British Army News and Discussion

[OldTex]

It is being reported that the British Army will be buying the RCH155 wheeled artillery to be co-developed by Germany and UK. While it is still early days, one question will be whether AS90 will be retained only for armoured brigades. The other question is how quickly will the interim buy of 14 Archer SPHs be retired.

 

[Big_Zucchini]

Wheels for SPH, tracks for MRL. That's real something.

 

[swerve]

News - Watchkeeper UAV to retire

A classic sad story of British military procurement. Buy an existing product, then spend a fortune & many years modifying it before finally putting it into service, by which time it looks distinctly old-fashioned & only lasts a few years in service.

And everything requires new facilities! Often, a new factory for the new product, & the training of a new workforce.

 

[Sandhi Yudha]

News - Watchkeeper UAV to retire

A classic sad story of British military procurement. Buy an existing product, then spend a fortune & many years modifying it before finally putting it into service, by which time it looks distinctly old-fashioned & only lasts a few years in service.

And everything requires new facilities! Often, a new factory for the new product, & the training of a new workforce.

|"It is one of several platforms that are being sunset early to save money ahead of the UK's upcoming Strategic Defense Review."|

And they claim this is all to save money....

 

[StobieWan]

News - Watchkeeper UAV to retire

A classic sad story of British military procurement. Buy an existing product, then spend a fortune & many years modifying it before finally putting it into service, by which time it looks distinctly old-fashioned & only lasts a few years in service.

And everything requires new facilities! Often, a new factory for the new product, & the training of a new workforce.

We really do need to let go of that special snowflake feeling that seems to overcome purchasing so often and just buy something that works as nearly off the shelf as possible. Stuff like Ajax and Boxer flip flop really do stick in my craw, as it were.

 

[swerve]

Yeah. We should have bought Boxer from the start. Quitting the programme, faffing around with other types, then rejoining, cost a bloody fortune.

 

[koxinga]

So Starmer offers troops on the ground

Most of what I read online suggest the British Army does not have the numbers needed to sustain a presence (with rotation) for long duration.

Starmer 'ready' to put UK troops on ground in Ukraine to protect peace

Sir Keir Starmer said securing a lasting peace in Ukraine was "essential" to deter Vladimir Putin from future aggression.

www.bbc.com

The state we are in - British Army decline

Here's one contentious view of the state of the British Army decline. Do you agree? Were things really better in the past?

wavellroom.com

 

[John Fedup]

So Starmer offers troops on the ground

Most of what I read online suggest the British Army does not have the numbers needed to sustain a presence (with rotation) for long duration.

Starmer 'ready' to put UK troops on ground in Ukraine to protect peace

Sir Keir Starmer said securing a lasting peace in Ukraine was "essential" to deter Vladimir Putin from future aggression.

www.bbc.com

The state we are in - British Army decline

Here's one contentious view of the state of the British Army decline. Do you agree? Were things really better in the past?

wavellroom.com

The British army isn't alone wrt this problem. Canada certainly has!

 

[StobieWan]

The UK maintained a force of around 10,000 at longer distances over an air bridge in Afghanistan - and we're just talking a trip-wire force in Ukraine - not conducting daily COIN and force protection for example.

Stick a few thousand French and UK troops in there and Russia is facing two nuclear armed nations with the capability to escalate conventionally in ways Russia can't cope with.

If we can get everyone to stop shooting each other, it's doable.

 

[StevoJH]

New 400-strong King's Gurkha Artillery regiment announced in front of MPs

The King's Gurkha Artillery (KGA) was officially announced by Veterans Minister Al Carns.

www.forcesnews.com

Well I suppose that is one way to deal with a recruitment shortfall. Maybe the British Army should add a second Gurkha Brigade?

 

[OldTex]

It is being reported, on the Army Technology site, that the British army no longer operates the AS-90 SPH. As no source is attributed for this report this casts some doubt on its accuracy. If the report is accurate then the British artillery has been reduced to 14 Archer SPH until the RCH155 SPH starts to enter service in 2030 (if it remains on schedule). The Archer SPHs are also supposed to be retired in 2030. The big question is what has happened to the 50-ish AS-90 SPH that remained after 32 were donated to Ukraine.

 

[MARKMILES77]

An overview of British Army vehicles at DSEI 2025, including Challenger 3, Ajax and Boxer by Times Radio.

 

[ADMk2]

It is being reported, on the Army Technology site, that the British army no longer operates the AS-90 SPH. As no source is attributed for this report this casts some doubt on its accuracy. If the report is accurate then the British artillery has been reduced to 14 Archer SPH until the RCH155 SPH starts to enter service in 2030 (if it remains on schedule). The Archer SPHs are also supposed to be retired in 2030. The big question is what has happened to the 50-ish AS-90 SPH that remained after 32 were donated to Ukraine.

Britain sent all of it’s remaining AS-90’s to Ukraine. It presently has 14 Archers and there was some discussion about boosting these by another 10 platforms.

They also operate somewhere around 126x L118 105mm guns and 44x M270 MLRS systems, which are growing reportedly up to around 85x vehicles upgraded to the M270A2 variant and fitted with new types of munitions.

RCH155 has been selected as the AS-90 replacement, though there is a bit of a squabble over delivery timelines etc, I understand.

 

[swerve]

It was reported a year ago that the British army had acquired secondhand M270 launchers, & was having them refurbished & modernised. Numbers in this article are a little unclear, saying "an additional 31 M270 MLRS launch vehicles have now been acquired", but also "In addition, a further two risk reduction launchers are currently on the production line, and a total of 61 M270s are on order, with a further 15 M270 MLRS expected to go on contract in 2025 to meet the British Army’s requirements of 76 platforms." Perhaps "on order" includes existing launcher vehicles under contract to be upgraded.
British Army to surge M270 MLRS fleet to over 70 vehicles - Army Technology

This more recent story has the same numbers (61 & 15), of which 61 on order, but "This latest contract includes the final batch of launchers for the British Army" isn't explicit about whether it means all of the 15 being considered.

But whatever, it's a lot more than the 29 said to be in service last year.

 

[John Fedup]

Haven't really followed the Ajax program, but it seems the British Army should bite the bullet and do what the USN did to the Constellation albeit it should have been done years ago before 100+ units that have been built already.

Bad Vibrations: UK’s Ajax Fighting Vehicles Put On Pause After Troops Get Sick

 

[Musashi_kenshin]

Haven't really followed the Ajax program, but it seems the British Army should bite the bullet and do what the USN did to the Constellation albeit it should have been done years ago before 100+ units that have been built already.

Bad Vibrations: UK’s Ajax Fighting Vehicles Put On Pause After Troops Get Sick

There's no money for anything else. If Ajax is cancelled, it will mean the Army will be short of hundreds of armoured vehicles it claims it needs to be an effective fighting force (according to the Army, they needed bespoke Ajax rather than off-the-shelf). General Dynamics aren't going to refund the money spent just because the UK can't be bothered any more, nor will it cancel a contract that's in its favour for free.

At a minimum, the UK government would need to demonstrate that the vehicles are unusable. Note, unusable, not need to be fixed. GD might pay for rectification works that take years, but they won't accept return of vehicles that they say are working. And indeed, the vehicles are working. They've been on repeated trials, and the UK government made a public statement to say all problems had been fixed. This would mean several years of court battles and appeals, with nothing paid in the interim, and possibly no new Ajax vehicles built either.

It's far more likely the government will double-down and beg GD for a fix. If necessary it will just keep the vehicles in storage, periodically rolling them out for carefully cut propaganda videos.

 

[John Fedup]

There's no money for anything else. If Ajax is cancelled, it will mean the Army will be short of hundreds of armoured vehicles it claims it needs to be an effective fighting force (according to the Army, they needed bespoke Ajax rather than off-the-shelf). General Dynamics aren't going to refund the money spent just because the UK can't be bothered any more, nor will it cancel a contract that's in its favour for free.

At a minimum, the UK government would need to demonstrate that the vehicles are unusable. Note, unusable, not need to be fixed. GD might pay for rectification works that take years, but they won't accept return of vehicles that they say are working. And indeed, the vehicles are working. They've been on repeated trials, and the UK government made a public statement to say all problems had been fixed. This would mean several years of court battles and appeals, with nothing paid in the interim, and possibly no new Ajax vehicles built either.

It's far more likely the government will double-down and beg GD for a fix. If necessary it will just keep the vehicles in storage, periodically rolling them out for carefully cut propaganda videos.

Sad situation to say the least. I guess storage until a fix is done is ok…..except if the ?hit hits the fan beforehand.

 

[Musashi_kenshin]

Sad situation to say the least. I guess storage until a fix is done is ok…..except if the ?hit hits the fan beforehand.

It's not even clear if a fix is possible. It has been alleged, and naturally these allegations are not confirmed, that the vibrations are caused by the hulls that were manufactured in Spain not matching up with the turret or other parts. I don't see how you can fix the hull, except maybe to cut chunks out and weld better aligned pieces on.

EDIT: If the Army is lucky, either the problems will have been caused by a small number of early production models (hence why Ajax was claimed to be safe, because the problem ones hadn't been identified) that can be replaced, or there's some other bodge-job that can stop the vibrations. We'll have to see.