GD are making a big thing that the base vehicle is not an American design (and hence not subject to ITAR) and that all the work will be done in the UK. Remember that Mowag, who designs the Piranha, is Swiss. GD in the US put the false mustache, glasses and nose onto a license built Piranha 3.

We've now upgraded 500 Bulldogs (for £235 million - there's cost-effective for you) . Latest news courtesy of defense-aerospace.com

 

I'm pretty sure it doesn't include the new armour, rcws or Bowman. Thing is though FK, even if it costs £1 million for each vehicle (and it isn't that much) you're only talking about a spend of £900 million for the 900 vehicle programme.

 

Compare that to the £14 bn for FRES, with its lousy off-road performance. I suspect that Piranha 5 will be a great vehicle, but what are they thinking of putting it in Armd Inf btns? Surely they need something tracked to replace the Bulldogs.

 

I've seen some thinking on arsse that the army should by most of its vehicles via UOR's and only keep a couple of brigades for the hi-tech stuff. Makes sense to me - it's cheaper and more flexible. What are they going to do if in ten years time say if they have to fight somewhere with no metalled roads? Piranha 5 won't be able to cope and they won't have any money to buy a tracked carrier.

According to this weeks JDW, the LIMAWS(R) programme has been cancelled. You may recall that this was the Supacat chassis that was going to carry GMLRS rockets to support our light / mech brigades.

 

I'm not sure why, but Iguess it's down to money.

 

The LIMAWS(G) programme was cancelled some time ago.

The thing to remember is that FRES UV is to replace Saxon as much as the 430 series. Low footprint, doesn't rip up roads, can self-deploy further and faster, smaller logistics train etc. 

That said, it's as heavy as Warrior, so it had better be substantially more survivable than Bulldog.

All this "FRES UV can't cope without metaled roads" reminds me of Sparky and his mania for the M113. Some places you go have ample roads, some places you can't go anywhere without the roads, regardless of what vehicle you have (in cities, or terrain with large drainage ditches). The chances of a Piranha 5 actually ending up somewhere where a Bulldog has significantly more mobility is slight, while the disadvantages of tracked vehicles will drag them back whichever theatre you go to. So have both capabilities with both vehicles. Bulldog will be around for a while yet. 

But where do you get the idea that Piranha can't cope off-road? The Piranha 3 in its Stryker incarnation is grossly overloaded and seems to do OK.

In other news, Janes is saying that are they? Is it just that or is there some comment to go with it? I understand that GMLRS is very well favoured in current operations, so I can't see why they'd throw out something so deployable, considering trundling MLRS rocket around Afghanistan on the roads in an inherently bad idea and you can't airlift an M270 short of a C17.

FRES's lousy off road performance? Presumably you mean the wheeled FRES UV, rather than the whole programme, which seems to be devolving into what we should have done in the first place and buy different suitable replacements for various vehicle types.

 

Sparky indeed!!! :-)

In all fairness I didn't say we shouldn't purchase wheeled FRES UV - it obviously has many advantages. My comment was about putting it in Armd Inf Btns where you'd be mixing two types of capability (wheeled and tracked). There's plenty of evidence about the limitations of wheeled vehicles off-road, both anecdotal (I've read stuff on the army.ca forums for instance) and scholarly (Janes IDR discussed ground pressures etc in a very dull article back in about 2003 which showed that tracks have very definite advantages off road). It seemed to me that by putting both together, you are negating the real advantages that tracks offer in some environments.

 

In fact my ideal buy for FRES UV would have been around 500 Piranha 5 to equip say 5 Mech Btns as all wheeled units, and 500 CV90's (or quality assured FNSS http://www.fnss.com.tr/ if we don't have the money for the top-flight stuff) to provide support functions in the Armd Inf btns.

Bulldog will be in service for a goodly while, and Warrior will remain in service with Armoured infantry battalions, with the Warrior FLIP upgrades, for another couple of decades.

Mechanised infantry battalions may get FRES UV in place of their Bulldogs, which were an interim replacement for Saxon, which would free up Bulldogs for the Armoured Infantry Battalions.

Support functions for Warrior-equipped Armoured infantry wouldn't need to be IFVs - 430 series and CVR(T) are better suited.

Whoa! Who said that Armoured Infantry were getting FRES UV? 

 

The quote below is from the MoD. I suppose in all fairness that it can be read in a number of different ways:

 

http://www.mod.uk/DefenceInternet/DefenceNews/EquipmentAndLogistics/DesignSelectedForFutureArmouredVehicleForBritishArmyfres.htm
Piranha 5, offered by General Dynamics (UK) Ltd, is the first vehicle to be selected in the FRES family of vehicles, an incremental programme to replace parts of the Army's Saxon, FV 430 and CVR(T) vehicle fleets and deliver a new medium weight capability.