Defence Committee hearing on progress in delivering armoured vehicle capability

Panel 1 Witnesses

• Francis Tusa, Editor, Defence Analysis
• Nicholas Drummond, Director, Aura Consulting Ltd. (at 3:30 pm)

Replying to questions by committee chairman Tobias Ellwood (Conservative MP for Bournemouth East), Francis Tusa said, looking at the FRES programme in the late 1990s and the new operating concept, the language was ‘close to identical.’ The concept was still flawed. The Chief of Defence Staff was looking to take the army into areas they really shouldn’t be going. There had not been a single new fighting vehicle since Gulf War 1 or even a significant upgrade.

Nicholas Drummond said the integrated review was questioning the army as we know it and as it needs to be. He agreed with Francis Tusa that heavy armour was still needed.

Nicholas Drummond pointed out the issue with heavy armour was it was difficult to deploy. So the fundamental question was how to deliver a high-end capability but also have an expeditionary capability. That was the plan behind Army 2025. On one side there was Challenger and Warrior. On the other side there was Boxer. “That was a logical and sensible plan until we decided to put Ajax into the strike brigade.” The plan needed adjusting.

Francis Tusa said there had been a failure to modernise over the past 30 years.

Replying to questions by Gavin Robinson (Democratic Unionist Party MP for Belfast East), Francis Tusa said that in the 2010s the army had an ambition to purchase about £4 billion more equipment than could be afforded. The current plan was not affordable and was not ’squeezable.’ Some contracts needed to be cancelled. However, Nicholas Drummond had a fundamentally different view. He said it was absurd to say that the army could not afford one division.

Turning to Gavin Robinson’s question - if one project had to be cancelled, which one should it be? - Nicholas Drummond said if Warrior was cancelled, troops would be sent into battle without protection. But the legacy track vehicles were most problematic and, if necessary, they could be sacrificed now in the hope of renewing those programmes properly when the budget was available.

Francis Tusa told John Spellar (Labour MP for Warley) the French army had demonstrated what could be done by having a modular system devised by a coherent, sensible, coordinated programme. The British Army had turned down offers to cooperate on that and other programmes because of an attitude of “British exceptionalism” which had been a hindrance. Elements of this had already been seen with Boxer. If this desire to make constant changes was true, it would be “catastrophic.” We had to stop “specifications creep” and accept the “80% solution.”

Responding to comments by Tobias Ellwood, Nicholas Drummond tempered expectations, saying that armed vehicles programmes were complicated and normally took about ten years. Most important was to ensure a vehicle would not fail on the battlefield.

Francis Tusa agreed with the committee chairman that the rotation of procurement ministers and officers was a major problem and a factor in delaying and changing projects. He complained that procurement was not regarded as a skill in the army as it was not “a soldierly position.”

Richard Drax (Conservative MP for South Dorset) asked how the witnesses saw future conventional wars being fought. Nicholas Drummond said the battleground today was much more lethal than it was 30 years ago, with more targeted weapons. He stressed the importance of being more lethal, more mobile and more electronic with smart munitions. Francis Tusa added that looking at the warfare in Ukraine, the equipment was not very different to that used at the end of World War II. A peer on peer war today would result in frightening levels of casualties. Both witnesses agreed a main battle tank and a tracked fleet were needed in modern warfare.

Tobias Ellwood pointed out that 95% of the time, peer-on-peer situations did not happen and also that merely having a presence was deterrent enough. He personally saw Britain as being in direct competition with our close allies and feared we would be “shunted out” and would lose out on trade opportunities.

John Spellar asked if “British exceptionalism” had resulted in us being incapable of producing equipment. Nicholas Drummond said any future armoured vehicle would be an international collaboration, as had happened with Boxer.

Francis Tusa said that in the past, armoured fighting vehicles were viewed almost as a retail item and the design capability in the UK had been run down. This reflected in the problems with Warrior and Ajax. But if these projects were seen through then the UK would be in a position to participate seriously.

He agreed with Tobias Ellwood that there was a problem with co-operation with other countries. Anything Anglo-French at the moment was viewed as toxic, possibly because of Brexit. Anything European was viewed as bad, but there had been unsuccessful attempts to collaborate with America, who fought battles on a much larger scale than we were capable of.

During a discussion on ammunition, Tobias Ellwood said it scared the committee that while the future was for auto-loading shells, we were upgrading to Challenger III but still using yesterday’s technology of hand-held loading. He thought collaboration was the only solution.

When pushed as to which programme should be ditched, Francis Tusa said the Armed Fighter Vehicle Programme was unaffordable and one of the two tracked vehicles had to go. That should be the one which was proving to be most problematic.

Panel 2 witnesses

• Peter Hardisty, Managing Director, Rheinmetall BAE Systems Land (RBSL)
• Carew Wilks, Vice President, General Dynamics Land Systems-UK
• Lee Fellows, Vice President and Managing Director, Lockheed Martin UK Ampthill

Responding to questions by Richard Drax, Lee Fellows said there had been issues on the Warrior programme in three areas.

Carew Wilks said the Ajax programme on a path towards full delivery later this year. He explained why there had been delays over the years. Richard Drax commented that as a former infantryman himself he had been very impressed by Ajax.

Peter Hardisty said the Boxer project was on schedule.

John Spellar asked about the lessons learnt from involvement in the programmes. Lee Fellows said the cannon change had caused some disruption and there could have been a closer commercial link between Lockheed Martin and the cannon provider. He would recommend close scrutiny and review of changes outside the core contract and a focus on what was really essential. He was pleased there had been a collaborative and pragmatic attitude towards Warrior in the last two years.

Carew Wilks said skills in the UK had fragmented and atrophied in terms of armoured vehicle procurement, development and management as a result of an absence of a long-term strategy. The lesson was to retain a skill base and to have a long-term industrial strategy. He agreed with Lee Fellows that it was important to assess all aspects of the requirements. The 80% solution referred to earlier should be adopted. The relationship with the MoD was much better now, with joint decision making and collaboration to get Ajax into service quickly.

Tobias Ellwood, “being provocative,” said to the uninitiated the Ajax and Warrior looked similar and had interchangeable capabilities. He was concerned that consideration had not been given to having one vehicle with dual or interchangeable purposes. He questioned if modularity could be applied to all the vehicles currently coming on line. Carew Wilks pointed out that there were six variants of Ajax with considerable commonality.

Peter Hardisty pointed out that on Challenger a specific decision had been made to use the Thales target acquisition system, which was the same system as the one used on Ajax. Another example was the power pack used in Boxer and Ajax.

Mr Ellwood expressed concern that there was not a standardised plug and play location on every vehicle to allow for the addition of new equipment. Was it too late for that to happen? Lee Fellows said there were hardware points which allowed for Bowman to be added. Peter Hardisty said plugging a remote weapons station on a modern vehicle with a generic architecture was much simpler. Carew Wilks added that the risky element of adding systems on to a platform was around the digital architecture and that was resolved on Ajax and other platforms by having an open generic architecture.

Mr Ellwood reinforced his point that there was no ubiquitous anchor point on the vehicles for the addition of equipment. He contended that even if the MoD had not suggested it, the manufacturers could offer it and the committee would support that in making it happen.

Replying to John Spellar, Peter Hardisty said there should be a land sector industrial skills strategy, which would give clarity and would assist in the participation of collaborative procurement and development. Carew Wilks sad now was the moment for such a strategy because the army modernisation programme had recreated the skills base across academia, the army and industry. There would be benefits at every level of the supply chain to sustain some form of long-term plan. Lee Fellows concurred that a land industrial strategy be of benefit.

Gavin Robinson asked about the need for international collaboration. Peter Hardisty said it was central to the proposition that international partners should take forward projects. Lee Fellows said there was not the volume of work to support a comprehensive industrial base for every element. Carew Wilks said to be an effective collaborator we had to retain the skills base in the UK and build on existing facilities and laboratories that have been invested in so far.

Richard Drax asked about the most important emerging developments in armoured vehicle technology. Lee Fellows replied that generic vehicle architecture allowed different capabilities to be plugged into various systems. Unmanned capability would happen soon and cyber capability would be enhanced. Carew Wilks agreed and added that the MoD had already taken steps to enable future capabilities. He pointed to the potential for human/machine combinations and the opportunity for robotic vehicles to supplement human resources. Peter Hardisty referred to survivability, autonomous platforms, robust digital architectures, machine learning and surveillance and target acquisition.

Tobias Ellwood asked about the factoring into design the ability to help fight in the ‘grey zone’ as well as peer-to-peer combat. Lee Fellows said the land industrial strategy would enable exports to other countries. Carew Wilks agreed the army needed equipment to deliver across a range of effects. Peter Hardisty supported the same proposition.