The Ajax armoured vehicle programme has “left its troubles behind”, a minister has promised. The £6.3bn Ministry of Defence project to build 589 of the advanced vehicles has been a source of strong criticism after years of delays.
While vehicles were initially intended to enter service in 2017, the project has suffered serious setbacks, with problems including noise and vibration issues which injured soldiers testing the vehicles. But Ajax has now declared initial operating capability (IOC), a key delivery milestone that means it can now deploy a squadron on operations.
Luke Pollard, minister for defence readiness and industry, said the project had “overcome” its difficulties.
Speaking in Merthyr Tydfil he said: “Ajax has overcome significant challenges, but importantly, we can say it has left its troubles behind.
“Ajax has proved itself in the field to be the most advanced medium-weight armoured fighting vehicle on the planet, and we have more than a full squadron ready to go, ready to fight, ready to win, with more in the pipeline.
“Our Ajax fleet has a key role as we move our nation to war-fighting readiness… We now live in a new era of threat, we live in a more dangerous world, and to respond to that, we need to renew our armed forces, retiring old equipment, and investing in new technologies.”
The six variants in the Ajax project, which are being developed by General Dynamics in Merthyr Tydfil, are the first new armoured fighting vehicles to enter service with the British Army for nearly 30 years.
More than 165 of the vehicles have now been delivered, but full operating capability (FOC) may not be reached for another four years.
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Ajax replaces CVR(T) vehicles, which first entered service in 1971, and the new fleet was put through its paces to meet IOC by the Household Cavalry Regiment, based in Bulford, Wiltshire.
Mr Pollard said: “It’s a really important milestone today. This is a programme that did have significant problems, it was right that under the last government the trials were paused so the lessons could be learned around the vibration and noise issues.
“Those issues are firmly in the past. We would not be declaring IOC if it were not safe, we would not be putting it in the hands of our frontline forces if it were not safe, and I’ve been reassured from the top of the army down to the folks that work on the platform that it is safe.
“There are lots of lessons that we can learn from this. We want to see huge improvements in the value for money for defence procurement, we want to see speeding up of those procurements, and we want to see more of an increased defence budget being directed at companies in Britain,” he added.