Ajax tank, American General Dynamics in the UK crashes?
What the Financial Times wrote about the dispute between the British government and the American company General Dynamics over the defects of the Ajax tank
Cancellation in sight for Ajax, the armored vehicle program under development by US General Dynamics for the UK army?
The UK government admitted that the Defense Ministry was warned of problems with the Ajax tank development program 11 months before testing was suspended for fear that the vehicle was causing physical damage to the military inside.
As reported by the Financial Times newspaper, experts point out that the problems surrounding the Ajax project would be so serious that the government should consider canceling the £ 5.5 billion (€ 6.4 billion) deal for the purchase of 589 examples of the vehicle, replacing them with smaller alternatives.
Ajax vehicles were expected to become fully operational in the UK later this month, but a postponement is now expected until September.
As Defense News reports, reports of Ajax issues come just weeks after the Johnson government terminated a multi-billion dollar program with Lockheed Martin UK to upgrade Warrior infantry fighting vehicles.
All the details.
WHAT THE MINISTRY OF DEFENSE HAS DECLARED
This week, Undersecretary of Defense Supplies Jeremy Quin said the military testing the new craft reported problems with vibration and excessive noise during testing with prototypes in late 2019.
Furthermore, in September 2020 the medical staff accompanying the military who tested the vehicles would have expressed "serious concerns about the possibility of hearing damage from noise".
THE SUSPENSION OF TESTS ON THE TANK
As a result, the Ministry of Defense commissioned "in-ear evaluations" on 6 November and the trials on the Ajax program have been suspended.
THE UK AJAX PROGRAM
The Ministry of Defense had placed the order from US General Dynamics in 2014, but the project was characterized from the outset by noise problems and excessive vibrations inside. Until the four-month suspension of staff training with the wagon in November 2020, as Agenzia Nova recalls.
To date, the Ministry of Defense has already spent £ 3.5 billion on vehicle development, and 14 have been delivered.
THE AJAX FAMILY
The Ajax family is made up of vehicles: Ares for reconnaissance and troop transport; Ajax for reconnaissance and combat armed with a 40 mm cannon; Apollo, recovery vehicle; Atlas for technical support and spare parts; Athena, command and control vehicle and Argus, reconnaissance vehicle for the Engineers.
As Defense Analysis recalled last year, “Ares and other variants of the Ajax armored vehicle family will replace the Combat Vehicle Reconauissance (Tracked), or CVR (T) 101, of the large and long-lived Scorpion family of vehicles. , Scimitar, Saber, Spartan, Sultan, Stormer, Samaritan and Samson who also experienced vast export success and who were the pillar of British armored reconnaissance for nearly fifty years operating from the Falklands to the Balkans, from the Middle East to Afghanistan ".
CURRENT RESTRICTIONS
Restrictions on the use of Ajax currently in effect stipulate that staff cannot spend more than 90 minutes inside the wagon. In addition, the wagon must be driven at a maximum speed of 20 miles per hour (32 kilometers per hour).
THE POSITION OF THE US GENERAL DYNAMICS
General Dynamics said a "small number of remaining issues" were "reviewed and closed" in cooperation with the British Army and the Ministry of Defense.
DELAY IN THE PROGRAM
A leaked report from the Authority on infrastructure projects, which reports to the Cabinet Office, warned that "successful delivery of the program on time, at agreed cost and quality appears to be unattainable." Defense Minister Ben Wallace told the Financial Times that he had commissioned "additional work" on the program to find a way in which this could be "rectified."
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/innovazione/carro-armato-ajax-lamericana-general-dynamics-nel-regno-unito-va-a-sbattere/ on Wed, 16 Jun 2021 11:45:33 +0000.