The BAE group is the largest manufacturer of armoued vehicles in the Western World when you take into consideration it's total portfolio of companies in Europe, South Africa and the US. It's trying to blackmail the UK Gov into signing contracts to guarantee a continued UK presence.
Chally II is an excellent tank and one of only two in recent history (Western) which has seen tank on tank action on a large scale (GWII). Colleagues of mine who served in GWII had nothing but admiration for the protection and firepower it provided vs the Iraqi Russian MBT's they faced. They also loved the HESH round because it proved so effective against bunkers and static positions.
The UK doesn't need any more heavy armour until the 2020 time frame, it's highly unlikely that they will witness a conflict where at least 2 x UK fully armoured divisions will be engaged in full-on combat. The UK currently has enough heavy and reserve kit to equip and sustain a single armoured Div, including tracked MBT's, tracked engineering vehicles, AFV's and artillery (Chally, Warrior, Terrier, CVRT, AS90, MLRS etc. etc). Instead of buying more hulls I would like to see the continued upgrading of the current inventory focusing on protection in urban areas and digitisation bringing them to the same level as the US.
The UK's priority is dealing with the asymmetrical threat in Afghanistan and elsewhere. Financial resources need to spent on more real-time intelligence assets (manned and unmanned), helicopters, MARP, tracked recce and enhanced infantry weapons to improve light and medium equipped brigades. After all if necessary they can still afford to deploy a Chally troop or squadron to A-STAN without diminishing 1 Armoured Div's capabilities.
The UK military is one of the few in the world, which has been involved in continuous operations since WWII (1968 being the only year a British Soldier has not fired a shoot in anger since 1945), the majority of these conflicts have NOT involved heavy armour, but medium / light forces. The days of huge land armies standing off against each other are over for the forceable future - the priority is to defeat the terrorist threat, which is the current 'clear and present danger'.
If anything (already stated) the need is to replace CVRT, which though old has proved very effective and continues to be upgraded, see below:
http://www.mod.uk/DefenceInternet/D...rstBatchOfsoupedupCombatVehiclesDelivered.htm
Most current CVRT operators have no desire to switch to a more modern wheeled LAV's, they have seen too many bogged down in the A-STAN mud!
The new BAE Warrior turret (MTIP2) has just been cleared to live fire with crew and is still on track. In a worse case scenario I would like to see this fitted to not just Warrior but the current CVRT.
Quote taken from Janes 17th Dec 08 issue: "BAE systems has just received full manned crew clearence for the MTIP2 turret programme".
Quote taken from Deagal.com (Dec 08): "MTIP2 is a BAE Systems-funded project to de-risk both the Warrior Fightability and Lethality Improvement Programme (WFLIP) and the FRES Scout vehicle. The company's offerings into the competitions for the two programmes use different turrets with a common architecture and many common systems, including CTAS, to reduce the training and logistics burden. During the trials, a number of users commented that the turret exhibited a step change in stabilisation performance from the Challenger 2 tank, widely regarded as the benchmark. Over the course of three trials open days, visitors saw the system perform static and moving firings against static and moving targets, using both training and armour-piercing rounds. 90 rounds were fired from the 40mm gun and 600 rounds from the chain gun, achieving high levels of accuracy and reliability."
