General Dynamics UK (GDUK) offered some more details on the trialling of the British Army’s future Ajax family of tracked armoured vehicles on 30 April 2024.
The Ajax Reliability Growth Trials (RGT) are currently being conducted at the British Army’s Bovington training area in Dorset by the army’s Armoured Trials and Development Unit (ATDU). The collaborative trials include soldiers serving in the ATDU Ajax Reliability Trials Team (ARTT) and staff from the General Dynamics Land Systems RGT team, which is made up of veterans with armoured vehicle experience as well as civilian personnel. Both teams are supported by the UK Ministry of Defence’s Defence Equipment & Support (DE&S) organisation.
The ARTT operate all six variants of the Ajax fleet – the Ajax reconnaissance and strike variant, Ares armoured personnel carrier/formation reconnaissance overwatch variant, Athena command post vehicle, Argus armoured engineering vehicle, Atlas armoured recovery vehicle and Apollo armoured repair vehicle – during 48-hour battlefield missions. Each mission has been designed to replicate one that may exist as part of an operational deployment. GDUK personnel actively support the ARTT crew throughout the test period, providing advice where necessary. Both teams also prepare the next series of test vehicles, conducting servicing tasks and supporting instrumentation requirements for battlefield mission test vehicles.
There are nine vehicles currently involved in the trials, with up to five being tested at any one time. Each variant brings its own set of mission requirements, with the crew needing different trades and training to safely and realistically operate the platforms.
The collaboration throughout the battlefield mission activity “provides a very broad range of experience that enhances the reliability of the vehicle through important and relevant data collection and exploitation”, GDUK stated. “This data ultimately influences the final build standard, supporting production of a capable, digital, best-in-class, armoured reconnaissance and fighting platform.”
GDUK is delivering 589 Ajax vehicles to the British Army: 245 turreted Ajax variants, 93 Ares armoured personnel carrier/formation reconnaissance overwatch variants, 112 Athena command post variants, 51 Argus engineer reconnaissance variants, 38 Atlas armoured recovery vehicles and 50 Apollo repair vehicles. The first platforms were delivered in February 2019.
In June 2021, as Ajax development progressed, it emerged that issues with excessive vibration and noise had led to trials of Ajax variants being halted from November 2020 to March 2021 and the programme delayed. However, following a 22 February 2023 visit by then UK defence secretary Ben Wallace to Bovington, where he was shown an Ajax vehicle being put through its paces, Wallace said of the programme, “We think the remedies are in place, we are now going through the normal trials. … I am confident we have turned the corner on this troubled programme.”
Full operating capability with the Ajax family is scheduled for between October 2028 and September 2029, when the British Army has trained and converted forces to the Ajax platforms to deliver an armoured cavalry capability to the army’s Deep Reconnaissance Strike Brigade and its two Armoured Brigade Combat Teams.
