Slater Posted October 26, 2016 Share Posted October 26, 2016 I'd buy some because, well, they just look tough http://www.defensenews.com/articles/britains-soft-spot-for-germanys-boxer-vehicle-raises-eyebrows-in-industry Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SeanM Posted October 28, 2016 Share Posted October 28, 2016 It is an impressive looking vehicle... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Julien Posted October 29, 2016 Share Posted October 29, 2016 I think the reason we are getting boxer is we have already wasted £300 million on different competitions, and a whole heap of time without getting anywhere. Competition is good but not when it holds thing up for years and costs £300 million! Julien 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
magman2 Posted October 29, 2016 Share Posted October 29, 2016 Nice, but not as nice as the Ajax Armoured vehicle, for the Army. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kingsman Posted October 30, 2016 Share Posted October 30, 2016 Don't forget that we were originally part of the Boxer programme, or MRAV as it was then called. We left very publicly, at some expense, partly because it was going to be too big and heavy for a C-130. France had already left to run off and develop VBCI. Then we ran the FRES Utility Vehicle programme and came close to buying the PIranha 4 Evo - essentially what the Danes have just bought as Piranha 5 - after re-looking at Boxer and also at VBCI (AMV and Freccia were eliminated early on paper). Having proved along the way that any vehicle meeting the protection and payload requirement wouldn't fit in a Herc anyway, even "fly light" without applique armour, But by that time we had C-17 and had committed to buy A400M: problem solved, apart from the A400M floor loading problem. So, Boxer was actually the right answer all along but we just couldn't see it. Whether it will ever be politically acceptable to buy Boxer now is an open question. There is an active UK project called MIV which is looking again for an 8x8 APC, but essentially off-the-shelf this time. There's a lot of choice. Along the way we looked at electric drive using water-cooled hub motors and played around with the US AHED technology demonstrator (German e-drive technology!). The South Africans put a similar system into a Rooikat but they didn't buy it either. We also worked with Sweden on the SEP programme, which could have resulted in a high-commonality family of electric drive tracked and 6x6 wheeled AFVs - but didn't. E-drive and battery technology weren't really considered combat-ready. Hagglunds/BAES developed an 8x8 mechanical drive prototype out of it, but no-one was interested. Too weird with separate twin engines, one each side, and complex combining gearbox: lots of whirling ironmongery. Interestingly the e-drive idea wasn't entirely about locomotion. It had a lot to do with the growing size of electrical generation capacity in modern AFVs and the consequently growing size of engine compartments. Someone had the bright idea of not having a gearbox and final drives. And then we thought about having capacitor banks attached to (insulated!) applique plates to disrupt HEAT warheads and things took a turn for the weird. Kind of electric ERA. Apparently it actually worked ........ with some fairly obvious drawbacks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kingsman Posted November 7, 2016 Share Posted November 7, 2016 There's a similar thread over in the Real Armour section Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Troffa Posted November 17, 2016 Share Posted November 17, 2016 If you have a spare couple of hours, and If you are inclined to do so, you could do a lot worse than having a read through of this excellent article on the whole sorry mess.... http://www.thinkdefence.co.uk/2015/09/from-cvrt-to-fres-to-ajax/ 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kingsman Posted November 19, 2016 Share Posted November 19, 2016 The linked item above does indeed cover the sorry saga in very considerable and well-researched detail. Having been intimately involved in FRES for several years, 2004-8, and peripherally involved since then I can say that I couldn't find any significant inaccuracy or unjustified opinion. However, I will say that unless money is spent on "technology excursions" like TRACER and the FRES Technology Demonstrations then nothing gets advanced. Industry can't afford such investment at risk these days with costs so high, customers so few and numbers of products diminishing. The UK has no AFV manufacturing industry now precisely because our government has not invested in developing world-leading technologies and products, and certain politicians saw no value in that industry. And we have a history of developing very UK-specific vehicles since the success of Centurion. Compare Chieftain to M60 and Leo1, CR1 and 2 to Abrams and Leo2, FV432 to M113, Warrior to a whole range of other IFVs. All of these other products vastly out-sold their equivalent UK offerings. On the other hand, other peoples' products often don't meet our needs. We didn't buy a FRES Utility Vehicle largely - stand fast the idiotic procurement method - because nothing out there was considered sufficiently survivable for us. We had some very scathing things to say about the ease of an M Kill on VBCI, for example, and lack of protection or the means to grow to carry it was the Achilles Heel of AMV. Yes, we got hung up on things like turning circle and rear-axle steering. VBCI solved that with skid steering for tight turns, but we didn't like that idea either ....... There are also things like support philosophy to consider. We like our AFVs to be capable of field power pack change, but for all the FRES UV contenders that was a workshop job involving recovering dead vehicles to the rear, not fixing them forward. So that would have meant more ARVs, although less ARRVs, more REME Field Workshop and LAD capacity and personnel and ultimately more vehicles out of the line for longer. Oh, and it would be too heavy for the Light Equipment Transporter to carry when dead so we'd need a new fleet of those too or sweat the HETS more. Or you just redesign the product. As I said in the related thread on another forum on this site, modern warfighting and its equipment is complex and it gets ever more difficult to acquire kit that gives you the edge and keeps you safe, especially without adequate funding. I've been doing it for over 30 years now and it has never got any easier. But it would help enormously if the goalposts were not still on wheels. We had Strategic Direction 2013. Before that settled we have the 2016 version. We had Army 2020, now everyone is looking at Future Force 2025. The return to an expeditionary posture requires a wider range of more broadly capable kit that works in conventional and asymmetric conflict, from -30C to +50, in dust and sand yet also in mud and water, that can squeeze onto a plane yet fend off an ATGW. And can carry blokes that are much larger and heavier with all the modern dismount kit (and we're getting physically wider ourselves over time). And all their gear: the payload for FRES UV was about 4 tonnes on top of the crew, full POL and CES. Yes, a wheeled APC approaching the weight of an artic truck. Time to stable the hobby horse ................... 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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