British Army’s ‘Troubled’ Ajax Tank Order Back on Track, Wallace Says

Defence Secretary Ben Wallace speaks to the crew inside an Ajax armoured personnel at Bovington Camp, England, on Feb. 22, 2023. Ben Birchall/PA Media

The army’s “troubled” Ajax armoured vehicles order is now back on track after remedies were put in place to fix the issues, Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said on Wednesday.

Inspecting Ajax trials near the Bovington Camp, Wallace said the Ministry of Defence (MoD) aims to deploy the vehicles soon after the testing programme is completed in about 16 months’ time.

The Ajax programme, a £5.5 billion ($6.6 billion) MoD contract with General Dynamics Land Systems UK (GDUK) to build 589 of the state-of-the-art reconnaissance vehicles, has prompted severe criticism after running for nearly 13 years without yet providing a single deployable vehicle.

Originally intended to enter service in 2017, Ajax has been repeatedly delayed owing to failures including noise and vibration problems that injured soldiers testing the vehicles.

By December 2021, six months after the revised deadline for Ajax vehicles to enter service, the MoD had paid General Dynamics £3.2 billion ($3.8 billion) but received only 26 Ajax vehicles, none of which it could use.

The House of Commons Public Accounts Committee said in a report (pdf) last year that the MoD had over-specified the programme from the outset and that GDUK did not understand the scale of the technical challenge.

The report also said that the MoD still did not know when Ajax would enter service or whether the noise and vibration issues could even be fixed, and told the department to either fix or scrap the programme in 2022.

An MoD internal review (pdf) published in December 2021 pointed to “a complex combination of the Armed Forces’ relationship to harm and weaknesses in MOD’s acquisition system” that allowed the injuries to happen.

The MoD also commissioned a lessons learned review last year to “identify lessons and make recommendations to help MoD deliver major programmes more effectively in future.”

Wallace: We Have Turned The Corner

On Dec. 20, 2022, the MoD said on Twitter that the User Validation Trials for Ajax vehicles had successfully completed, and that the testing programme was progressing to the Reliability Growth Trials, with the vehicles having been tested across 1,530 kilometers (950 miles) at speeds of up to 60 kilometers (37 miles) per hour.

Visiting a Reliability Growth Trial on Wednesday, Wallace was shown the Ajax being put through its paces at the training ground, including the armoured vehicle heading over a knife-edge ramp aimed at pushing the vehicles to their limits.

An Ajax Ares tank, an armoured personnel carrier, on the training range at Bovington Camp, a British Army military base in Dorset, England, on Feb. 22, 2023. Ben Birchall/PA Media

Commenting on the programme, Wallace said he had been clear that it was troubled.

“It was started in March 2010, I inherited a troubled programme. I was determined I was going to put this right, I get a weekly update,” he said.

“We think the remedies are in place, we are now going through the normal trials, can it go after the hill fast enough, does it do these things? It is showing great signs and we will keep on it.

“I am confident we have turned the corner on this troubled programme,” he said.

Wallace said the aim is for the Ajax vehicles to be active in military units soon after the testing programme is completed in about 16 months’ time.

“They are already training with it now, all these things take time to train how to use it, we have over 100 assembled so when we get through these trials we will get these into the units and be back on track,” he said.

It is understood that despite the production being described by Wallace as “troubled,” the MoD considers some of the early problems to be development issues which have now been overcome in updated versions.

The issues of travelling at speed and the capability to fire while on the move were only to be tested in later models.

But a redesign of contact points for the soldiers using the tanks has been carried out to overcome issues of vibration and noise.

These improvements include new ear defenders with incorporated hearing piece for better communication, remounted seating with better cushioning, and improved joysticks and controls.

The testing so far has covered 120,000 kilometers (75,000 miles) of journeys, with 9,000 rounds of ammunition fired and 50 tonnes (55 tons) of armour shot at to test the correct level of protection for the vehicles.

The Ajax, which will be supplied to the 3rd (UK) Division, the main war-fighting division of the British Army, comes in six different variants including the “workhorse” Ares people carrier.

The Ajax itself is the turreted version fitted with a 40mm cannon with other variants designed as command, repair, and recovery vehicles.

PA Media contributed to this report.