Changing battlefield priorities was one of the reasons behind the British Army’s decision to ditch the Warrior infantry fighting vehicle update program in the recent defense, security and foreign policy review.
The security review, released in March, axed plans to extensively upgrade the virtually obsolete Warrior, as the U.K. Army and the other armed services have embarked on a transformation policy towards the information age and away from traditional platforms.
Since 2011, Lockheed Martin UK has been leading the development effort to update Warrior with a new cannon and digitized turret, better protection and other improvements.
The upgrade program is now seven years late and more than £225 million ($319 million) over budget, with Lockheed pointing the finger at the MoD for much of the delay. Still, until the release of the security review, the program was expected to move forward pending government approval a more than £800 million ($1.1 billion) production deal to update around 275 vehicles.
Nixing the upgrade program has already had its industrial consequences; Lockheed has announced job losses at the Ampthill, southern England, site where it has invested in creating a turret center of excellence.
The company is also supplying General Dynamics UK with turrets for its Ajax armored reconnaissance vehicle fleet now in production for the British Army, and is casting around for opportunities to leverage its turret capabilities in other programs.
The plan is for the Warrior to be taken out of service by the middle of the decade, as the wheeled Boxer 8x8 armored vehicle enters service. While Boxer isn’t a perfect like-for-like replacement, its ability to quickly travel long distances provides greater value than updating the Warrior.
The MoD said recently it was looking at options to increase the lethality of some of its Boxer fleet with missiles or a cannon to better replace the lethality lost by ditching updated Warriors equipped with the CTAI 40 mm gun.
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30 сен 2024
