax in the Strike concept is just incoherent for this & other reasons. If you're looking to save a lot of money to fund other requirements/please the Treasury, this giant and very out-of-place order is probably where I'd go, other than Warrior CSP. Do you really need quite so many command variants, & so many scouts?

The alternative, as you say, is to scrap the Boxer order and the Strike concept and revert to conventional armoured brigades, with Ajax plugging back into that role. You save some money, for sure, but you've got a very substantial deployability problem, and a decent chunk of your force is going to hit the same obsolescence problems in 10 years or so that are bedevilling you now.

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Re: Warrior Armoured Vehicle Variants (British Army)

Post by ArmChairCivvy »

CMOR wrote:1. Ajax. (3.5 billion + VAT)
2. Boxer. (£2.8 billion)
3. Warrior CSP. (£800 million at least, maybe more like £1 billion in reality)
4. Challenger 2 LEP. (£1.3 billion)
As we will have two bdes of each kind, that will be
- 6.3 bn for the two strike (+ some for arty)
- 2.3 bn for the two of AI (+ just buy some specialist rounds to make AS90 go to 2030, as planned)

Total 8.6 does not leave much change from the 10 bn that the EP had in it for armour when I last looked; may have changed since (?)
- anyone see how we could go all-medium in the next ten years (that will be at least 4 bn more, thank you v much)
- which is a different question as to whether we should (" money no object")
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: Warrior Armoured Vehicle Variants (British Army)

Post by bobp »

CMOR wrote:3. Warrior CSP. (£800 million at least, maybe more like £1 billion in reality)
Do not forget the 430 million already spent on design and trials etc. Not a single production one made as yet.

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Re: Warrior Armoured Vehicle Variants (British Army)

Post by J. Tattersall »

bobp wrote:
CMOR wrote:3. Warrior CSP. (£800 million at least, maybe more like £1 billion in reality)
Do not forget the 430 million already spent on design and trials etc. Not a single production one made as yet.
But surely what you're referring to is the non-recurring engineering cost which by definition doesn't include production vehicles, or their fielding and support? i.e it's the CAD part of the project not the MID part.

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Re: Warrior Armoured Vehicle Variants (British Army)

Post by bobp »

Its 430 million already spent on the Warrior. Call it what you like, and money from the defence budget that could perhaps have been spent elsewhere.

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Re: Warrior Armoured Vehicle Variants (British Army)

Post by mr.fred »

I think the point is that if we are looking at where to go from here, the £430m is unrecoverable and irrelevant in a comparison.

If you're looking at "what should we have done?" from some years back, then it might be pertinent.

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Re: Warrior Armoured Vehicle Variants (British Army)

Post by bobp »

mr.fred wrote:I think the point is that if we are looking at where to go from here, the £430m is unrecoverable and irrelevant in a comparison.
True indeed, what I was trying to get at, is the Warrior upgrade program is costing far more than just 800 million, and does not cover any hidden costs found in manufacture.

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Re: Warrior Armoured Vehicle Variants (British Army)

Post by CMOR »

ArmChairCivvy wrote:
CMOR wrote:1. Ajax. (3.5 billion + VAT)
2. Boxer. (£2.8 billion)
3. Warrior CSP. (£800 million at least, maybe more like £1 billion in reality)
4. Challenger 2 LEP. (£1.3 billion)
As we will have two bdes of each kind, that will be
- 6.3 bn for the two strike (+ some for arty)
- 2.3 bn for the two of AI (+ just buy some specialist rounds to make AS90 go to 2030, as planned)

Total 8.6 does not leave much change from the 10 bn that the EP had in it for armour when I last looked; may have changed since (?)
- anyone see how we could go all-medium in the next ten years (that will be at least 4 bn more, thank you v much)
- which is a different question as to whether we should (" money no object")
FWIW I'm somewhat skeptical that the second Strike Brigade will ever actually materialize. It just seems like such an obvious pseudo-stealth cut to make over the next 5/6 years.

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Re: Warrior Armoured Vehicle Variants (British Army)

Post by Lord Jim »

Whilst I dislike the idea, reducing 3rd (UK) Division to three Brigades could be one possible future. Now the question would be, what form would these remaining Brigades take? If deplorability is one of the cornerstones for the Army, then the conventional Armoured Infantry Brigade is definitely a "Sunset" capability, made even more so with the bulk of our forces being withdrawn to the UK. But the "Strike" Brigade concept as it currently stands is greatly flawed and far form the deployable formation that would be required.

For the sake of argument let say we cancel both the WCSP and Ajax programmes, freeing up around £3bn. Add to that reductions in personnel that will bring in another £1Bn over the ten year period. That would give the Army a War Chest of £4Bn in freed up funding over the next ten years.

So what to do. Simplest solution form three Brigades each with one (Type 44) Armoured Regiment and three Mechanised Infantry Battalions. To maintain appearances the forth Brigade included as part of 3rd (UK) Division would be one composed of a number of Artillery Regiments, Tubed, Multiple Rocket, and Air Defence. The additional Boxers would required around an additional £1.75Bn and the initial contract would have covered the setting up of support, maintenance, and training. The cost of the additional Challenger 2s to be upgraded, around twenty should be manageable. The balance could be enough to equip the Artillery with modernised or replacement platforms, provide additional variants of the Boxer for the Infantry and improved munitions for the Artillery.

These Brigades are not the ideal, but it would provide the Army with three viable Brigades as well as nine mobile and deployable Infantry Battalions. There is an obvious lack of Recce platforms in these formations, but I would suggest that a variant of the JLTV could carry out this role, in a similar way to how the Fennek does for the Bundeswehr. Yes it is a bigger platform, but how it is utilised could minimise this fact.

As for costs further down the line like a refresh for the Boxer after twenty years. The Army must learn the lessons for where it is now. It needs to be constantly evolving the capability of its platforms not wait for major upgrade programmes. The fleet can be upgraded in parts, possibly a battalion at a time, but to do this the Army need confirmed long term funding so that it can plan such an ongoing programme.

So besides retaining the Challenger 2s, the Army would end up with basically a "Medium" force by 2030 or shortly afterwards.

As usually I am now going to duck and await incoming fire!

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