3/1/2024 0 Comments All british main battle tanks![]() ![]() ![]() Putin's ceasefire is useful for a different reasonĬCTV shows moment Russian soldiers scour orphanage for children That would make it one of the few major armies anywhere without heavy armor.Image: Ukraine has long requested German-made Leopard II tanks It’s not hard to imagine a time in the near future when the British Army has just one division with a mix of medium and light brigades. “Unfortunately, having such aspirations is like living in cloud cuckoo land.” “In an ideal world, the army would have three divisions: a strike division, an armored division and a rapid-reaction division,” Drummond wrote. “The repeated difficulties the British Army has faced in armored-vehicle procurement would appear to have stemmed from a mismatch between ambition and available funding, coupled with the additional budgetary and operational pressures imposed by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,” wrote Michael Tong, an analyst with the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. Today just 227 Challenger 2s and 623 Warriors remain in service. And the army might never upgrade them, much less fully replace them. Fully half of the medium and heavy brigades-those equipped with Challenger 2 and Warrior-ride in old, obsolescent vehicles. Light infantry brigades and an air-assault brigade would round out the roughly 100,000-strong army, allowing it to form two divisions.īut it’s an uneven force with an uncertain future. Under the Strike concept, the army would have two brigades with Ajax and Boxer and two brigades with Challenger 2 and Warrior. The army came up with a force design that leveraged its new medium vehicles. “Another home truth was that the army would never have the mass to match the conventional might of Russia or China. ![]() “Whatever the army thought it ought to do, it was told there was no money,” Drummond explained. But the British Army idled-and not by choice. Many NATO armies launched crash programs to upgrade their tanks and fighting vehicles. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2014 underscored the enduring value of heavy armor. The Warrior upgrade likewise has yet to enter production. It could be years before the first upgraded Challenger 2 enters service-assuming it ever happens. Defense Ministry has yet to select a supplier for the tank upgrade. Soldiers cleaning the rifled barrel of a Challanger 2 tank after a live-firing session. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |