A Future Soldier alternative

 

Some observations on Future Soldier. And AJAX.

 

There can be no discussion of an alternative to Future Soldier without first spending a few words on AJAX, and how the plan as published has faced some issues, or ignored them. 

Even after the recent oral statement and the publication of the report into the vibration and noise disaster, we still do not know if AJAX will ever be able to get into service. Proposals for a number of fixes have been formulated but will now have to be trialed, evaluated and costed, and who knows what the result will be, and how long it will take.

Future Soldier (for now) assumes AJAX will eventually deliver, but there are very good reasons to fear it won’t. It is also increasingly out of place in an Army that has lost its IFVs and does not have a budget that would enable the launch of a second major acquisition programme to replace it. The British Army seems to have well and truly crashed into its “French moment”, and I don’t know if there will ever again be a tracked IFV in service.

At this point, my personal opinion is that AJAX should not survive. The money yet not sunk on AJAX would be redirected primarily towards more BOXERs (because that is the only thing that can be purchased quickly, and expanding the order is cheaper than trying to launch a separate procurement for something else) and towards a modest expansion of the CHALLENGER 3 project. However, given the current situation and the fact that the Army is clearly afraid that, if it lets go of this deal for 589 AFVS, it will not be able to get them replaced, it is indispensable to consider the scenario in which AJAX does survive.

 

We can only guess, at this stage, how the Army thinks it will fight in the future. The Future Soldier plan deliberately avoids venturing into the shape of the “warfighting division” on deployment, unlike Army 2020 Refine, the previous plan.

Under Army 2020 Refine, 3^rd Division was going to have 2 armoured infantry brigades and 2 STRIKE brigades, but the planning assumption was that, on deployment, only one of the STRIKE formations would go. The equipment allocations went hand in hand with that assumption, because at no point of the STRIKE odyssey there was a funded, well-timed plan to get to both brigades being fully resourced.

Now 3^rd Division is down to 2 armoured infantry “Brigade Combat Teams” and a “Deep Recce & Strike Brigade Combat Team” which will see the current 1^st Armoured Infantry Brigade merge with 1^st Artillery Brigade in Summer 2022.

I’m guessing that the whole package is expected to deploy in the field, but the document does not exactly gives us confirmations or any detail about the timeframes and other accompanying conditions and assumptions.

 

Assuming the whole package is now expected to deploy, the principal changes are the greater number of BOXER battalions and AJAX regiments that would deploy.

Future Soldier lists 5 BOXER-mounted infantry battalions, up from 4 in the Army 2020 Refine plan (2 per each STRIKE brigade). If the whole package is to be deployable, this is an increase from 2 to 5 “deployable” BOXER units.

Of course, it does not compensate the fact that, under Army 2020 Refine, there were going to be 4 WARRIOR-mounted battalions in addition to the ones on BOXER.

The number of AJAX regiments is the same (4, with the fourth to be obtained by having King’s Royal Hussars regiment losing MBTs to convert to AJAX instead), but their distribution has changed: instead of being assigned in pairs to each STRIKE brigade (so with the assumption that only 2 out of 4 would simultaneously deploy) they are now assigned as follows:

1x in each Armoured Infantry BCT

2x in the Deep Recce Strike BCT

If the whole package is going to be deployable, the assumption is that AJAX units will be held at higher readiness to deploy and will have an even more important role to play.

 

We can also speculate on the Why.

In a STRIKE brigade, one AJAX regiment would be in “Armoured Cavalry” configuration, and would have reconnaissance and screening as its main role. The other, controversially, was going to be known as “Medium Armour” and would have had the exact same AJAX vehicles, organized differently, more akin to a Tank regiment, with the mission of supplying the very lightly armed BOXERs with intimate fire support.

 

In practice, once in the field the STRIKE brigade was going to possibly parcel out “Cavalry” squadrons to cover the reconnaissance needs, while organizing the rest of its resources in combined arms battlegroups that, by default, would have included:

1x Medium Armour Squadron (14 AJAX in 4 Sabre Troops and 2 more in the HQ, plus a section of 4 ARES carrying JAVELIN teams)

2x Mechanized Infantry Companies on BOXER (12 Infantry Carrier Vehicles in 3 Rifle Platoons, 1 Ambulance, 3 more for the OC, 2IC and CSM respectively)

 

Internal Wargaming of the STRIKE brigade. A battlegroup with the standard Medium Armour Sqn is visible nearest to the camera.  

BOXER, being lightly armed and, unlike WARRIOR, unable to drive the infantry onto the target and deliver supporting fire on the spot, was (and is) expected to dismount the infantry a “safe” distance away from the target. The dismounts would have gotten their intimate fire support not by their APCs, but by AJAX.

In the Armoured Infantry Brigade, of course, the WARRIOR covers both bases (at the cost of carrying 2 dismounts less) and works alongside the CHALLENGER tanks.

 

That was the previous plan. What happens now?

Despite much talk of attempts to improve the armament of at least some of the BOXERs, they remain wheeled APCs which the Army continues to see as unsuited for driving onto the target. The Army has been very clear and consistent in saying that BOXER is not and won’t be a WARRIOR replacement, because it does not have that kind of capability.

Unfortunately, however, the BOXER is physically replacing WARRIOR anyway. It will take its place into the infantry battalions that would have had WARRIOR, and will take over the garages and bases in Salisbury plain. It will sit within the Armoured Infantry Brigades, since the STRIKE brigades are no more.

It will replace WARRIOR... while being in no way adequate to replace WARRIOR. Wonders of British Army planning!

 

This situation means that the firepower gap that AJAX was meant to fill in the STRIKE battlegroups not only is unchanged and undiminished, it is literally 100% worse since WARRIOR will be withdrawn from service.

Future Soldier no longer lists any of the AJAX regiments as “Medium Armour”, but i suspect this is just a cosmetic change.

As we have seen, when STRIKE was a thing and the 2 Armoured Brigades had no Cavalry of their own at all, they were supposed to be supported for their reconnaissance and screening needs by elements coming from the single STRIKE brigade, aka from 2 AJAX regiments.

 

Under the new plan, the 2 armoured BCTs each have an AJAX regiment, and 2 more sit into the Deep Recce Strike BCT. This means 4 AJAX regiments potentially in the field at once. All of them, if we look at the names on paper, to cover Cavalry tasks.

Do we believe to that? Until yesterday, 2 AJAX regts were supposed to be enough to deliver recce, screening and fire support organic to the STRIKE Battlegroups proper, with the Armoured Brigades having no cavalry on their own, and now the Cavalry requirement is virtually doubled...?

 

I don’t think so. It seems clear to me that, while the Army is (rightly so) too embarrassed to call AJAX “medium armour” anymore, the requirement for it to support the infantry is more acute than ever before. With WARRIOR gone, there is nothing else that can deliver the supporting fire of a high-elevation, quick firing gun to suppress infantry, light armour and enemy ATGW teams. 

Logic suggest that the Deep Recce & Strike BCT with its 2 AJAX regiment will do the cavalry job... and the AJAX regiments in the Armoured BCTs will, regardless of names and titles, end up playing that “medium armour” role.

I’ll be controversial about it and say that, by accident and inability to set sensible priorities, the British Army is on the path to (poorly and remotely) emulate the Russian “TERMINATOR” vehicle concept by having AJAX, a non-tank, non-IFV, provide intimate support to tanks and infantry.

 

If AJAX is to stay, I can only hope there is a decent technical solution to its vibration and noise problems. What is not going away is fact that AJAX and BOXER are 2 unfinished projects thrown together in despair to create something that is workable, but way too expensive and awkward for what it does.

I honestly don't think there are alternatives for a wheeled, under-armed APC and a vehicle-with-firepower-of-upgraded-Warrior-but-unable-to-carry-dismounts. All you can do is have APC sitting back, disgorging dismounts some distance away while AJAX “plays Warrior” accompanying them.

 

I’ll also have to try and guess how the Army now expects to kit out 5 infantry battalions with BOXER without new vehicles being purchased. In this case i must assume they have done what i’ve long been saying would be unavoidable, and changed the mix of variants in the order.

For example, I think the 60 engineer section vehicles  could probably have been switched to Infantry carriers: remember that Future Soldier downgrades the previous plan from 4 brigades to 2, effectively, and there is already an engineer variant of AJAX, the ARGUS, on order.

Until recently, we can assume ARGUS would have equipped the Armoured Infantry Brigade’s engineer regiments, while the BOXERs would have gone to the engineer regiments of the STRIKE brigades. Now, there are only the former left to equip.

The order for 61 ambulances could also have been cut back sharply, as well as the (absolutely out of balance) 123 between Command Posts and Command Post – Utility vehicles.

 

Finally, a comment on another case of British Army contradictory decisions: it appears likely that the Mobile Fires Platform project, for the replacement of the AS90 with a new 155/52 gun, has seen its requirement slashed significantly. Possibly by half, despite the Army’s narrative being a greater focus on the Deep battle and long range Fires.

The requirement previously fluctuated between 98 and 116 guns, but with one firm assumption: 4 regiments would get the new gun. 2 regiments for the armoured infantry brigades (19 RA and 1 RHA) and 2 for the STRIKE brigades (3 RHA and 4 RA).

But under future soldier, 3 RHA is converting to GMLRS, and its place in support of 4 “Light BCT” is taken by 103 Royal Artillery Regiment (Reserve). Very big doubts hang over the deployability of 4^th Light BCT as its Combat Support and Combat Service Support are all dependent on Reservists showing up when needed. Moreover, it is now going to be an extremely light brigade, and this makes it very difficult to imagine 103 RA being outfitted with MFP.

4 RA will support 7^th Light Mechanised BCT and might still get MFP, eventually.

Instinctively, i say that the MFP requirement has just stealthily been cut by 25 to 50%. 

  

 

An alternative Future Soldier

 

In my alternative proposal, Infantry battalions take (kind of) even more of a hit, in favour of building up the range of supports needed to ensure there are more Combined Arms Formations that can be formed and put into the field. The Army Special Operations Brigade and the Ranger regiment remain, but the parallel Security Force Assistance Brigade is removed in favour of manpower going to other roles.

 

The main design drivers of my alternative proposal are:

 

-          North and South focus. The UK’s national strategy has, now more than ever, a two-pronged (3 if we include Central / Eastern Europe) shape with the conclusion of key agreements with “High North” countries (Canada, Norway and the rest of the Joint Expeditionary Force partners) and other important deals concluded with partners in the Middle East, with India and in Asia.

The Future Commando Force is reflecting this double focus by forming two Littoral Response Groups but it is clear to me that the Army must add its weight to ensure each region benefits from a more capable and credible UK forward presence.

 

-          Finding and Striking is going to be key in the future. This is an assumption we hear all the time, and which the previous Chief of Defence Staff constantly repeated, but there is little to no evidence of any real action being taken to ensure British forces can Find and Acquire targets quickly and hit them at long range. The upgrade to M270B1 launchers and the acquisition of longer range GMLRS rockets and new payload options is an excellent start but is not sufficient.

Key to my proposal is the repurposing of multiple infantry battalions into composite units which, taking example from 30 Commando IX in 3 Commando Brigade, will assume a long-range “Recce-Strike” and Brigade HQ support role. These units will also become responsible for Mini UAVs and suitable Uncrewed Ground Vehicles once these will become available, in particular combat UGVs compatible with Conceptual Force 2035’s aim of using autonomous vehicles to “push reconnaissance forth to the point of destruction” in order to increase op tempo. 

With mini-UAVs being distributed out directly to the infantry, 32 Royal Artillery regiment will instead convert to lightweight GMLRS launchers.

The official Future Soldier plan assigns 1 Royal Irish to 16 Air Assault brigade in such a role, although detail is still scarce and my proposal might still be significantly different. Each brigade will get such a battalion under my plan.

 

-          The British Armed Forces already possess most of the expensive “ingredients” needed to build up a powerful Air Mobile force. Future Soldier seems to (finally) have noticed and has started exploiting them with plans for the “Global Response Force”, but i’m urging an even greater focus on this area.

 

-          My alternative plan keeps the Army Special Operations Brigade and the Rangers, but sacrifices the Security Force Assistance Brigade in favour of resourcing the manoeuvre brigades. I think the Rangers, being meant from the start as a capable fighting force that will accompany local allies and carry out SOF raids, can carve a useful role for themselves even though the Joint Force would be hard pressed to supply the wide panoply of supports that would be needed for the concept to truly work. I’m far less convinced by the usefulness of the SFAB, because I simply don’t think courses in basic soldiering skills are what partners need. 

 

-          I hope the Reserve can provide more formed units and more capabilities in the future, but i’m not prepared to make one of already way too few brigades dependent on Reservists showing up when and as required. The core BCTs must be manned by regulars and provided with sufficient CS and CSS support.

 

1^st Division

In my Army proposal, 1^st Division is devoted to Forward Presence and Rapid Reaction. Forward Presence being a major, national strategy and involving the Future Commando Force and the indispensable support of Navy and Royal Navy units, the Division becomes a joint unit, effectively absorbing Joint Task Force HQ and integrating 3^rd Commando Brigade in its mechanism of force generation to cover the North and South tasks.

1^st Division will take command of 1^st Aviation BCT, 16 Air Assault BCT, 3 Commando and 7^th Mechanized BCT.

 

1^st Division will become a High Readiness, highly active deployable HQ, integrating in itself Joint Task Force HQ functions (and resources). It will be strengthened to account for the fact that it will be expected to oversee permanently forward deployed forces and command quick reaction operations.

30 Signal Regiment has the single Aviation Support comms Sqn, but sits in 1st Signal Brigade and under ARRC. Why has everything got to be this convoluted? Why can't the British Army just put things where they are needed, and cut down some of the intricacy?

30 Signal Regiment, which is primarily tasked with JTFHQ and JHC support already, will consequently become an organic element of the Division’s Information Maneouvre Component, alongside 2 Signal Regiment and an Intelligence battalion integrating joint force elements. 244 Aviation Support Signal Sqn will go directly to the Aviation Brigade.

 

A Recce and Fires Group will be formed around 32 Regiment Royal Artillery as it re-equips with a lightweight, rapidly deployable new missile launcher, either LIMAWS(R) resurrected or the USMC’s ROGUE/NMESIS. These lightweight launchers, which will be able to deploy by air, move long distances by road and being carried under slung by CHINOOK, would add that “strategic” dimension to both the air mobile and future commando force that is currently missing. Compatibility with GMLRS ammunition, up to the Precision Strike Missile to come (with ranges of 500 Km or more) and even to Naval Strike Missile (the NMESIS solution) would massively expand the usefulness of the light raiding forces, and make them lethal.

One note i will add here is that plans to acquire and develop new warhead and payload options for GMLRS rockets are the one truly good news of Future Soldier and i hope the Army will truly prioritize this. The acquisition of the Alternative Warhead for Convention-compliant area attack is crucial to restore the M270’s destructive ability, and the intention to add “explosive and non-explosive barriers to constrain vehicle movement; missile-deployed sensors; and radio frequency effects” are to be welcomed. Russia leads NATO by a mile in this kind of advanced artillery capability, and if the UK manages to develop effective payloads it could not only improve the Army’s position but potentially secure huge export wins across NATO.

The Recce and Fires Group will also include one Electronic Warfare regiment: Future Soldier already plans to convert 21 Royal Signal in a second EW formation. In my plan 14 Regt would focus on 1^st Division (it already includes the LEWTs for 16 Air Assault) and would maintain an EW Sqn for each brigade (3 Commando already provides its own EW) plus a Divisional Sqn.

Unlike the Deep Recce & Strike Group at present, which is a mammoth formation of 2 heavy cav, 2 light cav, 2 GMLRS regiments, 2 AS90 regiments and a STA regiment absurdly without any organic RLC unit to carry the immense amount of ammunition and supplies required, the Recce and Fires Group will absolutely need to have at least one organic, regular logistic regiment, plus a Reserve transport regiment specifically focused on ammunition and in particular GMLRS pods.

With each Division having equal “dignity” even if not equal weight, Air Defence needs will be equal as well. In my plan, 12 and 16 Regiments will be assigned one per Division and will become mixed regiments comprising SHORAD and MRAD batteries. Being based on the very same installation and very much working side by side, there shouldn’t be excessive issues in adopting a mix that, in the field, would be inevitable anyway.

An additional Surveillance and Target Acquisition regiment will need to be formed, so each Division has access to indispensable sensors including counter-battery radars.

The Recce and Fires Group for 1^st Division will have 2 scout battlegroups formed around Light Cavalry, initially with Jackals and, one day, with an enclosed light vehicle better suited to operations including in extreme cold.

 

1^st Aviation Brigade Combat Team changes

1^st Aviation BCT will expand and rationalize its organisation. Elements of one infantry battalion, plus 244 Signal Squadron (from 30 Signal Regiment) and Landing Zone reconnaissance and communication parties from the current Joint Helicopter Support Squadron will be used to create a Command and Support Battalion that will deliver deployable HQs, communications, ground reconnaissance and force protection.

 

The RAF Chinook Squadrons will formally come under the BCT’s command, organized into a Heavy Regiment through the formation of appropriate ground life support teams for operations in the field, on the model of existing AAC regiments. At the moment, the RAF Support Force is more tied to established airbases and does not come with the kind of organic life support found in AAC Regts.

The same would happen with the new Medium helicopters, to be organized in a Medium Regiment which will have 2 of its Squadrons forward based by default (84 Sqn in Cyprus, 667 Sqn in Brunei).

 

The RAF Tactical Supply Wing will merge with 132 RLC Sqn and elements of the current JHSS to form a single, integrated Aviation Sustainment Battalion.

7 REME will lose command of 132 RLC Sqn and carry on focusing only on Aviation Maintenance.

158 Aviation Support Battalion RLC (Reserve) will become organic to the BCT it is meant to support. 

47 Royal Artillery with its WATCHKEEPER batteries would be part of the Aviation Brigade due to the sizeable ground footprint required by the drone.

 

16 Air Assault Brigade Combat Team changes

Largely the same changes already planned in Future Soldier: a third logistic squadron and artillery battery to be formed so that each battlegroup (2 PARA, 3 PARA, 1/2 GURKHA) is supported.

1 R IRISH joining the brigade as a Recce and Strike Formation. Keeping pace with my conception of this unit, which should in no small part reproduce what 30 Commando successfully does for 3 Commando, this battalion will effectively also absorb 216 Signal Sqn and the Brigade’s deployable HQ, to ensure its force protection and life support.

R IRISH will also supply patrols / a mounted Brigade Reconnaissance and Surveillance Sqn, effectively integrating the Pathfinders into what will really be a composite unit, no longer a “true” infantry formation.

An EW battery and a Light Air Defence Battery will complete this battlegroup, on permanent alignment from 14 Royal Signal Regiment and 12 Royal Artillery Regiment respectively, much as already happens today.

The priority for the brigade would be the acquisition of CHINOOK-portable light vehicles to increase its mobility on the ground. The new Battlegroup Organic Anti-Armour solution should obviously include a scaled-down launcher option compatible with these light vehicles; the current trailer-mounted EXACTOR can be the stopgap on the way there.

 

7^th Brigade Combat Team

In my plan, this brigade becomes “joined at the hip” with the Future Commando Force’s Littoral Response Groups, forming a North group, with focus on Norway and the Arctic, and a South group focused on Middle East and beyond.

The brigade will still be “light mechanized”, but it would receive the VIKING as its primary fighting vehicle, because it is amphibious and proven both in Arctic scenarios and in hot, sandy and muddy ground.

The brigade will technically be quaternary, but its 4 battalions will be split into two groups, one for forward deployment in Oman, and the other focused on Norway deployments. Each group having 2 battalions enables a yearly rotation to spread out the pressure.

In combination with the afloat LRG provided by the Royal Marines, these heavier, mechanized battlegroups ensure the UK has a more credible force at readiness in both regions. Obviously the Artillery regiment would have 4 batteries to ensure proper battlegrouping, and the Close Support Logistic regiment should ideally receive, over time, at least a basic fleet of all-terrain, Arctic-compatible heavy duty cargo carriers able to ensure appropriate intimate support even in the most demanding terrain.

4 Artillery Regiment would receive the Mobile Fires Platform in the 2030s, replacing the L118.

The brigade will have, as per my introduction, a “Recce-Strike” battlegroup delivering brigade reconnaissance in deep, screening, communications and force protection for the HQ in the field. The unit will integrate the deployable brigade HQ and its Signal Sqn.

32 Royal Engineers will provide close support engineering, and a Close Support RLC regiment will, over time, acquire at least a basic fleet of heavy duty logistic platforms compatible with snow and the atrocious terrain of the high north. Budget restrictions mean this will have to be a gradual transformation, but if priorities were steady, progressive improvements would be possible.

 

3 Commando Brigade changes  

The Commando brigade would undergo some level of change by continuing its already ongoing split into two Groups, North and South. Specifically, i’m advocating 42 and 47 Commando to mix their respective capabilities. Right now, 42 Commando concentrates all of the ship boarding and ship force protection teams, as well as Mentoring tasks and a Sqn assigned to Joint Personnel Recovery role; 47 Commando groups the Landing Craft Sqns and the boat raiding Sqn.

I think it would be beneficial to split the capabilities across the two units and have them assigned to the two geographic focus points. Each “maritime Commando” will deliver:  

-          Boarding Teams and Force Protection with the adequate force and equipment mix for the relative areas. In general, most boarding happens in the LRG (South) area, normally.

-          Boat / Raiding Sqn, to be equipped with more capable combat boats as soon as practicable

-          Landing Craft Sqn

-          Joint Personnel Recovery

 LRG (North) would be delivered by 45 and 47 Commando plus supports; (South) would be the remit of 40 and 42 Commando.

 

 

3^rd Division

 

The Iron Division will continue to be the Heavy division (or “warfighting” if you like the Americanism) and will have 3 manoeuvre brigades: 12 and 20 armoured BCTs and 4^th Light BCT. The inclusion of the Light BCT can appear counter-intuitive, but it was always planned that 3^rd Division, on deployment, would call on the services of the Vanguard Light Brigade for rear area security, prisoners management and all sort of other supporting tasks. In my proposal, 4^th BCT would also be Light Mechanized, anyway, by inheriting the Foxhound (and Mastiff / Ridgback) from 7^th BCT as the latter gets VIKINGs.

 

The divisional enablers will include of course a Recce and Fires Group centered on 26 RA (and 101 RA of the Reserve) with M270B1 GMLRS. 5 RA delivering STA, 16 RA delivering SHORAD and MRAD, 21 Royal Signal delivering EW.

The one difference from 1^st Division’s Group would be the 2 Recce-Strike battlegroups which, in this case, would be square Combined Arms Regiments comprising a cavalry “battalion” with 2 AJAX Sabre Sqns plus supports and an infantry “battalion” of two rifles companies on BOXER, plus a regimental support company with mortars, long range ATGWs (to be acquired under the Battlegroup Organic Anti-Armour project).

 

 

Armoured BCTs

This model of Combined Arms Regiment would be the core of the Armoured BCTs as well, for the reasons explained at length in the introduction. You’ve heard me talk of the Combined Arms Regiment in a multitude of articles in the past, so i won’t repeat it all here.

I will just note that, due to the “particular” situation of today’s British Army, needing to combine AJAX and BOXER to, effectively, replace effects normally associated to the IFV alone, i’m keeping the tank regiments separated.

Instead of a single Type 58 regiment, each brigade would have 2 smaller tank regiments (ideally Type 44, with a slight increase to the total number of CHALLENGER 3 to be acquired over time), to go along with 2 Combined Arms Regiments.

The Armoured BCTs would need to be, virtually, at the same level of readiness for the deployment of both to be feasible in a Division-level operation, but in truth we’ll have to assume a more graduated cycle of readiness and engagement.

One brigade at “higher” readiness could be committed to central-eastern Europe, with elements of one Combined Arms Regiment plus tanks and supports in Estonia for operation CABRIT and the other Combined Arms Regiment and tank regiment in Germany.

The other brigade could, in the same year, rotate its battlegroups through Oman’s training area to deliver the heavier element of Forward Presence in the (South) sector and to exploit greater training spaces and maintain experience of operations in arid climates.

The Close Support Artillery regiments with AS90 (and then MFP) would be organic to the BCTs in my plan, as well as Close Support Logistic.

The Armoured BCTs would have their own Recce-Strike formation to support the HQ, deliver reconnaissance in deep and UAV support and organic tactical intelligence.

If Future Soldier is to truly deliver BCTs that are more capable of independent action, this is simply indispensable.

 

4^th Light Mechanized BCT

That 4th Light Brigade Combat Team as envisioned in the current Future Soldier is not a (reliably) deployable brigade is evident by the fact that the totality of its Combat Support and Combat Service Support roles are to be covered by the Reserve.

With all due respect for the Reserve and with all possible optimism in the expansion of their role and ability to field formed units, it appears to me that this arrangement will too often not work satisfactorily.

 

That 4^th BCT is yet another brigade becoming an undeployable paper tiger due to the Army’s obsession to cling on to more infantry battalions than it can possibly support is further evidence by the fact that 1st Division has a single Signal regiment. 3rd Division has 1 divisional regt and 2 "brigade" regts. The current ORBAT is just NOT built around what is needed to deploy force in the field.

We KNOW that a Bde needs, at a MINIMUM, a Signal Sqn for its HQ and Comms. Army currently assigns a whole regt to its (few) decent bdes, with 1 Sqn delivering Armoured HQ (where applicable) and 1 delivering Network, plus Sp Sqn. A Bde is nothing if it can't command & communicate.

 

"We need X battalions of infantry because there is the Cyprus and Publid Duty rotation, you know" is technically true, but the Army cannot continue to use this shield to defend a constant erosion of the CS and CSS elements that make a Brigade a meaningful combined arms formation.

21 Signal Regt becomes EW, and that's fantastic. More EW is needed. But can price of some more EW really be leaving 4th Brigade without Signal support? 3 RHA becomes a GMLRS regiment, and again that's good, but the price can't be leaving 4th Bde depending wholly on the Reserve.

My solution to all of these problems is the Recce-Strike combined arms formation at brigade level, as it combines a combat role suited to infantry and cavalry with indispensable current capabilities including a Signal Sqn for the brigade’s C2 needs and a tactical UAV unit.

The remaining Signal resources, grouped in regiments assigned to the Divisions, can deliver theatre-wide network support while the Signals organic to the brigades deliver the BCT’s intimate needs.

With 32 RA no longer being the lone custodian of mini UAVs, it can convert to Light GMLRs as said earlier, and 3 RHA can continue in the close support artillery role.

 

4^th Brigade will be based around 4 Light Mechanized battalions on deployment, but will have more battalions at its command to account for the needs of Cyprus.

Cyprus absorbs 2 battalions, one of which is a garrison force while the other, from several years already, is a Theatre Reserve Battalion, effectively forward based on the island for rapid insertion in the Mediterranean and Middle East area. This would make it one of the 4 primary manoeuvre units of the brigade.

The brigade would also control the garrison battalion, but that would be additional to the manoeuvre strength, not considered part of it proper. The Cyprus-task would continue to be rotated through the brigade’s battalions.

3 RHA would still be aiming for the Mobile Fires Platform, in my plan.

 

The Reserve

Future Soldier is a bit contradictory on how best to organize the Reserve to ensure it can force-generate for deployment. Several Reserve units are organic to Regular BCTs, while many more are assigned to 19^th Brigade, which will resurrect in 2022 to take care of the reserve force generation cycle.

Personally, i’m going to recommend going with specific brigading of the Reserve, outside but alongside Regular BCTs.

As i’ve said from the beginning, 11^th Brigade will not take a Security Force Assistance role in my plan. Instead, it will become a Reserve brigade (Heavy), assigned to 3^rd Division to support primarily the armoured BCTs.

It will take ownership of units that Future Soldier currently assigns directly to the Armd BCTs, from 104 Royal Artillery to the Royal Wessex Yeomanry, moving through the Reserve battalion counterparts to the BOXER-mounted regulars.

 

19^th Brigade will be the Reserve brigade for 1^st Division, taking command of 103 Royal Artillery and the reserve infantry battalions as well as the reserve CS and CSS units currently assigned to 4^th BCT.

 

Public Duty

Future Soldier has started a welcome revolution in how Public Duties are provided, reducing the requirement from 2 regular battalions to 1, thanks to the creation of “Public Duties Teams”, presumably based on the current Incremental Guards Companies. There will be 8 teams, apparently, with up to 3 on duty at any one time.

Support will be provided by the reserves of the LONDON regiment, which is receiving the Guards title.

 

 

In conclusion

My plan would impact the Infantry quite severely. Many battalions would need to become “hybrid” formations less about traditional infanteering and more about UAVs, patrols, surveillance and target acquisition. I believe this is in the interest of the Army’s capability, however, and an inevitable consequence of having to accommodate the largest number of capable Combined Arms Formations into a constrictive ceiling of 73.000 regulars.

 

Emphasis is put on ensuring regular CS and CSS support, as well as Surveillance and Target Acquisition, are available more widely and assuredly across the formations.

Note that these are all things that the Army and Secretary of State for Defence say are needed; the problem is that Future Soldier as currently published does not follow those directions.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly of the BOXER purchase

 

A Written Answer has finally provided interesting details about the british purchase of BOXER vehicles. Minister Jeremy Quin, on 9 June, said:

 

Details of the variants of Boxer currently on order by quantity can be found in the table below. The Department is looking to enhance and uplift the size of the total UK Boxer order as we work to implement the Integrated Review. This may include new variants and partnering opportunities with industry and our Allies.

 

First, the Good: the Minister gives up new hopes that an expansion of the order might still happen. For a while, MOD talk had pretty much killed off any hope in this sense, but the answer is pretty univocal in suggesting that there will be adjustments.

The list offers many surprises because so far we had been given very little reason to believe there would be such a wide range of sub-variants. An Engineer Section vehicle was expected, but nothing had so far been heard about a Mortar Carrying vehicle. A Repair sub-variant is also an interesting semi-surprise.

It is interesting to note that the “Command Post” is expected to come in a significant number of sub-variants as well, including OPV (a surprisingly old fashioned definition) for Fires direction; an Electronic Warfare & SIGINT sub-variant and a BLOS comms carrier.

The inclusion of these sub-variants is, for the most part, Good. How good, we will only know when the effective mission fit becomes known. The mortar carrying vehicle, for example: will it an APC giving mobility to a L16 81mm mortar team? Will it at least have a turntable and roof port for firing from inside the vehicle, or not even that…? Or maybe there is scope to finally adopt a turreted, heavy mortar…? Unlikely, but it would be a great capability boost and, for the moment, we just don’t know what might or might not happen.

The “Recce / Fire Support Vehicle” is probably the APC “up-gunned” with JAVELIN on the RWS. Around 50 such enhanced fits were expected, and the removal from service of WARRIOR has given new impetus to attempts to further improve the otherwise pretty dismal firepower of MIV.

A notable aspect is that several of these sub-variants will bring entirely new capabilities that the BOXER family, at present, does not offer. The development of the relevant modules should happen in the UK, according to know commercial agreements, and there could be some genuine export potential as well, if the resulting product is valid. 

While it remains dubious, at best, that BOXER's modularity will ever have a usefulness in terms of "on the battlefield re-roling", the possibility of developing mission modules in isolation from the base vehicle should greatly ease the creation of new variants and sub-variants 

The Bad is undoubtedly the tiny number of Infantry Carriers, an incomprehensible 85. Even assuming the Fire Support Vehicle is effectively an upgunned infantry carrier despite being counted in with the “Specialists”, the combined number of 147 vehicles is still insufficient to equip 4 infantry battalions.

They are numbers more appropriate to just 2 battalions… which is what Army 2020 Refine needed, since the plan specifically called for the ability to deploy only one of the 2 STRIKE brigades at a time. 1 Brigade, 2 battalions.

 Indeed, this might be the explanation for the tiny number of ICVs in the order.

The loss of WARRIOR means that such a plan no longer makes any sense, and adjustements are indispensable.

And this leads us straight to the Ugly side of this list: the overlap / confliction with AJAX.

Until a short time ago, the UK was of course planning to equip 2 armoured brigades and 2 STRIKE brigades on top. Although AJAX itself was going to be in the STRIKE Brigades for the most part, it appears clear that the support variants of the family (ARGUS for the engineers, ATHENA command posts, ARES, APOLLO, ATLAS) were primarily destined to units aligned with the tracked, armoured brigades.

ARGUS would work alongside TITAN and TROJAN in the two heavy engineer regiments, for example, with BOXER ESV working with the 2 engineer regiments of the STRIKE brigades instead.

Now, however, there will only be 2 heavy mechanized Brigade Combat Teams in total, with the other two BCTs being Light Role. Clearly, you are not going to put the engineers in BOXERs while the infantry of the brigade moves, at best, in FOXHOUND with JACKAL for fire support.

This means, effectively, that the 52 ARGUS and the 60 BOXER Engineer Section Vehicles are now virtually overlapping directly, as there are only 2 Engineer regiments of this weight class to re-equip, not 4. The OPV variant, similarly, is increasingly overlapping with the number of AJAX to be kitted for Joint Fires direction.

The sum of 112 ATHENA command posts and 123 between BOXER command posts and command-utility vehicles also leads to a frankly absurd situation in which the UK will have a Command Post vehicle virtually for every single Infantry Carrying vehicle in service army-wide (up to 147 BOXER, as discussed earlier, plus 93 ARES, vs 112 + 123 command posts). A 1:1 ratio is clearly insane.  

I think it unavoidable that this overlap will need correcting, somehow.

We have all been following with increasing despair and rage the embarrassing situation of AJAX and it is hard not to muse about the implications of these sub-variants. if there are only two “heavy” regiments to equip, you suddenly only need one of the two sub-fleets, not both. In practice, if AJAX was to be cancelled, the loss of ARGUS would not be an immediate issue.

This generates unpleasant thoughts.

A more optimistic way of looking at it is that, if AJAX survives and the BOXER sub-variants are acquired in these numbers,  the Army then “only” needs to procure more Infantry Carriers to get back in a position in which it can properly mechanize all 4 Brigade Combat Teams. The 2 armoured brigades would keep the AJAX-based support variants, for obvious reasons, while the “Light BCTs” could be progressively uplifted with BOXER to become fully-wheeled formations.

Third option: the current balance of variants and sub-variants is modified, drastically reducing the number of BOXERs to be used as “Command Posts” and Engineer Section Vehicles, in favor of more ICVs / FSVs.

One thing is clear: this is the Army's position in regards to BOXER at the moment 

Judging from the list, an increase in the number of ICVs is both urgent and unavoidable. What’s left to be discovered is what adjustments will be adopted to make that increase possible.

 

The British Army: where do we go from here...?

The reckoning 

We are weeks away from the publication of the long awaited, much anticipated and very much feared Integrated Review and, in particular, of the Defence White Paper which should provide “details”. I think that previous experiences have made us all wary about what the MOD considers “details” and one of my greatest fears is that we will, in fact, be given vague promises that will keep us all wondering for the next few years.

Most of the other fears have, as was always predicted, the British Army at their centre. My increasingly exasperated battles in the last 5 years over the shocking self-harm that the Army was committing in pursuing the half-formed STRIKE at the expense of everything else are, sadly, looking likely to be vindicated. The questions that I’ve been formulating for 5 years are still without an answer, and the Army is reportedly about to pay dearly for its failure. If the leaks to the press are accurate, the British Army will disband at least 4 infantry battalions and will progressively settle downwards to a trained strength target of around 72.000, rather than 82.000.

And if that seems a painful price to pay, be wary that there will potentially be far more pain caused by the other reported cut: the loss of the whole WARRIOR fleet, mitigated apparently by a wish to “accelerate” the procurement of BOXER.

I made this scheme in November 2015. The ink on the SDSR's pages was virtually not dry yet, but already there were questions and risks evident in the just announced Force Structure. The following years have not provided answers; just evidenced further problems. 

There are key things we still don’t know, so estimating the full magnitude of what will happen is not yet possible. Chiefly, we do not know if there will be additional purchases to expand the BOXER fleet. This becomes the absolutely key question, followed by the determination of which roles BOXER will go on to cover. Will a turreted variant be added? Will a mortar variant appear?

The MBT – IFV combo is the heart of any modern army. CHALLENGER 2 LEP+ appears to be going ahead, according to the latest reports, and this is a great relief. Apparently, around 150 tanks will receive the new turret with the smoothbore 120mm cannon and all the new sensors and electronics. This is a remarkably small number but not truly surprising: the British Army has been planning for just 2 regular tank regiments for the best part of 5 years now. As the Army pursued its STRIKE dream, it instructed the 3rd MBT regiment, the King’s Royal Hussars, that it would eventually convert to AJAX.

A more recent scheme i produced to try and help people realize just how far the ripples travel through the armour if you cut CHALLENGER 2, WARRIOR, or both. They are the heart of everything the Army is, and you can't expect to rip the heart out without causing consequences. 

The British Army has recently reverted to its traditional Type 58 structure for MBT regiments, so the regular fleet will number 116 tanks, with a small reserve fleet on top. Too small, in fact, to even contemplate the possibility of rebuilding a third frontline regiment from the single Reserve MBT formation, the Royal Wessex Yeomanry.

A very questionable approach to that “regeneration” capability that the Army only ever pays lip service to, but this is how things stand. After the LEP+ upgrade, at least, the CHALLENGER 2 will finally live up to the otherwise largely undeserved hype that surrounds it.   

Losing the IFVs is however going to create massive headaches and a ripple of problems that will travel far and wide.

The above graphic, which I first made back in august 2020, hopefully helps in visualizing the ramifications of such a cut.

Just how bad it will get, we will only know once we are told if new BOXERs are happening, or not. The British Army will be keenly hoping for permission to commit money towards additional BOXER purchases and more variants.

They have always hoped that this would eventually happen: the MIV programme tender documents specify that arrangements have been made to keep the door open for the purchase of more vehicles. There are enough options for getting to a fleet of some 1500 vehicles in total, with specific mention that more variants could be added, and indeed developed in the UK.

All the way back in 2018, when those documents were published, I wrote a post about it, noting that it very much suggested a serious appetite within the Army to “go wheeled”, the way the French did with VBCI and then with GRIFFON/JAGUAR/SERVAL.

Back then I noted:

 

The notice specifies that additional variants and requirements could follow, and it specifically mentions the adoption of a “medium gun”, basically implying an IFV variant.

Moreover, the notice specifies that the MOD is asking for the option of ordering up to 900 more vehicles, for a total of 1500.

1500 does not appear to be a casual number: the Army has been planning for 380 upgraded Warriors; declares on its website 409 FV432 still in use; and fields / stores a fleet of 305 Mastiff Troop Carrier Vehicles plus 127 specialistic variants (Enhanced Communications Variant, Interim ECM, Interim EOD [possibly 23], ambulance, Protected Eyes / Praetorian) plus 118 Ridgback Troop Carrier Vehicles and 51 specialistic variants (Command, Ambulance), supported by 125 Wolfhound (Utility and at least 44 between Military Working Dog and EOD).

The total is 1515. Coincidence? Probably no.

It seems more and more likely that the troubled Warrior CSP will, in the end, be cancelled. This MIV notice seems to prepare for a WCSP cancellation scenario by making provision for the numbers and the addition of a medium gun.

 

In 2018, the increasingly dire situation of the Army’s plans was already pretty painfully evident and I urged the then Modernizing Defence Program to take a good, hard look at the whole mix of Army capabilities and choose a direction of travel. If tracks and wheels can’t be properly funded at the same time, and it was absolutely clear that they could not be, it only takes rationality to know that you have to pick one.

The French consciously picked the wheels side and have put all of their resources in building up a powerful wheeled force around their MBT fleet, which is pretty much the last tracked element in the Armee de Terre simply because it remains unreplaceable, regardless of the usual takes on how MBTs are supposedly obsolete.

The British Army could well have taken a similar decision.

But, and again I quote from my 2018 post, because the reality of facts is unchanged:

 

The replacement of WCSP with more MIV would put the British Army on the same path chosen by France with the VBCI, which entirely replaced their own tracked IFVs. Moreover, the replacement of FV432 with MIV variants would represent a rather dramatic shift in favor of wheels, completely changing the scenario that currently exists within the British Army.   

Such a change of heart would do wonders for commonality and obsolescence removal from what is an aging fleet of fleets, but it would also sideline Ajax even further, leading to further questions about where the tracked heir to FRES should sit.

Ever since the SDSR 2015 was published, Ajax has looked more and more lost, ultimately resulting in its “re-branding” into a “medium armour” capability which has, it is fair to say, convinced very few people.

 

AJAX, not WARRIOR, is the problem the British Army has created for itself.

To understand Army's pain in trying to shape its own vision for the Integrated Review, consider this: its absolute most expensive program is for a tracked family of vehicles, the AJAX gang, which delivers only a few roles, and is no Infantry Fighting Vehicle. In itself, it solves "nothing”, because you need WARRIOR, carrying the infantry, to give true meaning to the whole force.

The second most expensive program is for a wheeled APC which, by itself, also solves "nothing" because out of 523 BOXER, 15 are training vehicles and the 508 frontline ones are split between APCs, APCs with different internal arrangement for carrying engineers, artillery fire directors, JTACs and other “specialists” with related equipment, ambulances and command posts.

Once you put AJAX and BOXER together, you have burned over 10 billion pounds of budget room, but are left with a dysfunctional mix. There are a ton of tracked roles left uncovered, beginning with the absolutely key IFV but expanding to mortar carriers and supporting roles currently covered by FV432 in the hundreds.

And a ton of wheeled roles remain just as uncovered .

And the money is not enough to do both.

What is now happening in the Review was entirely predictable. As i've been writing for 5 years, the problem of how to mix AJAX and BOXER in a force structure that makes some kind of sense while also preserving at least the CHALLENGER MBTs is demanding an urgent answer. And poor WARRIOR is the designated victim at this point, because unlike BOXER and AJAX it is not yet under production contract.

It is merely the simplest one to cancel.

But make no mistake: WARRIOR is not the problem. AJAX is. Or BOXER, depending on whether you side with the track or with the wheel.

The truth is that the Army had the money and "ingredients" to outfit at least 3 excellent tracked, heavy brigades. In September 2014 it put AJAX under contract, and 2-3 more billions would have seen enough WARRIOR and CHALLENGER 2s upgraded to complete the renewal of 3^rd Division as had been imagined in the original Army 2020 plan (published 2011).

Alternatively, the Army could have chosen to “go French” and bet big on wheels, beginning a wholesale restructuring by going for a huge BOXER purchase to effectively drive WARRIOR, FV432 and CRV(T) out of the door over N years.

But the Army did not want to pick just one side. The Army wanted to have both, and while I can see why they would want that, I cannot forgive them for ignoring the evidence and putting themselves into this mess.

In September 2014 they committed the biggest chunk by far of their future budget on AJAX.

In November 2015 they made wheels their absolute priority, and ever since, STRIKE had dominated the Army’s vision, all the way up to the signing of the BOXER contract at the end of 2019. Just in time to arrive at the Integrated Review with CHALLENGER 2 LEP+ and WCSP still uncommitted and thus extremely vulnerable.

In the middle there was the whole saga of the “delayed Review” and the Review to stop the Review, also known as “Modernizing Defence Program”. What that saga did was signal, without any possible doubt, that the money was not there to pursue both tracks and wheels at once.

The Army made its choice in late 2019, putting all the money on BOXER. Considering the situation, this was a suicidal choice. With AJAX in place, the Army needed WCSP and CR2, not BOXER. Splitting an already insufficient budget inexorably condemns the Army to a sub-optimal mixture of tracks and wheels which will drag on for decades into the future.

The time for a big change of heart was before the AJAX contract was signed.

The moment AJAX was put under contract it should have become a fact of life that the time for adding an 8x8 fleet could only ever come after WCSP and CR2 LEP had been secured.

And the British Army itself used to know this basic reality: up to 2015, the MOD Major Projects Spreadsheet contained a single title that summarized the whole modernization of the Army’s armour fleets. The Mounted Close Combat Capability Change super-program was started March 16, 2010 with a Project End Date set for December 21, 2033. The budget over that timeframe was given as 17.251,81 million pounds.

In April 2014 that colossus was split into its different components: Armoured Cavalry 2025 (AJAX), Armour MBT 2025, Armoured Infantry 2026 (WCSP and ABSV) and Mechanised Infantry 2029.

A telling indication, which the SDSR 2015 and the STRIKE obsession eventually turned on its head, trying to get MIV into service from 2023, with operational capability for the new brigades in 2025. This change of heart is now having its entirely predictable consequences.

Now we are in the worst possible limbo, with a force that doesn’t have the tracked vehicles it needs for holding on to Armoured Brigades and at the same time doesn’t have the wheeled vehicles needed for a true Medium, wheeled force. Where do we go from here?

 

 

A look at the budget figures

The annual major projects spreadsheet from the MOD helps us track what the situation is.

The Armour MBT 2025 program started in 2014 and currently has a Project End date set for July 31, 2028.

This represents a 791 days extension  on the previous target of June 2026 and is due to the fact that in Financial Year 2019 the Army turned the original CHALLENGER Life Extension Program in LEP+.

Specifically, the latest Major Project spreadsheet, released in July 2020 and current to September 2019, reports on the sudden realization within the army that just upgrading the thermal sights was not going to do much.  

The scheduled baseline project end date at Q2 1920 (30th September 2019) is 31/07/28, has lengthened by 791 days since last year's Q2 1819 date of 01/06/26, due primarily to the following factors;

 

In this period the programme's scope was expanded from obsolescence only to include enhancements to its lethality and survivability. The expanded scope has also lengthened the time to complete the work and increased cost over the assessment, demonstration and  manufacture phases.  These dates are currently subject to negotiation and will be confirmed when the full business case has been approved. 

 

The baseline Whole Life Cost at Q2 1920 (30th September 2019) is £1,304.19 m, due primarily to the following factors;

 

 This reflects the financial position following the capability uplift endorsed by HMT. This sees a capability uplift and extension to the Main Battle Tank out to 2035.

 

 

The above restructuring of the program was confirmed in an utterly shambolic intervention of the Chief of the Defence Staff, previous Chief General Staff and mastermind of Army 2020 and Army 2020 Refine, General Sir Nick Carter, in front of the Defence Committee. From his words, it appears the Army was essentially unaware of the lethality issues of the multi-piece ammunition of the current cannon until 2019. This is, of course, completely false, considering that the Army was, in fact, looking for solutions already in the early 2000s, when the Challenger Lethality Improvement Programme was tentatively launched. It was in 2006 that a CHALLENGER 2 was first retrofitted with a 120mm smoothbore gun, in fact. Swapping the gun was never an issue: the issue was in the complete redesign needed to fix ammunition storage spaces and make room for the much longer single-piece rounds. This is the main issue to this day, and the chief reason for swapping out the entire turret. 

Have they forgotten everything about that phase? Was Carter being overly kind to his political masters, to the point of having the Army shouldering more blame that necessary? He was not shy earlier in the same hearing saying that some decisions depend on money: why, then, say something as hopelessly stupid as this about CR2 lethality problems suddenly "dawning" on an oblivious Army...? 

It’s one of the many mysteries of the last few years of Army decisions.

 

Armoured Cavalry 2025, also launched in 2014, is supposed to end on April 30, 2025 although this seems optimistic considering the current delays in acceptance for the turreted AJAX variant and the fact that only handfuls of ARES, APOLLO and ATLAS have been delivered. Fair to assume that the end date will change.

Budget over the period is given as 6.288,95 million. As of 19, despite the deliveries having barely started at all, the MOD had already paid 2,78 billion pounds, which is part of the reason why AJAX is not being cancelled. In 2019/20, the MOD paid 643 million, down from a planned 694, exactly because of the delays with AJAX and with the consequent cancellation of expenditure connected with getting training in BATUS up.

Armoured Infantry 2026, also started formally in 2014, is due to end 31 December 2026. The last time we were given an indication about the total budget for WCSP is in the Spreadsheet released in 2017. Back then, the expectation was for 1612,72 million pounds.

Up to 2016 the budget had been 2176,45 million pounds. The difference was caused by the decision, in 2016, to de-scope the Armoured Battlegroup Support Vehicle, which remains an “aspirational” requirement. Essentially, the Army has no clue how it will replace the ancient FV432.

From 2017 onwards, the numbers associated with the WCSP programme have been hidden for commercial interest as negotiations have dragged on to try and get to a contract.

As of financial year 2019, at least 474 million pounds have already been expended on WCSP. It is extremely likely that, if the program is indeed cancelled, the Army will have wasted another half a billion in exchange for nothing.

Finally, Mechanized Infantry Vehicle, launched in April 2018 and with a currently planned end date of 31 December 2032. Budget over the period: 4663,31 million pounds.

It is painfully evident that the money committed on MIV would have gotten WCSP and ABSV going. There was room to go with the 2010 target of 6 WARRIOR battalion sets, in fact, rather than the 4 that have been the reduced ambition since 2015 in order to accommodate STRIKE.

It also seems that some of the money once associated to the Mounted Close Combat Capability Change program is missing. The current budgets add up to 13,867 billion, rather than 17,251. This apparently vindicates the Army’s claims that it has been robbed of money to pay for cost overruns in the other Service’s programmes.

However, the budgets listed above give us no visibility on how much money was expended between 2010 and 2014 (admittedly unlikely to be very high as all programs were in very early stages) and also leave out several years. The 17,251 billion were to be expended out to 2033, while the current projects end dates (2028, 2026, 2025, 2032) all stop well short of that point. It is entirely reasonable to assume that the missing 3,384 billion will be expended across the various fleets in those missing years. Indeed, might even be more. We also do not know where programs like Multi Role Vehicle – Protected have their budgets: it seems reasonable to assume that this program in particular might have originally been part of what used to be “Mechanized Infantry 2029”. This adds further uncertainty.

Also, there’s no way to tell if the Army received formal indications in 2015 that it would get more money, and this eventually failed to happen soon afterwards.

We can’t say for sure if the total out to 2033 has really shrunk, and if so by how much. We can be sure that the Army has seen significant fluctuations in the amount of money allocated to it year on year, which might well have complicated project management and forced delays to the signing of contracts.

But I’m not prepared, given the figures above, to side with those who claim the Army’s woes are due to the other Services and to Government. I’m not sure they have had it that much worse than the other Services, nor are we in a position to determine if, and how much, the totals available out to 2033 have truly changed. The data available to us outside of the MOD is, simply, insufficient for determining that.

The data that is available is incomplete, but suggests the Army bears enormous responsibilities for its own troubles. AJAX is the most painful and undeniable demonstration that the Army’s own inability to set priorities has been destructive: the fact that, while deliveries have barely even started, the vehicle already is basically a square peg in a world of round holes, is damning.

Whatever is done now, AJAX is here to stay. But in the Army that is taking shape with the loss of WARRIOR, it looks like a orphan. Something that no longer has a truly good collocation anywhere in the force. And this is an obscenity. Your biggest, most expensive programme CANNOT be a problem. That it now is, is the measure of your failure.

 

 

What next?

Decisions should, as I already said, have been taken earlier. Now it is very difficult to imagine a truly “good” outcome.

Things will get spectacularly ugly if there are no further BOXER / AJAX purchases. Such a scenario would truly mutilate the Army, which would see a net 50% cut in the already insufficient number of infantry battalions it planned to mechanize.

The original Army 2020 Refine, in 2010, was based on 6 armoured and 3 heavy protected / mechanized battalions. In other words, 6 on WARRIOR and 3 on MASTIFF, later to be replaced by an 8x8 around 2029. Each of the 3 armoured infantry brigades would have 2 battalions on WARRIOR and a battalion riding on wheels, not unlike what happens in the German army where a single JAGER battalion (on BOXER APC) is integrated in heavy brigades.

But as we know, in 2015 Carter decided that the future was all about STRIKE, even though right from the start the cost of such a change was heavy: one tank regiment to go; one AS90 regiment gone; one armoured engineer regiment also gone. The Army 2020 Refine plan now called for 4 brigades, albeit individually smaller. Of these, two would be armoured and would have 2 battalions on WARRIOR each, and 2 would be STRIKE brigades, each with 2 BOXER battalions. Net result was a drop to 8 mechanized battalions in total.

Now, as Army 2020 Refine falls apart, if there are no new vehicle purchases, the Army will have managed the spectacular feat of crashing all the way down from 9 to 4 mechanized battalions, and all of them on lightly armed APCs, thus with an even more dramatic loss of firepower. And as we have seen in the Budget section of the article, it won’t be for lack of spending, to add insult to injury. It will have paid a sweet 10+ billion pounds to create this mess.

With just 4 mechanized battalions, it is likely the Army will collapse all the way down to a force of just 2 brigades worth of their title. Brigades with 2 infantry units are already sub-optimal; splitting 4 battalions across more than 2 brigades appears pretty much impossible.

I can only think of one way to do it in an acceptable fashion, and that is by adopting Permanent Combined Arms Battlegroups: instead of forming 4 AJAX regiments, as planned under Army 2020 Refine, some of the AJAX would instead be assigned directly to the infantry battalions, to create “square” battlegroups with 2 AJAX Squadrons in support of 2 Infantry companies on BOXER APCs. This, in theory, allows you to form 6 permanent BGs, which you can then spread across up to 3 brigades.

But this is, literally, the math of despair.

New vehicles are desperately needed for the Army to remain functional.

 

 

The French way…?

The British Army is likely to be headed the French way, since BOXER is all the rage these days. This will however happen more by accident than by design, with AJAX destined to remain pretty much an orphaned oddity in such a “new” army.

As I’ve written multiple times, I think the “French model” is very much an acceptable compromise. Not perfect, but good enough provided that the Army buys many more BOXERs, and suitable wheeled vehicles (through a revamped MRV-P) to support it, over the coming years. The last 30 years have seen the Army change its mind constantly, with utterly disastrous results: it has run around in a tortuous circle which has brought it back literally to the starting block (the BOXER saga is absolutely terrifying), but with several missing limbs and a scrawny body which has lost all muscle along the way.

If the Army is to recover, it will need to stabilize its aims.

My readers already know that I do not believe that wheels are key to adopting a more dispersed kind of fighting, and certainly I will never side with the British Army in pretending that having wheels is sufficient to change battle dynamics. Fighting dispersed is complex, dangerous and demanding. It requires more capability, not less. It requires capabilities currently relegated at higher command levels to be distributed far more widely, at far lower level. One such example is air defence: dispersion alone, in the age of the UAV and airpower in general, cannot possibly be a solution to anything if the dispersed groups have little to no ability to defend themselves from threats from the air.

Wheels, however, do have unquestioned merits in making a ground force element more readily capable to move independently over long distances without depending on semi-trailers and trucks. Wheeled armour also tends to be less thirsty, which means it can do with a smaller logistic train. For a small Army with a (relatively) small budget, wheels can represent a serious advantage.

Moreover, as we try and think of where the Army might go from here, we cannot ignore what the minds of the Armed Forces have indicated, in the Integrated Operating Concept 2025, as the necessary attributes of the future force:

Have smaller and faster capabilities to avoid detection

Trade reduced physical protection for increased mobility

Rely more heavily on low-observable and stealth technologies

Depend increasingly on electronic warfare and passive deception measures to gain and maintain information advantage

Include a mix of crewed, uncrewed and autonomous platforms

Be integrated into ever more sophisticated networks of systems through a combat cloud that makes best use of data

Have an open systems architecture that enables the rapid incorporation of new capability

Be markedly less dependent on fossil fuels

Employ non-line-of-sight fires to exploit the advantages we gain from information advantage

Emphasize the non-lethal disabling of enemy capabilities, thereby increasing the range of political and strategic options

 

Arguably, the above aims are not conceptually too far apart from the same drivers that were being FRES and the US Future Command System. Even in more recent times, If we take a look back at what FRES SV/AJAX was originally meant to eventually grow into, we can easily identify a future in which all capabilities, potentially including the MBT role, would have been delivered with FRES SV/AJAX variants. Tracked, but still much lighter than current MBTs (although very much not lighter than WARRIOR).

The AJAX family was supposed to be just the first capability Block within a larger programme that should have eventually included another two Blocks, introducing more variants. One such variant in particular, the ambulance, had been close to being purchased. It had already been named, even, as the ASCLEPIUS. But then 2015 happened, and any hope of further Blocks for the AJAX family has evaporated.

Looking back at what the Specialist Vehicle (then AJAX) was meant to be is a painful exercise. Had the Army persevered in this direction, very capable tracked brigades would be taking shape right now. It is very hard not to get Future Combat System vibes from this scenario. 

It is fascinating to think of what the British Army could have achieved by carrying on with the original FRES SV/AJAX plan, indeed expanding it to replace WARRIOR as well. Such an approach would very much replicate what the US Future Combat System used to be like. As you might remember, FCS was all about medium-weight tracked platforms.

While the IOC2025 directions do not openly favor wheels above tracks, however, the additional logistic weight imposed by tracked vehicles the size of AJAX, and the consequent financial penalty, very much suggest that, just like France, the UK would not be wrong in settling for wheels instead.

If we accept the design drivers identified by IOC2025, BOXER is probably the correct vehicle for the future. It is not “light” in a literal sense (the UK’s BOXER, built to the latest A3 configuration, can reach 38.5 tons) but it does come with greater, “faster” ability to move to and across the battlefield, while also being “lighter” in logistical terms. A battle force made up of BOXERs would certainly be easier to deploy and sustain than a tracked one, even one built entirely on AJAX as base.

This is especially true if we also consider the Army’s “Conceptual Force 2035”, which very much doubles down on the same kind of design drivers. This study imagines an army of 3 smaller but capable divisions made of lighter, faster, more deployable, largely independent battlegroups, with dispersion being the norm. Conceptual Force 2035 specifies that the disaggregated fighting requires Combined Arms capabilities to be organic at lower level, to ensure the dispersed Battlegroups do not have to wait for a superior echelon to make supports available. This includes having more organic Indirect Fire capability and employing it alongside greater ATGW capability to offset the capability currently delivered by MBTs through “lighter” vehicles.

Conceptual Force 2035 described in the British Army Review, issue 177, Winter/Spring 2020

The BGs will be expected to carry out, and I quote, deeper, more risky and aggressive manoeuvre. Robotic, sacrificial systems will be used to press on reconnaissance, and I quote again, to the point of destruction, in order to enable the BG to use frenetic op-tempo to make up for the lack of mass.

The resulting BGs would be around 500-strong but are supposed to match the current mission set of a 1250-strong armoured BG though the use of robotics and higher op-tempo. The Conceptual Force imagines that, from around 82.000 regulars, the British Army would be able to form some 48 such Combined Arms battlegroups. The organization would work to the Rule of 4, with an Assault Force, Covering Force, Echelon Force and Reserve Force. These BGs would be grouped in Brigades with enough CS and CSS elements to fight, again, largely independently from the Division level.

The key attributes described above, for me, are the key to the whole concept: if you want to fight dispersed and be lighter but still capable, you must pack a serious punch and have far more capability pushed down the levels of command. This is something that in STRIKE we are just not seeing in any meaningful way. Firepower has been dead last in the list of priorities so far, and that makes the whole thing not credible.

In fact, what is most striking about the Conceptual Force 2035 is that it is so entirely alien to what the British Army actually looks like today, in structure, “culture” and programmes. For example, Permanent Combined Arms Battlegroups are anathema in today’s British Army and among the purists of capbadges and specialty separations. CS and CSS are a scarce resource completely out of balance with the number of infantry battalions. Indirect Fires and ATGWs are weaknesses, not strengths. The Rule of 4 is nowhere to be seen, and indeed resources in multiple areas are spread so thin than even the Rule of 3 is dubious.

A LM proposal for a vertical launch missile module for BOXER, complete with mast-mounted radar and EO/IR. 

One key question ahead of the publication of the White Paper is whether the shock of this Review finally gets the Army to move from its current indefensible obsessions, or if the new manpower reduction results in just “more of the same”, through the loss of yet another “brigade-set” of CS and CSS. As I said, the sheer scarcity of combat vehicles to mechanize the infantry with suggest a reduction to as few as 2 brigades. Currently the British Army has Combat Support and Combat Service Support resources sufficient to aim for 4 brigades. My worst fear is that, consequently, the Army will go for the “easy” solution of removing up to 2 Engineer, Artillery and perhaps Signals and Logistic units, rather than go for a wholesale rebalancing and reorganization. This would only exacerbate the inbalance, rather than address it, and would inexorably prepare the stage for a further manpower reduction a few years on, when politicians will (rightly) observe that an output of some 2 brigades does not require 72.000 personnel.

The Army needs to decide, quickly, if it believes in the findings and directions of its own studies for the future, and start acting accordingly, reorganizing its structures and reassigning manpower to the capabilities that need to be expanded.

As a first step in a transition process to something resembling the Conceptual Force 2035, the Army should work to increase its ability to field combined arms brigades. The Corps of 3 Divisions and 48 battlegroups imagined by the Conceptual Force 2035 is very hard to imagine, as manpower is just one ingredient and the other expensive ones are all missing; but the British Army should be more than capable to put together 6 brigades, spread under 2 divisional HQs, mirroring, again, the French model. Each Division would have a Heavy, a Medium and a Light/Air Mobile brigade, one a revamped 16 Air Assault Bde, the other built by restructuring resources already available but tied down in the current 1st Division. Such lighter brigades would seek to fight dispersed primarily by exploiting Light Cavalry support, Foxhound and, even more so, the RAF's very precious and very significant fleet of 60 CHINOOK. Obviously, they would be limited in what they could achieve in the highest intensity scenarios, but they could find plenty of use across a multitude of cases. 

A third Division would continue to group up the rest of the force: the battalions busy on garrison / forward presence roles; the Specialised Infantry Group. Ideally, said Division should also serve as a Regular core force which a restructured Army Reserve should "regenerate" for action in times of need. But this is a complex topic better left for future discussions. 

The resulting division would be lighter than the 3rd Division as envisioned by Army 2020 Refine, but it is more realistically sustainable and having 2 of them make it possible to sustain an effort over time, rather than fire a silver bullet once and have nothing else left.

 In order to achieve this, more vehicles will be a non-negotiable requirement. Most likely, all efforts will go towards new BOXERs, although this is not necessarily the only option on the table. Obviously there will be no new tracked IFV purchased anytime soon (if ever again) if WARRIOR is cut. 

Even so, one could envisage an effort to maintain tracked, heavy formations by ordering more vehicles of the AJAX family. If AJAX was an IFV, it could replace Warrior. But AJAX has no room to carry infantry and there is no real way to change this fact. The structure of the vehicle and the vast turret ring (specified in part because there once was to also be a Medium Armour variant with 120mm smoothbore gun) prevent any conversion to an IFV. It is also probably next to impossible to pursue a “rewriting” of the contract that de-scopes some of the AJAX to make room for a new IFV variant, which General Dynamics is ready to offer and has tried (and failed) to sell to Australia.

However, the ARES APC already on order could easily be delivered with internal arrangements for carrying 7-8 dismounts. If more ARES were ordered and configured accordingly, it would be possible to create Combined Arms Battlegroups by mixing AJAX and ARES.

I don’t think, sadly that this is likely to happen. But it is a possibility worth considering. Permanent Combined Arms Battlegroups of AJAX and ARES carrying infantry could become a prototype for the Future Combat Team of 2035, adopting the Rule of 4 and beginning to develop true “Find, Fix and Strike” mechanisms by adding in organic Indirect Fires.

If more ARES could be squeezed in to make this happen, it would be possible to hang on to the superior all-terrain mobility of tracks and ensure that the remaining CHALLENGER 2s have appropriate intimate support. The two Heavy brigades could thus consist each of a single tank regiment and 2/3 AJAX/ARES BGs.

Otherwise, said BGs will inexorably have to be mixed, with AJAX supported by BOXERs.

On the BOXER front, an absolutely priority should be the acquisition of a turreted, well armed variant.

Ideally, the 40mm guns already procured and paid for WCSP should be used to create this new variant. The WCSP turret is, as we speak, close to completing extensive reliability trials. There’s no way to know how the turret behaved, but if it is doing well it would be wise to migrate the whole turret towards a suitable module to be developed for BOXER.  

LM's work in 2015 to demonstrate that a turret derivated from the WCSP's one could indeed work on BOXER. 

Such an enterprise would require some time, but should not be overly complex. Lockheed Martin fit one of its turrets onto a BOXER and carried out some early trials, including weapon firings, already as far back as 2015. While these industry-led demonstrations involve integrations that are far less mature than one might think, there should be no reason for the turret not fitting on a troop-carrying module.

Acquisition of such a turreted BOXER would enable AJAX, with its mobility penalty, to be taken out of the “STRIKE” / Medium brigades without a loss of firepower. The Medium force could then enjoy all of the advantages of being a purely wheeled formation, with the same level of mobility across all of its components.   

The turreted BOXERs would have to be mixed with the APCs already on order with the aim of forming the highest possible number of Combined Arms Battlegroups.

Not “cavalry”, not “infantry”. Permanent, combined arms BGs that will have to deliver that mix of “Find, Fix and Strike” capability by progressively integrating more indirect fire options, and the ability to target them from, if not any soldier, certainly from pretty much any squad and combat vehicle.

These BGs will have to progressively evolve towards those “Future Combat Teams” envisaged by the Conceptual Force 2035. A key capability to bring in as quickly as possible to enable that evolution is the Land Precision Fires system, which is meant to succeed EXACTOR MK2 and eventually expand striking range towards the 60 km mark. Land Precision Strike is an Artillery program, but this should not be allowed to stovepipe it away from the combined arms BGs. Land Precision Strike must become an Army-wide effort to give battlegroups a new and enhanced lethality.

The Army has lost mass and has lost many tanks as well; lethality cannot continue to be an afterthought. It is time to seriously approach the problem of how to increase it to compensate the other weaknesses. It is no good to only ever talk about compensating loss of armour with Indirect Fires while doing absolutely nothing to make it a reality. The Army needs to demonstrate that it is doable and that it is committed to a dramatic increase of firepower at lower command levels.

In order to ensure that as much money as possible goes towards the new capabilities, vehicle variants and additional vehicle purchases needed, the Army will have to get better at setting its priorities.

It remains foolish, in my opinion, that the British Army has prioritized ambulance and command post variants for the BOXER over more “fighty” frontline roles. I’ve already asked this question in the past, but I will formulate it again: does the ambulance vehicle really need to be a BOXER…? I fully understand it is desirable, but I don’t think it is necessary.

Again, a priority for me would also be to re-evaluate the variants of MIV to be procured, reducing to the bare minimum the number of ambulances and command posts in favor of instead pursuing, with maximum urgency, a 120mm mortar and an ATGW variants. With a wiser choice of priority on the variants to include in the order, the 508 BOXERs already on order could equip more than just a paltry 4 battalions. I’ve written about this in greater detail in a previous article.  

 The Ambulance role and, wherever possible, the C2 role should be “offloaded” onto much cheaper Multi Role Vehicle Protected (MRV-P) variants.

The Iveco ORSO (Bear), on the left, is pretty much the italian equivalent to what Multi Role Vehicle - Protected Group 2 hopes to be. 

I understand the allure of having everything on the same vehicle base, and I realize that there is no safe rear echelon when fighting dispersed and dealing with enemies who can contest, if not win control of the air and dominate the Fires battle. But I still don’t see “BOXER-for-everything” being in any way a solution.

Moreover, it is painfully obvious that the money is not and will never be enough for such an approach. Surely it makes sense to be very selective when it comes to what should ride in an extremely expensive BOXER and what can make do with something else. In fact, this is exactly what already happens in other countries: France definitely does not have an ambulance variant for VBCI, but rather for the less expensive GRIFFON. Italy, similarly, has limited its FRECCIA 8x8 almost exclusively to combat, frontline roles, using the Iveco ORSO for the supporting roles.

BOXER and Multi Role Vehicle – Protected should, similarly, ensure they work together to cover all bases, so that the BOXER purchase can be laser-focused on the combat roles, maximizing the mechanization of the army while keeping costs as low as practicable.

In the previous article, already mentioned and linked, I offer a more detailed discussion of what France and Italy are doing, so I won’t repeat the same things here. I will note that, finally, the British Army has last year tested the Elbit RHINO armoured shelter / container kitted out as command post. I’d like to see a lot more effort going in this direction, rather than in hundreds of super-expensive BOXER and ATHENA vehicles.

The Elbit RHINO is built inside a protected shelter that can be moved by trucks like a normal container. The Italian Army, as well as others including recently the US Army, has been putting quite some work into HQs-in-shelters. 

What practical problem is solved by putting the command post into a BOXER, at the end of the day? The main enemies of the command post in a high intensity scenario are Fires and Air attacks, and BOXER is not really going to give you a relevant survivability boost against those.

Being able to command and communicate on the move by ensuring the new data-radio systems have the relevant capabilities is going to make much more of a difference than BOXER’s armour does.

If the Army truly believes in innovation, it must be ready to truly revolutionize the command post, exploiting modern comms on the move and the possibility to reach back for support. Last year, the Royal Marines had their experimental exercise in Cyprus and their command and control on the ground was both slimmed down and revolutionized, and enabled by reach-back all the way not just to the ships, but to the homeland. The 1^st Sea Lord himself was able to connect directly from his own station.

There are increasingly effective ways to ensure that the command function can be disaggregated, dispersed, handled faster and on the move, and with the support of staff physically located far enough from the battlefield to be safe. Naturally, this opens up new vulnerabilities in broadband, communications, risk of jamming and cyber attacks, but the Army itself is saying they prefer to wrestle in this domain rather than in the physical one. They did so in the moment they wrote down their guidance for the future by claiming that disaggregate operations and indirect fires are to counter the lack of heavy armour. That approach will inexorably mean the ability to communicate and share data and targeting third-part weapons becomes even more crucial than it already is.

Like everything else in life, it’s a compromise, but perfect solutions don’t exist. There are just good and bad compromises.