Warrior Armoured Vehicles (British Army)

[ArmChairCivvy]

post-Astute, post-Nimrod [&] post-TOBA

yes, one could conclude that whatever was contracted was not fixed cost, but rather... if you want to have it, there is this A,B and C with the added cost of x, y and z(ee, for our American friends)

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

- difficult grammar there, but I guess anything new would be over that price (and by implication, this 'thingy' will be cheap at under that price, a piece)

Another benchmark is the 6-- Warriors to be renewed at an average cost of £ 1 mln. When the ' blended price' was never clear as to what number of units would get what upgrades ( and futrhermore: what expensive bits were hidden from view by being GFX/ GFI)

[mr.fred]

- difficult grammar there, but I guess anything new would be over that price (and by implication, this 'thingy' will be cheap at under that price, a piece)

That’s the gist* of it. Assuming a programme cost divided by by the number of vehicles procured.

Another benchmark is the 6-- Warriors to be renewed at an average cost of £ 1 mln. When the ' blended price' was never clear as to what number of units would get what upgrades ( and futrhermore: what expensive bits were hidden from view by being GFX/ GFI)

That’s a good point. The CT40 cannon for WCSP have already been bought at a £150m for 515 (£290k each), which is split 245 each for WCSP and Ajax, so if you buy a new vehicle with a CT40, you can knock that off the price. If you want a different gun? No refunds.

*My punctuation often suffers when I’m typing fast; more so when typing on a tablet. Apologies for that.
** Interestingly that puts the number of turreted versions at 245, which gives you £3.2m each for £800m if that’s all you get

[Lord Jim]

My maths maybe bad, so with 57 Warriors of all types in each Armoured Infantry Battalion that should give a total of 228 by my calculations, To that we should add any "Joint Fires" variants elsewhere, but aren't we getting versions of the Ajax family for that role as well and probably one for Boxer as well. Officially there are 21 FV432 based platforms in each Battalion covers roles such as mortar carrier, REME, Battery fire control/command. Finally there are eight CVR(T) / Scimitars in the Close Recce Platoon but these will not be replaced as these Platoons are being done away with both in the Armoured and Armoured Infantry units.

[military]

The separate speeches this week by CDS and CGS were all about being light and deployable, which sounds bad for 1) casualties if there is a war and 2) AFV programmes. CDS is the inventor of strike brigades, from an earlier posting, and there are probably more jobs associated with Ajax than Warrior. Also, the Warrior production contract has not been signed while Ajax is in production. So I agree with an apparent consensus in this thread that Warrior is the most vulnerable programme for cancellation.

[whitelancer]

Finally there are eight CVR(T) / Scimitars in the Close Recce Platoon but these will not be replaced as these Platoons are being done away with both in the Armoured and Armoured Infantry units.

Have you a source for this? You have mentioned this many times, but I can find nothing to support it.

Interestingly this has been done before back in the 1980s, although in that instance the capability was transferred to the Close Recce Squadrons of the Armoured Recce Regiments, with Close Recce Troops being allocated to units as required.
It was a disaster.

[ArmChairCivvy]

in the 1980s, although in that instance the capability was transferred to the Close Recce Squadrons of the Armoured Recce Regiments, with Close Recce Troops being allocated to units as required.

Howabout the more recent 'A-stan special' i.e. Bde Recce?
- of course now we are upping the ante and having two recce bdes for a single division

On another note, I wasn't doubting LJ's math, but rather trying to get to the bottom of the wide spread in the numbers for the Warrior program. While all speculation has been on whether the prgrm will survive, a year ago defencenews.com quoted 265, which is just 20 over the turreted ones (a quantity that would match fire control within AI bdes; some versions like the ambulances might soldier on as they are?).

Whereas one of the submissions we've just read (thx to the several that alerted us to these new ones thru the link) "knew" that over and above the turreted ones -and when I say that I mean with the new cannon installed- there would be 135
- he did not quote a source though, but I doubt anyone would court embarrassment by getting the basics wrong in a submission
- recce aside (and this talk about 60-70 year old vehicles, when 500+ FV432s (&cousins in that series) were rebuilt into the Bulldog std) it would be good to know which roles are targeted for 1-for-1 replacement, so as to make the front line REME 'job' doable without bloating those units - if not with anything else than double sets of spares

[ArmChairCivvy]

Checked back (TD archives) and before the current Warrior prgrm was started there were 70 in all
upgraded to TESH(H) "across the major variants; FV511 Infantry Section Vehicle, FV512 Infantry Command Vehicle, FV513 Mechanised Recovery (Repair) Vehicle, FV514 Mechanised Artillery Observation Vehicle and FV515 Battery Command Vehicle, the latter converted to armoured ambulances."
- the first mentioned variant overlaps with the new upgrades, but it is "foggy" as to the rest of the list

[mr.fred]

across the major variants; FV511 Infantry Section Vehicle, FV512 Infantry Command Vehicle, FV513 Mechanised Recovery (Repair) Vehicle, FV514 Mechanised Artillery Observation Vehicle and FV515 Battery Command Vehicle, the latter converted to armoured ambulances."

Numbers are off.
FV510 is Section
FV511 is command
FV512 is repair
FV513 is repair and recovery
FV514 is Observation post
FV515 is Battery command

So 245 covers the FV510 and FV511, assuming that the FV514 upgrade maintains the dummy cannon and FV515 isn’t
That leaves some numbers of FV512 and FV513 which don’t have a large turret/cannon.

The FV512-14 could be the balance above 245

[ArmChairCivvy]

The FV512-14 could be the balance above 245

Thx. Plus the ambulances, derived from FV515
- I presume a two-stage process: these in the direct fire zone and the MRVP Batch 2 (if decided on) to do the rest
- and in Strike bdes, there to be ambulance versions of Boxer

We are already in 'penny-pinching mode' - every little helps

[ArmChairCivvy]

MoD evidence to the Defence Committee, this bit from p.7 before the actual Warrior text starts on p.8:
" current programmes already on contract (e.g.Ajax and Boxer) or already underway in the commercial process preparing to go on contract (e.g. the Challenger 2 Life Extension Project currently being negotiated and Warrior Capability Sustainment Project currently under tender)
- negotiated = spec fixed?
- under tender = several alternatives (does not necessarily imply more potential suppliers)?

[Ron5]

MoD evidence to the Defence Committee, this bit from p.7 before the actual Warrior text starts on p.8:
" current programmes already on contract (e.g.Ajax and Boxer) or already underway in the commercial process preparing to go on contract (e.g. the Challenger 2 Life Extension Project currently being negotiated and Warrior Capability Sustainment Project currently under tender)
- negotiated = spec fixed?
- under tender = several alternatives (does not necessarily imply more potential suppliers)?

If I understand the process, development and production contracts cannot be negotiated & signed until after main gate. And I doubt if such a noticeable event would have gone unreported for the Challenger upgrade.

By the way, I keep reading that the 130mm gun for the upgrade is still a possibility and that RM did indeed offer that as an optional part of their package. Well I guess that would be RBSL now. A long shot of course but interesting never the less. My guess is that the argument for the bigger gun is that it's affordable given the small (and getting smaller?) number of tanks to be upgraded, and would confer a longer life, pushing EOL far into the 2030's. And of course, making the upgraded Challenger the unquestionable world's #1 tank.

The future as pictured by the Pagey on his twitter feed ..

[ArmChairCivvy]

cannot be negotiated & signed until after main gate

Sure, not signed (MG allegedly in November... err, is the budget still in November )
- negotiating is a grey zone (all agreed specs get appended to contracts, later... what a nasty habit, must come from the commercial world )

But I was after what is behind the other one being in tender, after a dvlmnt contract and a prolonged test period (for Warrior, that is)

[mr.fred]

https://www.army-technology.com/news/wa ... mg-report/

Says 275, although that’s probably just a stick in the ground for reference

[ArmChairCivvy]

Yeah, not much movement from defencenews 265 in Sept 2019.

The linked text itself is contradictory
"deliveries would likely take place between 2023 and 2028.

The MOD told Lockheed Martin in August 2020 that it intends to upgrade up to 290 Warrior AFVs. Lockheed Martin was originally awarded a development contract for Warrior CSP in 2011."
- the 290 number linked to deliveries out to 2029
- and 275 (presumably) linked to the end date being 2028

That's from the text; in way of pure speculation, the budget corset has either squeezed 15 vehicles out - a tight fit, then - and/or for some version the army has decided that it can do 'the job' without (any of) the multilayered upgrades

[mr.fred]

That's from the text; in way of pure speculation, the budget corset has either squeezed 15 vehicles out - a tight fit, then - and/or for some version the army has decided that it can do 'the job' without (any of) the multilayered upgrades

“Up to” includes any number below it.
Based on the numbers of cannon that’s 245 turrets with cannon so 30-45 of the variants without cannon.

[SD67]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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)

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.

The time honoured way of resolving such debates is to organise a TENDER. The RFP should specify the required longevity, availability and performance. I suspect that on all those fronts a lashup of a forty year old platform will be nowhere near the capability of a new build. The fact that Warrior is out of production 20 years tends to demonstrate that there is no longer a market for it......

Warrior CSP will give us 10-12 years if we're lucky - service entry around 2028 retirement 2040ish. With increasing vulnerability and serviceability issues towards the end of its life and no upgrade path. That of course assumes no Nimrod-esque manufacturing problems (new turret, old chassis, old engine)

A new build will give you 30 minimum, with upgradeability. And air conditioning. 8 million is the most expensive on the market. I understand K21 was tendered to Australia in the 3-4million range. Including the money spent so far I doubt we'll get much change out of 2 billion for 250 Warriors, ie exactly what Hungary paid for 218 new build Lynx including a production line.

But I guess the Army Know Best, it's their blokes who have to serve in the thing.......

[ArmChairCivvy]

what Hungary paid for 218 new build Lynx including a production line.

I had missed that they will be built locally - that will lower the labour costs somewhat

After the early results from Warrior trials a whole-life cost was set in the range of 1.2-1.8 bn
- which of course is different from upfront manuf. cost (GFX must be included in whole life, as well)
- also the wide range (at the time!) attests to the importance of the rather lengthy trials. MTBF will determine if they can be fielded (battle field, that is) at all and how much it will cost to keep them running out to 2040.

[mr.fred]

The fact that Warrior is out of production 20 years tends to demonstrate that there is no longer a market for it......

You seem to be applying a commercial business case to a military vehicle. I don’t think that is valid or relevant.

Warrior CSP will give us 10-12 years if we're lucky - service entry around 2028 retirement 2040ish. With increasing vulnerability and serviceability issues towards the end of its life and no upgrade path. That of course assumes no Nimrod-esque manufacturing problems (new turret, old chassis, old engine)

That’s an extremely pessimistic view of things, unsurprisingly to your benefit. Ironing out integration problems is what the extensive testing it’s currently undergoing is supposed to prove, isn’t it?
As for vulnerability, can you expand on that? I don’t see why one armoured box should be any different to another one in that regard, in the age of modular armour fits.

A new build will give you 30 minimum, with upgradeability. And air conditioning. 8 million is the most expensive on the market. I understand K21 was tendered to Australia in the 3-4million range.

A new build will require you to upgrade at the mid-life point as well, if you wish to avoid the same mistakes as we’ve seen over the last three decades.
The Warrior upgrade includes a new environmental control system, which usually means air con, and is something like 250 for £800m* or £3.2m each. The current sale of Kf41s to Hungary is for 218 plus 9 recovery vehicles at more than €2bn. Since the Kf41 is in competition with the K21 one would not expect it to be vastly cheaper. Indeed the budget for the procurement is AUD10-15bn for 450, or £12m each. Not to mention the Australian procurement of Boxer rushed them nearly £14m a vehicle, for the Redback to really be a third of the cost would be a bit of a scandal. I mean if you got to the wiki page you get $3.2m each, but it doesn’t say how that was calculated or what it includes.


* This is the money that the MoD has to spend now in order to get the capability. It doesn’t include past expenditure as that money is gone and cannot be recouped. If you went for something new, you’d have to pay full price.

[SD67]

The fact that Warrior is out of production 20 years tends to demonstrate that there is no longer a market for it......

You seem to be applying a commercial business case to a military vehicle. I don’t think that is valid or relevant.

Warrior CSP will give us 10-12 years if we're lucky - service entry around 2028 retirement 2040ish. With increasing vulnerability and serviceability issues towards the end of its life and no upgrade path. That of course assumes no Nimrod-esque manufacturing problems (new turret, old chassis, old engine)

That’s an extremely pessimistic view of things, unsurprisingly to your benefit. Ironing out integration problems is what the extensive testing it’s currently undergoing is supposed to prove, isn’t it?
As for vulnerability, can you expand on that? I don’t see why one armoured box should be any different to another one in that regard, in the age of modular armour fits.

A new build will give you 30 minimum, with upgradeability. And air conditioning. 8 million is the most expensive on the market. I understand K21 was tendered to Australia in the 3-4million range.

A new build will require you to upgrade at the mid-life point as well, if you wish to avoid the same mistakes as we’ve seen over the last three decades.
The Warrior upgrade includes a new environmental control system, which usually means air con, and is something like 250 for £800m* or £3.2m each. The current sale of Kf41s to Hungary is for 218 plus 9 recovery vehicles at more than €2bn. Since the Kf41 is in competition with the K21 one would not expect it to be vastly cheaper. Indeed the budget for the procurement is AUD10-15bn for 450, or £12m each. Not to mention the Australian procurement of Boxer rushed them nearly £14m a vehicle, for the Redback to really be a third of the cost would be a bit of a scandal. I mean if you got to the wiki page you get $3.2m each, but it doesn’t say how that was calculated or what it includes.


* This is the money that the MoD has to spend now in order to get the capability. It doesn’t include past expenditure as that money is gone and cannot be recouped. If you went for something new, you’d have to pay full price.

If you think you are going to get 250 Warriors for 800 million you re in la La land. 430 million already spent and the production contract will be 1 billion minimum, before the problems and cost overruns. As you've admitted - half the useful life of a new build. Lynx will need an upgrade in 15 years? Warrior will need a replacement in 10. Which do you think will be more expensive? Lynx will have a user base we can share development with. Warrior will be an orphan. Hungary's 2 billion EUR is 1.7 billion GBP, including a new production line. We're already in the same cost ballpark for something that will last less than half as long, and deliver significantly less capability. K21 is contracted to Korea at 3 million per unit. Obviously the Hungarians paid a premium to get a production line. Probably German EU influence as well.

And minor point - what if we need more units in the future? there are only so many hulls you can upgrade.

Put it another way if Warrior is better value why isn't everyone else buying it? Is the world beating a path to our door begging us to put Warrior back in production? No I didn't notice that either.

[mr.fred]

If you think you are going to get 250 Warriors for 800 million you re in la La land. 430 million already spent and the production contract will be 1 billion minimum, before the problems and cost overruns.

Working on numbers we have: http://bidstats.uk/tenders/2020/W22/727646341
This is the number to spend, now, to get however many vehicles we are going to get. That will depend on the negotiation.
Money already spent, be it £430m or another number, is entirely irrelevant for making a decision, now, about what we should procure. Choosing another vehicle will not magically go back in time and recover that money. Either decision rests on that base expenditure.

As you've admitted - half the useful life of a new build. Lynx will need an upgrade in 15 years? Warrior will need a replacement in 10. Which do you think will be more expensive?

Next time you bring this flawed reasoning up, the upgraded vehicle will need replacement in 5 years. The time after that it will be obsolete as soon as it is in service. Life until upgrade or replacement will be about the same for either vehicle. Except, by your logic, we should replace the new vehicle at the upgrade point because a replacement new vehicle will offer greater life from that point (regardless of whether it is used or not).
I think that it will be similarly costly (upgrade now and replace in 20 years vs. replace now and upgrade in 20 years) but the WCSP path is cheaper now, when we are desperately strapped for cash. Hence WCSP is the way to go.

Lynx will have a user base we can share development with. Warrior will be an orphan. Hungary's 2 billion EUR is 1.7 billion GBP, including a new production line. We're already in the same cost ballpark for something that will last less than half as long, and deliver significantly less capability.

At present the numbers of Lynx is similar to the number of Warriors. Further numbers are dependent on winning contract. £8m or €9m is still much higher than £3m, not the same ballpark at all, especially when we have a budget squeeze now.

K21 is contracted to Korea at 3 million per unit.

And your source for that is? Dated when? What does that include?
Redback, as offered to the Australians isn’t the same vehicle, and is budgeted for at £12m per vehicle. There’s likely to be some overheads driving that number up

And minor point - what if we need more units in the future? there are only so many hulls you can upgrade.

Top end of the procurement is 300 units (kind of limited by the 245 cannon procured for it) and there ought to be 500-600 viable hulls out there. I don’t see that being a problem.

Put it another way if Warrior is better value why isn't everyone else buying it? Is the world beating a path to our door begging us to put Warrior back in production? No I didn't notice that either.

Perhaps it’s something to do with the rest of the world not having a stock of 500-600 vehicles and 245 cannon on-hand to base the conversion on?

If you want to compare complete program costs for Warrior upgrade and a.n.other IFV then that’s fine, and interesting for the historical perspective and informing future decisions on which route to go. For deciding which route to take now, past costs are irrelevant, any materiel on hand is free so the comparison is only between additional money you have not yet spent.

If you spend as little as twice as much to get the opportunity to upgrade rather than replace in 20* years’ time, that does not seem to be financially wise at the moment, particularly with so many other programmes needing resources to make a viable combined arms team. Furthermore, having the need to upgrade at the mid-life point to get your monies worth may compromise future vehicle plans. Personally I think the entire armoured force** needs to be based on common systems to generate suitable numbers of vehicles.

* There will be a degree of overlap, so the in service date for a replacement/upgrade will be mid 2040s tailing out over the decade much like the introduction into service of the current vehicle. Work on the replacement will begin 2030s.
** MBTs, IFV, artillery, engineering, repair and recovery and recce vehicles.

[RunningStrong]

Lynx will have a user base we can share development with. Warrior will be an orphan.

Done properly, AJAX, WCSP and BAE will all have significant component sharing across the digital architecture.

Some, but not all aspects of the Sights, Processors, Power Systems, Weapon systems, Displays and Control Handles are shared, but not completely across all 3 future programmes.

That isn't MOD planned by the way, but by nature of the AJAX GD-LM relationship, WCSP Warrior and the CR2 LEP BAE-GD big absorbed by RLS.

[mr.fred]

Aren’t WCSP, Ajax, Challenger 2 and Boxer all being fitted with GVA?

[ArmChairCivvy]

there ought to be 500-600 viable hulls out there

That has been quoted over many years of the prgrm, but the finding that bolting steel (not necessarily the armour, but the casing holding the stuff?) has not done much good to the softer aluminium that has been carrying it in service may have reduced the truly available number somewhat?

[mr.fred]

there ought to be 500-600 viable hulls out there

That has been quoted over many years of the prgrm, but the finding that bolting steel (not necessarily the armour, but the casing holding the stuff?) has not done much good to the softer aluminium that has been carrying it in service may have reduced the truly available number somewhat?

Even if the final number is 400 out of the 700+ originals, that’s still over a third of the upgrade fleet in replacement hulls.

[Lord Jim]

No production contract has been signed yet, so all costs so far sunk into the WCSP are for the development of the platform.

Regarding the number of hulls available for the WCSP, why were efforts made to investigate manufacturing new hulls to meet the number of Warriors the Army plans? Could it be that the majority are in such a state it would be uneconomical to rework them as part of either the WCSP or even the BASV programme it that resurfaces?

As for this repeated mentioning of the need for a MLU in a decade or so, this is exactly what the MoD is trying to move away from, with platforms receiving incremental upgrades throughout their service life rather than on big lump every ten years or so. This may be easier to do with newer platforms with open architecture and designed for this from the start, and I am not sure if the WCSP encompasses this.