Warrior Armoured Vehicles (British Army)

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

Post by mr.fred »

bobp wrote:
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.
I don’t think that changes my point at all.
If you are comparing what you can get from here then that £430m doesn’t count. At present we can spend £800m and get however many upgraded Warriors. As long as we get more than 100, we’ll come out ahead of buying new.

If you are comparing what you could have had ten years ago, then it would count.

military
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Re: Warrior Armoured Vehicle Variants (British Army)

Post by military »

I should put this in one of the threads on armoured vehicles, and this thread is the most active currently. There is new submissions to the Defence Committee from General Dynamics UK (Ajax), Rheinmetall BAE Systems (Boxer, Challenger 2 LEP), and KMW/Nexter (Boxer, Leopard 2, French CT40 turret). This is in addition to the previous submissions by Lockheed Martin UK (Warrior CSP, Ajax turret) and many independent interested parties.

There does seem to be a UK manufacturing capacity being resurrected by RBSL and GDUK but it might vanish as orders dry up, as GDUK mentions about its own lack of orders after Ajax ends in 2024. Also, my own take, which matches some of the independent experts, is that cutting edge new product development in armoured vehicles is not occurring in the UK. We will see what the government wants to do, if anything.

https://committees.parliament.uk/work/4 ... -evidence/

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ArmChairCivvy
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Re: Warrior Armoured Vehicle Variants (British Army)

Post by ArmChairCivvy »

Lord Jim wrote: 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
Lord Jim wrote: the Army would end up with basically a "Medium" force by 2030
These nothing wrong with 'make-do' except
- that we would be reinventing what was called a Motorised Rifle Division (from 1950s?)
- so only 80 yrs afterwards

I guess the suggestion is a counter to this one, below.. and saving 4 bn by kitting out 3 instead of 4 mech. bdes
ArmChairCivvy wrote: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)
or indeed to one that appeared later " We will see what the government wants to do, if anything [but cut armour proc by £ 4bn from currently planned]"
; but also would have managed to cut the BA combat power from about 90 bns (Bundeswehr had 149) since the fall of the Berlin wall - by 90 % that is
- even Sweden (in their domestic media they write about the [strong] defence that disappeared) can field 16 and is building back to... 3 bdes!
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Re: Warrior Armoured Vehicle Variants (British Army)

Post by SD67 »

CMOR wrote:
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.
My objection to Warrior is not cost, it's that it won't work. Putting a new turret on a 40 year old hard worked vehicle is an engineering nonsense. Development started in 2011, if it were going to work we'd know by now
Ajax is way more expensive than you list - latest cost estimate is north of 5 billion and the turreted version doesn't yet exist as a production prospect. Reports are the chassis is not strong enough for the turret. That's pretty fundamental.

Both those programs should have been scrapped years ago. Going on for a decade of development and we have what exactly? Two flawed bespoke vehicle programs product of the anyone-but-BAE era and have consistently failed over long periods. Just buy Boxers, they're expensive but they exist, then in 10 years time do the CR2 upgrade.

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Re: Warrior Armoured Vehicle Variants (British Army)

Post by RunningStrong »

SD67 wrote:[
Ajax is way more expensive than you list - latest cost estimate is north of 5 billion and the turreted version doesn't yet exist as a production prospect. Reports are the chassis is not strong enough for the turret. That's pretty fundamental.
Reports? Or one bloke on Twitter...

Also, just to add, people consistently confuse the AJAX contract price with General Dynamics, and the programme costs which includes MOD training facilities and the cannon procurement.

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Re: Warrior Armoured Vehicle Variants (British Army)

Post by ArmChairCivvy »

SD67 wrote: then in 10 years time do the CR2 upgrade.
:o
-and give it a ten-year life span... even the Armata might be back from the drawing board by then
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 mr.fred »

SD67 wrote:My objection to Warrior is not cost, it's that it won't work. Putting a new turret on a 40 year old hard worked vehicle is an engineering nonsense. Development started in 2011, if it were going to work we'd know by now
Surely the reverse would also be true. If it wasn’t going to work then surely we’d know by now?
The MoD is negotiating for a production contract, so doesn’t that indicate some confidence that it will work?
SD67 wrote:Two flawed bespoke vehicle programs product of the anyone-but-BAE era
1) what does “anyone-but-BAE” have to do with anything?
2) what evidence is there that this bias ever existed?
3) where did this bias, if it ever existed, come from?

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Re: Warrior Armoured Vehicle Variants (British Army)

Post by Lord Jim »

The future of the WCSP is going to depend on the results of the Integrated Review and what direction the Government wishes the Armed Forces to take as a result. If the move is away from traditional heavy formations into lighter more deployable ones then it will be very vulnerable.

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Re: Warrior Armoured Vehicle Variants (British Army)

Post by ArmChairCivvy »

In the disclosures about project delays/ cost overruns, it is interesting that the sale of DSG (to Babcock) is mentioned, but when you look at the sale agreements, they contain special provisions about the Latvia Contract (presumably because it was Gvmnt-to-Gvmnt?), but nothing at all about Warrior hull conversations
- which is said 'not to have gone well'



20150401 - LECOM 1006 - TRANSPARENCY PT 3 OF 3-1.pdf
LECOM/1006 - Transparency part 3 of 3

20150401 - LECOM 1006 - TRANSPARENCY PT 1 OF 3.pdf
LECOM/1006 - Transparency part 1 of 3

20150401 - LECOM 1006 - TRANSPARENCY PT 2 OF 3.pdf
LECOM/1006 - Transparency part 2 of 3
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 SD67 »

mr.fred wrote:
SD67 wrote:My objection to Warrior is not cost, it's that it won't work. Putting a new turret on a 40 year old hard worked vehicle is an engineering nonsense. Development started in 2011, if it were going to work we'd know by now
Surely the reverse would also be true. If it wasn’t going to work then surely we’d know by now?
The MoD is negotiating for a production contract, so doesn’t that indicate some confidence that it will work?
SD67 wrote:Two flawed bespoke vehicle programs product of the anyone-but-BAE era
1) what does “anyone-but-BAE” have to do with anything?
2) what evidence is there that this bias ever existed?
3) where did this bias, if it ever existed, come from?
The Anyone but BAE era was that period post-Astute, post-Nimrod post-TOBA where BAE were toxic, partly due to their own pig-headed arrogance, and the MOD were determined to teach them a lesson. Unfortunately in the process of doing so they bought a 5 billion GBP powerpoint presentation (Ajax) and spent a decade developing a rehash of a forty year old platform (Warrior).
I suspect the reason that after 10 years a Warrior production contract has yet to be agreed is that the contractor has figured out how difficult it is to turn a sow's ear into a silk purse and is insisting on a price and scope that is effectively the same as building a new vehicle. The MOD are baulking at the cost but at the same time doesn't want to cancel it due to the embarassment so are waiting for the Treasury to do their dirty work for them. And so the dance continues.

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Re: Warrior Armoured Vehicle Variants (British Army)

Post by SD67 »

RunningStrong wrote:
SD67 wrote:[
Ajax is way more expensive than you list - latest cost estimate is north of 5 billion and the turreted version doesn't yet exist as a production prospect. Reports are the chassis is not strong enough for the turret. That's pretty fundamental.
Reports? Or one bloke on Twitter...

Also, just to add, people consistently confuse the AJAX contract price with General Dynamics, and the programme costs which includes MOD training facilities and the cannon procurement.
Distinction without a difference. The cost of getting the Ajax capability is now 5.5 billion according to latest government figures. It's amazing what it takes for people to admit they screwed up. Seriously, in the private sector everyone remotely connected with these debacles would have been sacked years ago and the SFO may have been called in. These are run of the mill medium weight vehicles. There are a dozen credible suppliers worldwide. We're not developing nukes, AI or a 6th Gen combat aircraft.

Meanwhile, 28 miles away, a country called France have developed their "Ajax" from scratch, in a 6 year project at a fixed cost of 1 million Eur each including R&D. On a 38 hour week.

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Re: Warrior Armoured Vehicle Variants (British Army)

Post by RunningStrong »

SD67 wrote: Distinction without a difference. The cost of getting the Ajax capability is now 5.5 billion according to latest government figures.
But you stated the "latest estimate". That's the same estimate it has been for years. The costs aren't escalating, you've just seen two different numbers and assumed they meant the same thing. They don't.
SD67 wrote: These are run of the mill medium weight vehicles. There are a dozen credible suppliers worldwide. We're not developing nukes, AI or a 6th Gen combat aircraft.
And that's where you clearly don't understand the capability. There is no other platform that has the same level of digital architecture, capability and sensor fusion. Armata was conceptually very close, but remains a failed development.
SD67 wrote: Meanwhile, 28 miles away, a country called France have developed their "Ajax" from scratch, in a 6 year project at a fixed cost of 1 million Eur each including R&D. On a 38 hour week.
No. France have put a CT40 into a turret and put it on a truck chassis. Minimum systems integration. Nowhere near the survivability or capability.

If we want to buy cheap, let's go buy cheap. But don't pretend you're buying the same capability.

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Re: Warrior Armoured Vehicle Variants (British Army)

Post by Luke jones »

Lord Jim wrote:The future of the WCSP is going to depend on the results of the Integrated Review and what direction the Government wishes the Armed Forces to take as a result. If the move is away from traditional heavy formations into lighter more deployable ones then it will be very vulnerable.
If the integrated review wishes to move the UK from heavy forces to lighter more deployable ones, the vulnerable ones will be the poor bloody soldiers.

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Re: Warrior Armoured Vehicle Variants (British Army)

Post by mr.fred »

SD67 wrote:These are run of the mill medium weight vehicles. There are a dozen credible suppliers worldwide. We're not developing nukes, AI or a 6th Gen combat aircraft.
Yet for some reason they all take a decade or so to develop and cost £10m
That said I’m quite interested in the Hanwha IFV. That seems to have come about quite quickly, but how much it’s new or a variant of the K21 I don’t know.
RunningStrong wrote:.
SD67 wrote: Meanwhile, 28 miles away, a country called France have developed their "Ajax" from scratch, in a 6 year project at a fixed cost of 1 million Eur each including R&D. On a 38 hour week.
No. France have put a CT40 into a turret and put it on a truck chassis. Minimum systems integration. Nowhere near the survivability or capability.

If we want to buy cheap, let's go buy cheap. But don't pretend you're buying the same capability.
The €1m per is bandied around a lot, but I’m not sure what that includes. Even a truck-chassis AFV built elsewhere is a similar unit cost without a turret. I suspect that the €1m number doesn’t include a lot of things that you need for an effective AFV. Radios, sights, weapons etc. are often accounted for separately.

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Re: Warrior Armoured Vehicle Variants (British Army)

Post by RunningStrong »

mr.fred wrote: The €1m per is bandied around a lot, but I’m not sure what that includes. Even a truck-chassis AFV built elsewhere is a similar unit cost without a turret. I suspect that the €1m number doesn’t include a lot of things that you need for an effective AFV. Radios, sights, weapons etc. are often accounted for separately.
Yep, depends if the French DSG is operating as a prime contractor, and has already sub contracted all those parts themselves.

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Re: Warrior Armoured Vehicle Variants (British Army)

Post by Lord Jim »

Luke jones wrote:If the integrated review wishes to move the UK from heavy forces to lighter more deployable ones, the vulnerable ones will be the poor bloody soldiers.
That is not a given. The protection levels for Boxer and Warrior are not that far apart, both have additional armour kits and Boxer has greater survivability against mines and IEDs. There is one difference in the level of vulnerability though and that is that Boxer will be under fire for longer because it will be where it is needed before the Warriors have even left the barracks (probably).

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Re: Warrior Armoured Vehicle Variants (British Army)

Post by Lord Jim »

We need to take a step back when discussing "Lighter" forces. We are not talking about sending the troops into battle in Land Rovers here, but rather a wheeled AFV with the same protection levels as Warrior but with greater deplorability and lower logistical requirements and running costs.

Yes for longer deployment they both would travel aboard the Points, but with Warrior you are also having to transport the Heavy and Medium Equipment Transports as well to get the platforms from the docks to where they are needed, along with all the additional logistical support kit.

With the integrated review, the Army has some serious and difficult decisions to make. The current plans will deliver four neutered Brigades with little or no combat value besides the men and women serving in them. The plans are also already becoming unaffordable in part and if the Army tries to maintain things as they are the damage done to the service will be to a level it may never be able to recover from. The efforts being put in to developing a doctrine beyond 2030 and into the 2040s need to be seriously dialled back. Its priority must be to get its house in order in the near to short term and that means between now and 2030.

Warrior may still have a place in the British Army if the "Strike" Brigades concept is abandoned and its heavy forces are once again moved to the continent either in eastern Germany or Poland. Of course any idea of the UK have a globally deployable force of any meaningful size would also have to be abandoned, and the Army would revert to its "Cold War" form.

This would leave the UK with the SFG and the revamped Royal Marines for any operations outside central Europe. Of course the Bulk of the RAF would also have to be assigned to the Central European front and with the F-35 Force being nearly always assigned to the CSG, and the need for QRA, the barrel would be empty beyond that. Yes the SFG and RM could be support by the CSG, but the latter would be a key NATO asset, and so would rarely deploy further afield.

Yes I am covering wider subjects than just Warrior here but to talk just about Warrior and its future without looking at the greater picture results in incomplete arguments. At a bear minimum we need to discuss the relevance of the Armoured Infantry Brigades in an Army that needs to be Globally deployable and able to respond more rapidly than at present. Are we going to forward deploy an Armoured Infantry Brigade to the Middle East or the Far East or at least pre-position its equipment? If not than the Army has tied over half of its combat power to central Europe, unless of course we are given months of advanced notice as to when and where a confrontation may happen and therefore where we need to send them to deter things actually kicking off.

We would still retain probably two Regiments of Challenger 2s that have been through the CCIP, but these would only have to be sent is the threat level demanded it and only having to worry about two units rather than eight or more using transporters, means the time and effort required to move them would be considerably reduced.

We all agree I believe that if the funding was available the Army would end up with two Armoured Infantry Brigades and two "Strike" Brigades, properly organised and equipped to make them effective combat formations against a peer opponent. But the funding simply is not there nor is it ever likely to be.

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Re: Warrior Armoured Vehicle Variants (British Army)

Post by BlueD954 »

https://committees.parliament.uk/work/4 ... lications/

Some related evidence but many companies trying to appease the Defence Committee.

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Re: Warrior Armoured Vehicle Variants (British Army)

Post by ArmChairCivvy »

Lord Jim wrote: We all agree I believe that if the funding was available the Army would end up with two Armoured Infantry Brigades and two "Strike" Brigades, properly organised and equipped to make them effective combat formations against a peer opponent. But the funding simply is not there
mr.fred wrote: At present we can spend £800m and get however many upgraded Warriors. As long as we get more than 100, we’ll come out ahead of buying new.
We'll need 200... so double that
- how many Boxers (let's use base version price as the others are 'on the drawing board') would that be again?

So this funding argument is sort of turned 'on its head' - but repetition is the mother of all learning
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 Ron5 »

ArmChairCivvy wrote:
Lord Jim wrote: We all agree I believe that if the funding was available the Army would end up with two Armoured Infantry Brigades and two "Strike" Brigades, properly organised and equipped to make them effective combat formations against a peer opponent. But the funding simply is not there
mr.fred wrote: At present we can spend £800m and get however many upgraded Warriors. As long as we get more than 100, we’ll come out ahead of buying new.
We'll need 200... so double that
- how many Boxers (let's use base version price as the others are 'on the drawing board') would that be again?

So this funding argument is sort of turned 'on its head' - but repetition is the mother of all learning
Double that Boxer price if you want a CT40 turret on top.

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Re: Warrior Armoured Vehicle Variants (British Army)

Post by ArmChairCivvy »

Ron5 wrote: Double that Boxer price if you want a CT40 turret on top.
What if ;) the turrets (at least the guns in them) have already been bought?
- oops, I'm working against my own argument
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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 Lord Jim »

If we follow current plans and accept we will need to retain the FV432s for support duties, we will need a minimum of 228 Warriors upgraded to fill out the four Battalions that would be part of the two Armoured Infantry Brigades. That leave none for BATUS or as attrition reserves.

So we end up with two Armoured Infantry Brigades comprising of one Armoured Regiment and two Armoured Infantry Battalions, none of which have integral Recce Platoons/Squadrons, and may or may not have dedicated Artillery Regiments. For ATGW capability each Battalions would have 12 Javelin launchers operated by dismounts and the integral fire support would consist of six FV432(m) carrying 81mm Mortars along with a further eight acting as command, munition carriers and fire control platforms, all of which will be seventy years old by 2030.

These two Brigades will be the UK's cutting edge mobile ground combat formations with which we intend to take on, in theory larger Peer Armoured Formations, that have been identifies and again in theory damaged by our two high tech but underwhelming "Strike" Brigades and our improved "Precision Fires" formations, though the latter are not fully funded and may not be in service by 2030.

So this will be the future of the British Army, assuming the current funding shortfalls can be addressed. In reality, unbalanced, under equipped and lacking any depth, but that appears to be the consensus of many here, the way forward.

We should at least save a few pennies and group them all into one large Brigade with one Headquarters and move them back onto the continent so they would have a chance and being able act as a deterrent to any aggressive moves by a hostile nation.

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Re: Warrior Armoured Vehicle Variants (British Army)

Post by ArmChairCivvy »

Lord Jim wrote:at least save a few pennies and group them all into one large Brigade with one Headquarters and move them back onto the continent
Maintaining forces abroad does not come cheap?
Lord Jim wrote:minimum of 228 Warriors upgraded to fill out the four Battalions that would be part of the two Armoured Infantry Brigades. That leave none for BATUS or as attrition reserves.
Lord Jim wrote: integral fire support would consist of six FV432(m) carrying 81mm Mortars along with a further eight acting as command, munition carriers and fire control platforms
An interesting calculation (I omit the underlined parts, above) 228 +(4 x 6) =252
The latest article (referencing sources) that has had a number is a year old and stated 265
= 13 as " taken apart in depot maintenance" reserve

One of the submissions to the defence committee gave the number for Warrior renewal as the turreted ones + 135 (recovery and fire control, for RA batteries rather than mortars was mentioned as the basis for the additional ones... which to me sounds like on " a high side" as Joint Fires vehicles will fill that need in Strike brigades, so a couple of dozen needed on the Warrior side. Which then :?: would leave 100 recovery vehicles)

Can you reconcile this range of 265 to three and a half hundred by intended function (in the formations that will get them; notably the fire control Warriors would go with AS90s, now confirmed out to 2030 - at least in the AI bdes)?
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 mr.fred »

SD67 wrote:The Anyone but BAE era was that period post-Astute, post-Nimrod post-TOBA where BAE were toxic, partly due to their own pig-headed arrogance, and the MOD were determined to teach them a lesson. Unfortunately in the process of doing so they bought a 5 billion GBP powerpoint presentation (Ajax) and spent a decade developing a rehash of a forty year old platform (Warrior).
Could it also be inferred that experience in dealing with BAE led the MoD to conclude that there was considerable risk associated with them? Most time I see “anyone but BAE” raised the implication is that it was an unfair bias that came about for unfair reasons (which are seldom addressed, thank you for doing so) but it seems to me that the MoD selected one set of risks (the unknown of GD (Ajax) and LM (WCSP)) over another (the known of BAE performance under contract)
SD67 wrote:I suspect the reason that after 10 years a Warrior production contract has yet to be agreed is that the contractor has figured out how difficult it is to turn a sow's ear into a silk purse and is insisting on a price and scope that is effectively the same as building a new vehicle. The MOD are baulking at the cost but at the same time doesn't want to cancel it due to the embarassment so are waiting for the Treasury to do their dirty work for them. And so the dance continues.
Not impossible, but I guess we’ll see soon.

I would point at that a new vehicle would come in above £8m each based on procurement of similar vehicles in the West.

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Re: Warrior Armoured Vehicle Variants (British Army)

Post by Luke jones »

Lord Jim wrote:
Luke jones wrote:If the integrated review wishes to move the UK from heavy forces to lighter more deployable ones, the vulnerable ones will be the poor bloody soldiers.
That is not a given. The protection levels for Boxer and Warrior are not that far apart, both have additional armour kits and Boxer has greater survivability against mines and IEDs. There is one difference in the level of vulnerability though and that is that Boxer will be under fire for longer because it will be where it is needed before the Warriors have even left the barracks (probably).
What you havent mentioned is the Boxers will bollocksed as soon as they arrive cause they will have nothing meaningfull to engage the enemy with.
Pretty fundamental issue that.

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