British military announces first delivery of Ajax armoured vehicles – eight years late | Military

The UK military has announced the first delivery of Ajax armored vehicles, eight years behind schedule and amid questions about cheap drones dominating Ukraine’s battlefields.

Deputy Defense Secretary Luke Pollard said the first 50 vehicles, costing around £10 million each, were ready to be deployed on NATO’s eastern flank, but acknowledged past problems with 2017, 2020 and 2021 delivery deadlines being missed.

“There are a lot of lessons we can learn,” Pollard said at the Ajax production facility in Merthyr Tydfil, South Wales. Ajax’s contract “took many years… and we need to reduce that significantly” [to] “Just a few months,” he added.

“Our mission as a country is to support our NATO allies and, in particular, to ensure the security of the eastern flank,” the minister said, but no specific announcement was made regarding the use of a vehicle whose long delays have become a military embarrassment.

When Ajax, an armed reconnaissance vehicle, first entered service in 2010, deliveries were expected to begin in early 2017, but this figure was dropped to July 2020 when the US firm General Dynamics was awarded a £5.5 billion fixed-price contract.

Initial demonstrations in 2020 and 2021 revealed that Ajax was plagued by excessive vibration and noise. The tests were halted after 11 soldiers were placed under prolonged medical surveillance following reports of tinnitus and hearing loss.

Pollard said he could not say how many soldiers were still affected by hearing problems, citing patient confidentiality, but said “these issues are certainly a thing of the past” and “if it wasn’t safe, we wouldn’t be putting this in the hands of our armed forces.”

Their demonstration, during a short trip to Ajax’s production site, revealed that it was still noisy, although not obviously excessive. Military sources said double-layered protection (earplugs and earmuffs) was particularly useful in improving safety.

Although there are a number of variants, the core Ajax vehicle is designed for forward reconnaissance – operating in the “grey zone” and even behind enemy lines, spying on locations up to 5 miles away. Using an array of cameras and sensors, it was designed so that the three-man crew did not need to go outside and could stay inside for a week if necessary.

Long delays led to the emergence of Ajax in the fourth year of the Ukrainian war, when tanks and armored vehicles failed to achieve significant victories for either side. The conflict has become dominated by cheap one-way drones, which are becoming increasingly effective at destroying easily detected armor near the front line.

Soldiers who participated in the program argued that this did not mean that Ajax had become a waste of money and said that England had a different military approach. “We wouldn’t fight like the Ukrainians,” said Ajax vehicle commander L/CoH Andrew Rawlinson, arguing that engaging in Ukrainian-style trench warfare would not be effective.

While some accept that drones could replace Ajax’s reconnaissance functions, Rawlinson said the cheaper technology also has its limitations. “We don’t have to think about it, we can’t take our drones off as soon as it’s windy,” he said, noting that the battery life of many inexpensive drones is “about 30 minutes to an hour.”

Military sources added that the British military would fight a war alongside its allies or engage in post-war peacekeeping in Ukraine or elsewhere, using the full range of military capabilities from fighter jets to infantry.

Building new armored reconnaissance vehicles is considered part of maintaining the UK’s overall military capacity, while also providing employment for 4,100 people in the UK.

The Ministry of Defense has ordered 589 Ajax vehicles and their variants, with delivery planned to be completed by the end of the decade.