The 100,000th simulated round has been fired from the British Army’s AS90 Turret Trainers, helping to save around GBP 230 M (EUR 268.5 M) for the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) since it was first introduced, the MoD’s Defence Equipment & Support (DE&S) organisation announced on 15 August 2023.
Procured and supported by DE&S, the trainers were first used by the British Army in 2005 to sharpen the skills of the commanders, gunners and loaders of the army’s AS90 155 mm self-propelled howitzers. Two systems were supplied by Dutch company Van Halteren Technologies (VHT), which has produced trainers for various artillery systems.
Based on real AS90 turrets, the trainers use an electro-mechanical system to fully replicate a complete firing cycle. This includes the weight and size of the artillery rounds and the noise and turret movement on firing. The trainers are now based at Larkhill Garrison in Wiltshire, where crews can use them to practise their routine firing drills and turret operating procedures without the expense of live firing. The trainers thus offer the realism of firing but at a highly reduced cost.
Originally one system was located at Tidworth Camp in Wlitshire and one at Bergen-Hohne Garrison in Lower Saxony, Germany, which was then moved to Gütersloh in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Both trainers were then subsequently moved to Larkhill.
The AS90 was first accepted into British Army service in May 1992 and by 2019 there were around 89 systems remaining in service from an original 179 delivered. However, in April 2022 it was announced that 32 AS90s would be gifted to the Ukrainian armed forces to help combat Russia’s invasion of the country.
Thousands of Royal Artillery gunners, and more recently a number of Ukrainian soldiers, have used the trainers since they were introduced.
“The great value of the AS90 turret trainer is that it allows crews to develop and hone their skills before live firing; it delivers high-quality immersive training, does so efficiently, whilst also reducing the environmental impact of live firing,” Major General Darren Crook, DE&S Director Land Equipment, was quoted as saying in a press release. “At DE&S we are incredibly proud to have delivered the turret trainer for the British Army and provided training for the Armed Forces of Ukraine.”
Ed Noorlander, VHT’s technical commercial director, was quoted as saying of the AS90 turret trainer, “The system features Van Halteren’s Ammunition Recognition System (ARES), which is capable of detecting all types of currently available simulated ammunition types. ARES detects simulated fuze type and settings, projectiles, charge class and charge orientation, and it also determines recoil length, depending on the charge class that is loaded.”
Peter Felstead
