The British army’s Ajax armored vehicle program has “turned a corner” after more than two years of trying to fix noise and vibration problems, the defense secretary has said.
“We think the drug is there, we’re doing normal trials now… It’s showing good signs and it’s going to work,” said Ben Wallace during a visit to Bovington Camp in Dorset where he saw some of the vehicles undergoing trials earlier in the week. this. “I believe we have turned this problematic program around.”
The comments are the strongest indication yet that the government plans to stick with a delayed program to deliver a family of high-tech armored vehicles to replace those still in service with the army designed in the 1960s.
Wallace added that the first Ajax vehicle should be operational after the test program is completed in about 18 months.
The Ministry of Defense signed a £5.5bn fixed-price contract with US defense contractor General Dynamics to buy 589 vehicles in 2014 with deliveries to start three years later. But the vehicle suffered from noise and vibration problems that caused hearing damage to some of the crew involved in the test.
A government-commissioned health and safety study into Ajax published in December 2021 found “serious failings” in the UK’s defense procurement culture. A wider independent inquiry by Clive Sheldon KC, commissioned by the MoD, into what went wrong, is due to report this spring.
Wallace stopped payments to General Dynamics two years ago after the MoD had handed over £3.2bn. The Financial Times previously reported that the contractor had told investors that payments would resume by the end of March.
David Williams, permanent secretary at the MoD, told MPs at the defense select committee this month that the government would restart payments only after agreeing a new date for the vehicles to be delivered to soldiers. General Dynamics UK declined to comment.
Improvements made to the vehicle to address noise and vibration issues include new ear protectors that incorporate headphones for better communication and repositioned seats with better cushioning.
“This is not an engineering solution, but a mitigation,” said Francis Tusa, editor of Defense Analysis, adding that “nothing solves the problem”. He stressed that the MoD looked set to restart payments to General Dynamics “without a deployable vehicle”.