THE BRITISH ARMY'S TROUBLED ARMOURED VEHICLE PROGRAMME
I am a bit confused when people are suddenly so determined about financing the defence. They are coming out with very unreasonable excuse that “world has changed”.
World has changed long time ago starting with war in Afghanistan, then Iraq, Libya, war in Balkans, war in Palestine, Lebanon and lately Iran. Even more is changing recently having world sheriff Trump and his stupidities with Iran which might brings just more and more troubles for ordinary people around the world because of oil crisis. Not in crisis than thousand or two will die from bomb explosions or gun shots, but because one very simple ingredient named fertilizer. Fertilisers are needed because plants deplete the soil’s natural nutrients as they grow, and nature cannot replenish them fast enough to sustain high-yield agriculture. For example, Iranian fertilizer is made from natural gas, petroleum refining byproducts, and mined phosphate rock.
But let’s go back to money for the UK defence. I will take just one example – Ajax armoured vehicles.
The Ajax program officially started in 2010 when MOD gave contract to General Dynamic Land Systems UK (GDLS UK). The manufacturing contract has been given to the GDLS UK in 2014 was in the government coalition formed by the Conservative Party and the Liberal Democrats. PM at the time was David Cameron who serve as PM 2010-2016.
Make no mistake, all started back in 2001 when was out FRES program. Then, out of the blue government under David Cameron rename this project to Ajax, manufacturing started after coalition government (MOD) signed a £5.5 billion lucrative contract with GDLS UK to build 589 vehicles across six special variants. As much I tried to figure it out numbers correctly could not find explanation about why 589 and not eg. 588 or 594. The delivery should be in 2017 therefore in service from 2017.
There was countless seatback where the project was plagued by severe design, noise and vibration issues that injured crews and repeatedly halted trials. There was frontline delivery finally commenced in January 2025 however in November 2025 initial operating capability was again in the spot line facing further safety reviews and subsequent trial resumption.
The conclusion of this “Ajax Program” is that neither coalition government of conservative and liberal democrats nor after just conservative party done nothing, just wasted time and billions.
However, the new labour party government confirmed and announced that the payments towards the £5.5bn cost of the Army's new Ajax armoured vehicles will resume. Defence procurement minister Alex Chalk said on Monday the Ministry of Defence (MOD) will hand over £480 million this month after halting payments to General Dynamics more than two years ago.
You have to be aware also that Ajax is part of the £41bn investment in British Army equipment and support over the next decade which, according to the MOD, will deliver "critical modernisation to address the threats of today and the future". According to the statement, the MOD project still aims to build 589 of the state-of-the-art vehicles despite the programme running for nearly 13 years without yet providing a single deployable vehicle.
As written above, Ajax has been repeatedly delayed, with problems including noise and vibration issues which meant soldiers being medically discharged from service because of hearing loss during trials. It is no secret that government and MOD are facing new court cases.
It doesn’t matter that MOD alongside General Dynamics has “successfully” completed User Validations Trials to validate the design modifications which have addressed the noise and vibration concerns, allowing the commencement of programmed Reliability Growth Trials on 31 January 2026 where the minister highlighted that the Reliability Growth Trials, "a standard part of the acquisition process for military equipment of this nature", are "progressing well", similar as Donald Trump are saying on daily basis that “signing agreement with Iran are progressing well and will be signed in a few days”.
This "progressing well" changes with Ajax are laughing stock again as the MOD and GDLS UK stated that Ajax vehicles to be ready for use from July 2025.
Then was a "revised schedule" for the delivery of the Ajax vehicles and usage from July to December 2025. Which yet again changed to January 2026.
I have not hear when the full operating capabilities will be meet.
Make no mistake, “Full Operating Capability” will be met when the Army has trained and converted forces to the Ajax platform to deliver Armoured Cavalry capability to the Deep Reconnaissance Strike Brigade and its two Armoured Brigade Combat Teams. This is scheduled to be achieved between October 2028 and September 2029."
We must not forget that the MOD has withheld its payments, not making one since December 2020 when Conservative Party was in the government till May 2024.
Former Defence Minister John Healey when he was in the “shadow cabinet” stated: "The Conservatives are shelling out billions more of taxpayers' money on a project which is already six years late and won't fully deliver until the end of this decade.
The truth is that perhaps former Defence Minister John Healey stepped down because he realize that despite that the UK has made Ajax central to the future of the Army and the UK's ability to fulfil our NATO obligations, yet after 13 years and £4bn investment, the Army has still not got a single deployable vehicle.
It is obviously that current government which is two years in post cannot be held responsible for the failures of 14 years failures of coalition government between Conservatives Party and Liberal Democrats and then Conservatives on, the previous Governments could not deliver value for public money or the equipment our forces need to fight. Ministers were failing British taxpayers and British troops what current labour party want to change.
This is completely the same issue as with public money spend for nothing with HS2 where £46.2 billion has been spent on the HS2 program where just £43.2 billion go down the drain for Phase 1 (London to Birmingham).
