Admittedly we are talking about manufacturing, not process industry where one man operating the computers in the control room will be enough
Lord Jim wrote:two Battalions up and running by the end of 2021
Yes, buy them outright! Though in the 'real world' the first Strike Bde will take until 2023 to be up and running (with two bns).
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)
Lord Jim wrote:Sorry, I saw the word "operate" and assumed it was referring to the user not the builder. Saying that with the initial Boxer coming from Germany the set up of the construction line in Telford should not hold up deliveries in it self, but rather affect the pace. In my vies we should have at least one if not two Battalions up and running by the end of 2021, not waiting another two years to get our hands on the first vehicle.
Kinda depends on how many you want built in Germany and how busy that line is. I think they've just gotten another large order from the German army so they might not have the scheduling freedom. In other words, maybe UK industrial benefits (i.e. jobs) might be taking precedence.
Admittedly we are talking about manufacturing, not process industry where one man operating the computers in the control room will be enough
Lord Jim wrote:two Battalions up and running by the end of 2021
Yes, buy them outright! Though in the 'real world' the first Strike Bde will take until 2023 to be up and running (with two bns).
And it's not quite like Fords with a moving production line and vehicles coming off in their thousand more like a set of bays with each vehicle being hand built at a speed that would make Rolls Royce or Ferrarri blush with shame...
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Ron5 wrote:each vehicle being hand built at a speed that would make [Rolls Royce or] Ferrarri blush with shame...
Ferrari is actually owned by Comau (as is Maserati, within the wider automotive group) and Comau is among the leading automation firms supplying the automotive industry, so Ferrari factory has been kicked into shape a while back: https://www.designboom.com/design/ferra ... mbly-line/
- but we want jobs. Which is quite right as you can't take the robots with you, when you deploy. Whereas to the Gulf a good number of workers deployed as 'contractors'... and things were made to work. On the spot.
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)
Ron5 wrote:each vehicle being hand built at a speed that would make [Rolls Royce or] Ferrarri blush with shame...
Ferrari is actually owned by Comau (as is Maserati, within the wider automotive group) and Comau is among the leading automation firms supplying the automotive industry, so Ferrari factory has been kicked into shape a while back: https://www.designboom.com/design/ferra ... mbly-line/
- but we want jobs. Which is quite right as you can't take the robots with you, when you deploy. Whereas to the Gulf a good number of workers deployed as 'contractors'... and things were made to work. On the spot.
Poorly worded by me, I meant that Ferrari and RR produce cars far quicker and in greater quantities than the Boxer lines ever will.
I fully agree with wanting the Telford line up and running together with the job it will bring, but yet again we have an Army AFV programme that is set to deliver its actual product at a snail's pace. I am pretty sure if we asked Rheinmetall to produce enough Boxers to equip two battalion by the end of 2021 they probably could. If I remember there are/were two production line for Boxer, one in Germany and one in the Netherlands.
I wonder how much the lethargic pace of the Army's ARV programmes is down to programme management and how must to available funding year on year. We know with FRES for example the Army kept moving the goal posts as it appeared to try to match the latest ideas being generated by the US Army. Splitting FRES into SV and UV stream Didi little to help things move along and the decision to cancel tranche 3 of the Ajax programme is going to come back to bit them I am pretty sure.
And with Boxer we are only ordering the most basic variants for now with minimal UK content beyond communications gear, or at least that is what I hope we are doing. We urgently need enough Boxers to equip a trials units, battalion sized when combined with the first Ajax platform so that the Army can actually work out how to use the bloody things and identify what capabilities it will need. The current unit using stand in platforms can only go so far, and we need to know what combination of both Ajax and Boxer variants we actually need before we end up with warehoused filled with ones we have too many of in the wrong configuration. Of course with Boxer you only need new modules but these are not going to be cheap especially with the more complex ones.
but did they not already complete deliveries? Might be that be line to be boxed into crates and shipped over?
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)
Maybe we should leave Boxer for the MIV thread and try to work out what we should get for the Batch 2 MRV(P) now that both it and the Batch 1 vehicles are to be used in harms way on or near the front lines.
I believe the driver for the choice will be the need for a protected ambulance. Secondary is a troop transport that does not cost an arm and a leg (money terms!)
- for the latter the new Finnish Sisu sets a cost benchmark (half a mln), but is too low in the back for ambulance use, so not a contender for the 'composite' requirement
- also the muttered strategy of buying 150 ;now; and the same again 'later' makes it imperative to buy from a line that is running and will be running
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)
I believe the driver for the choice will be the need for a protected ambulance. Secondary is a troop transport that does not cost an arm and a leg (money terms!)
- for the latter the new Finnish Sisu sets a cost benchmark (half a mln), but is too low in the back for ambulance use, so not a contender for the 'composite' requirement
- also the muttered strategy of buying 150 ;now; and the same again 'later' makes it imperative to buy from a line that is running and will be running
the ambulance version of the SISU GT4 hasn't been unveiled yet, but the drawing shows it to have a raised roof, so it shouldn't be too low.
The parliamentary reply indicated a competition for Group 2 was going on but has a list of the competitors ever been announced?
I've seen Eagle & Bushmaster labelled as favorites but not from official sources.
The more I think about it, I think LJ has a good point when he suggests eliminating the requirement and filling the gap with more Boxers & JLTV's. The financials might not looks so good but there would be other advantages.
But then again, Group 2 is supposed to be cheaper than Boxer but by the time the winner has been Anglicized (is that a word?), I wonder. And of course the Grp 2 winner wouldn't be built in the UK unlike Boxer.
Ron5 wrote:And of course the Grp 2 winner wouldn't be built in the UK unlike Boxer.
yep, and that would make sense -not just because of the low numbers overall, but also due to
ArmChairCivvy wrote:the muttered strategy of buying 150 ;now; and the same again 'later' makes it imperative to buy from a line that is running and will be running
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)
"7th Combat Brigade was visited by the United Kingdom’s Chief of the General Staff (CGS), General Sir Mark Carleton-Smith KCB CBA ADC Gen. During the visit, General Carleton-Smith spoke with soldiers from the 8th/9th Battalion, The Royal Australian Regiment about capabilities of the Protective Mobility Vehicle and its variants."
No brainer which is best - only one is too big to drive on a regular license, drives thru puddles & potholes as fast as my wife's Honda, does that up and down thing to make life easier for midget generals (see above), isn't chromed/owned by every other rapper, and has Her Majesty's approval for her armed forces.
Old clapped-out, uparmoured Humvees beat the two other rivals in the three years of reliability testing!
They talk about the kit that can bring protection to MRAP level; we did order ours with a protection kit, but may be not that one? I wonder what weight is reached, with a fully kitted out JLTV?
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)
ArmChairCivvy wrote:Old clapped-out, uparmoured Humvees beat the two other rivals in the three years of reliability testing!
They talk about the kit that can bring protection to MRAP level; we did order ours with a protection kit, but may be not that one? I wonder what weight is reached, with a fully kitted out JLTV?
7 Weasels to a Jumbo
... 2 (3?) fully protected JLTVs to an A400M? Just to give background to the question (as one does not send 'real' armour by air)
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)
It could be interesting to see how the parachute air drop option evolves though the US Army seems have moved on with the low altitude palletised extraction system route.
A few of these would be useful on some of our planned JLTV, especially those allocated to say our "Rapid Intervention forces" . Yes it would be a new gun but we have the infrastructure in place of Chain Guns already as a result of using the Apache with its 30mm and the co-axial 7.62 version. Maybe we could swap out the Stingers for Starstreak but out SF already use the occasional Stinger.
It could also be useful for a possible SPAA version of the Boxer, though the heavier version maybe better with its added firepower.