Think Defence hopes to start sensible conversations about UK defence issues, no agenda or no campaign but there might be one or two posts on containers, bridges and mexeflotes!
Looks great, but I doubt the spoiler on the back is going to make any difference speed-wise…!
ArmChairCivvy
Do we know how many have been ordered?
- thinking post-Afghanistan, i.e. how will other procurements be impacted, or is it purely a UOR
Tubby
Is it a spoiler?!? I thought it might be a solar panel based on the shot at 11 seconds that seemed to suggest a glass surface to the top of the panel.
jedibeeftrix
wow, does this thing really exist!
my question is the same as AAC’s; is this a temporary UOR?
Wstr
@Tubby
EW (Counter-IED jamming) antenna mounting – currently minus the antennas.
Most vehicles in theatre now have them. The rectangular ‘Spoiler’ is the most common (Panther, Scimitar, Challenger, etc). Mastiff now has small mounts on the roof corners and Warrior has two roughly triangular mounts on the rear of the troop compartment roof.
JamesD
Please please tell me this is not happening – take one obsolescent turrent from worn out chassis, bolt on bits and pieces and mate with a not-so-worn out chassis, save money, “new” vehicle for deployment…
Wstr
@JamesD – At least it’s something I guess, rather than muddling on until 2017 or whenever FRES SV’s Scout variant is currently looking at it’s ISD.
We are so slow in this country even for urgent needs. Whilst a different type of role/vehicle, the war fighting focus of the US can be seen in them taking less than 12 months for their M-ATVs to go from competition proposal (Eventual winner Oshkosh’s submission was in Jan ’09), down-selection of winner, fielded prototype and then full on 1000 vehicle per month (per month!) production (by Dec ’09).
@TD – Spamitar (my entry for the ridiculous name bucket)
ArmChairCivvy
@JamesD – At least it’s something… and we don’t even know the details
- presumably the body with more volume to help to build in mine resistance ( I am not sure one can tell apart the V-hulled Stryker by looking at it from outside?)
- BAE is working with many types of new armour; any of them in it? Otherwise it is just MG-proof?
If they had just “welded” the two parts together, it would not have taken this long (Welded, well, I guess the turret has to turn)
bob
Stitching together various bits of information to create a theory, there was chat sometime back about procuring new Scimitars due to their all round usefulness as recce vehicles in Afghanistan, however there are persistent rumours that due to the weight having been piled on the vehicles through the UOR process the hulls were cracking- which would of course make new-build Scimitars less than attractive. The Spartan chassis also has a bit more volume which is always useful and could of course take all the automotive upgrades undertaken for the family so far. It seems that the Scimitar Mk2 is actually the Spartan with a Scimitar turret.
FYI: The “spoiler” is for electronic equipment.
bob
Further; It seems like the new-build Scimitar plan never went anywhere and Scimitar 2 will actually use stored Spartan chassis.
jonesy
TD, nice bit of video. The mk2 is now in theatre and so there will be significantly more information being made publicly available in the next few weeks.
ArmChairCivvy
“Scimitar 2 will actually use stored Spartan chassis”, so
- the best one can do to improve the mine resistance is to use the height for a double-floor?
Didn’t the earlier models already get Fox-turrets? Is it those that are on Mk2?
If the chassis comes out of storage, then there will hardly be a plan to try to fit the turrets chosen for FRES (much too big, anyway?).
RW#2
Clearly we need to await the MoD machine with its official news, but I have it on good authority that the hulls are not old Spartans or old anything.
Mike W
What I would really like to know is whether there are going to be any variants of the hybrid. From the video it looks just like a basic recce vehicle (à la Scimitar).
If it is to be a vehicle for 16 AA Brigade and 3 Commando Brigade (FRES SV being too heavy etc.), then surely other variants will be needed: e.g. recovery and repair, command, possibly ambulance, etc.
ArmChairCivvy’s question “or is it purely a UOR?” could lead to the right answer, though. Like him, I would love to know the answer to the question “How many have been ordered?”
In answer to the points Bob raised: eg. “there are persistent rumours that due to the weight having been piled on the vehicles through the UOR process the hulls were cracking- which would of course make new-build Scimitars less than attractive.”, I thought I read somewhere very recently that , contrary to many rumours, the hybrid vehicle was still to be new-build but I might have got that wrong. According to the story, I seem to remember, BAE Systems put together a Scimitar turret and a Spartan hull. This ‘vehicle’ was then sent to the Armoured Development Unit at Bovington to see whether the concept would work. As it was successful, the MOD ordered two new vehicles and they were delivered to Bovington earlier this year for further trials.
Anyway, I think it is to be officially unveiled at DSEi in September.
bob
Forget any notion of anything FRES making its way onto this vehicle. FRES-SV is a long term core budget development programme that at the very least will produce some prototypes for a truly excellent vehicle- but that will not be for a while. This is clearly a UOR programme.The hull in that video looks VERY Spartan. There would be other advantages to using the Spartan hull, notably the larger internal volume.
ArmChairCivvy
Going well ahead of things with this one:
- active armour is still in trials (battle trials with the Israels at least)
- as it is so new (, expensive) and so far (almost)unproven, all are retro-fits to existing IFVs/ MBTs
There is potential for the CVR (T) class of vehicle becoming feasible again, as the normal armour would only need to suffice against HMGs (Mines, IEDs… a different story).
Put in the hybrid-electric drive (as in SEP) and you might do some sneak-and-beak again (mounted, rather than only dismounted).
Because of the dominant role of electronics (only passive sensors are not hugely power-hungry) in recce versions, battery capacity will never go wasted.
S O
The engine sounds overburdened to me.
Jed
Sad, sad, fakkin sad
Is this really all we can achieve / afford, some 40 years after the originals came into service ?
Nothing good to say about this….
Pete Arundel
“FRES-SV is a long term core budget development programme that at the very least will produce some prototypes for a truly excellent vehicle”
I just snorted curry . . . At eh very least it will prototype some powertrain upgrades that GD can sell to the Austrians and Spanish. At best it’ll create a new Warrior.
ArmChairCivvy
Having 7 of the prototypes, RE
“very least it will prototype some powertrain upgrades that GD can sell to the Austrians and Spanish. At best it’ll create a new Warrior.”
will (just my private thinking) afford tactical trials that establish the true value-add of the new Scout over the Warrior (do we have prototypes of the “Improved” to use, as the programme has been kicked to the long grass repeatedly? Except that now , finally, it should start)
John Hartley
Todays Daily Flail had an item on McClarren. Apart from racing/sports cars, they also make carbon fibre anti IED seats for armoured vehicles. Wonder if they will appear on MoD ordered FRES or CVR?
RW
@RW
Now two with the same ID……. can be confusing
@ACC
Don’t think that the money for FRES SV is mainly about the mechanicals. more the new plug and play electrics etc.
But, much more importantly, the new turret with the CTA gun and CTA ammunition handling and positioning being new technology and needing to be integrated with other turret features so requiring development level funding
Which therefore also means there should be some spin off contribution to the warrior upgrade, through an understanding of such problems as placing CTA ammo outside the turrets crew compartment ( to generate more space) etc…
Monty
I saw no mention of FRES SV in the latest round of approved funding, but Warrior Upgrade was included. FRES SV may be killed off and Warrior will do its job.
That has to be better than this bastard child of Scimitar and Spartan. Turret = old and outdated without 40 mm CTA cannon. Chassis = old and worn out
Height and weight too great. This must be a one-off feasibility study, wasting tax payers money when the outcome of such trials is easy to predict.
RW
@John Hartley
nice work by McClaren but why was it for the US office for naval research rather than the MOD !!!!!
As usual a flying lashup of old bits and 30 year old technology, added up with some up to date electrics.
This is no way to do this long term.
As for FRES I will believe it the day something enters service until then Fres is a bed time story for tired soldiers.
‘Go to bed now and be good little soldiers and in the morning there will be FRES’.
Mr.fred
I rather suspect that you could do a lot better than Scimitar in a Scimitar-shaped package.
Aluminium alloys and welding technology has developed a lot since the 1970s. For the same basic package you could get something stronger and better protected.
Power electronics and motors have also developed significantly – you could probably build a Scimitar with a powered and stabilised turret without increasing weight too much, if you didn’t mind keeping a Rarden. That said, you could probably swap for an M230 like the Apache or maybe something more powerful like an MK30 or a Russian 2A42, but it might start getting cramped.
Tubby
Thanks everyone who pointed out that it was panel for EW antenna mounting – I was thinking solar panel as I presumed it was lashed up UOR solely for Afghanistan. I find it interesting that there appears to be a split in the rumours – half have heard it is new build (so presumably if new build it will have modern armour, power train and sensors, and maybe even a modern gun with some sort of stabilisation ?), while the other half suspect it is a cut and shut designed as a stop gap.
bob
Even if it is new build I see no reason why it would be any different to the UOR variants of the CVR-T family which have already had most of their automotive systems modified, additional armour and upgraded thermal sights. A stabilised gun is highly improbable.
I dont understand the FRES-SV bitching. The vehicle itself will be outstanding and will offer a step-change in capability for the British Army with its combination of mobility, sensors, firepower and protection. There are plenty of questions to be asked about the conduct of British armoured vehicles policy in the last 20 years but from a technical perspective ASCOD-Scout should be outstanding.
IXION
BOB
The Fres program has been going for a decade or more if you add in its predecessors even longer.
Half a billion for a box on tracks (of a type that has been in service for 10 years)
And the program is still not producing any actual deployed vehicles. Nor is it likely to do so in the next 5 years, by which time they will have spent the other half of the billion.
And our solider wil still not have any actual kit in service.
Sigh ‘A STEP CHANGE IN CAPABILITY’ Yea right. But (if i believed thay it would), It will only deliver it when it is in service.
jonesy
The FRES vehicle is derived from the ascod, which is the same vintage as warrior. It is to all intents rather conventional in design terms with little real innovation which will be a rather uninspiring by the time the current mini sdsr add a bit more delay to 2017.
Mike W
What I still can’t understand is why the Stormer hulls were not used for such a vehicle. When Stormer HVM was first introduced, the British Army had approx. 160 of them. Now the latest plan is, according to at least one source, simply to retain two batteries of the self-propelled HVM in 12 Regiment RA. Although they will be using a vastly improved system, these batteries will probably only field approx.30 vehicles all told (40 with reserves?). What has happened to the other 100+ vehicles? Probably sold off at Withams for a song.
The Stormer is a more recent and more spacious vehicle than the Scimitar. Surely it could have done a job as a recce vehicle for a fair number of years? They can’t be clapped out. Otherwise why continue with them in the Stormer HVM SP role?
Peter Arundel
” The vehicle itself will be outstanding”
In what way?
” and will offer a step-change in capability for the British Army with its combination of mobility, sensors, firepower and protection”
Apart from sensors it’s no real advance on Warrior.
Bob, this is a serious question; do you actually work for GD?
bob
IXION,
Yes the programme has been going on for years, the vehicle itself will be an excellent piece of kit, and yes it will be s step change in capability, the changes being made to the ASCOD are dramatic to the point that it will effectively be a new vehicle- that takes time.
Jonesey,
What more innovation do you want? What magic technology that is genuinely combat ready is not included? What engineering achievement will render it obsolete? Inspiration is irrelevant capability is paramount and SCOUT-SV has the potential to provide it.
bob
Peter Arundel,
It will be a major advance on Warrior having a higher GVW potential, far better protection and superior mobility afforded through a higher power to weight ratio. People forget that Warrior was originally conceived as a vehicle with a 750hp engine and chobham armour but was scaled back to what it became on cost grounds.In the proposed but unfulfilled concept the Warrior would still have had less engine power and less armour than ASCOD-SV. ASCOD-SV will be the best protected and probably best sensor equipped force recon vehicle (as opposed to Warrior which is an IFV) in the world when/if it is procured and will form the basis of a family of vehicles.
I am not a GD employee I just know what I am talking about.
RW
please can we remember that FRES SV has a CTA cannon firing CTA ammunition which will be a world first when operational and not focus on the chuffing tracks
what we should ponder is what the french who are in charge of developing new CTA rounds will do and if they will adopt CTA onto their vehicles and how we progress to airburst rounds etc..
its the possible types of ammo that CTA can bring that should be the real FRES SV story not whether it looks or sounds like a warrior
yes its a tracked vehicle, so it looks like the others, but does it fight like the others ????
ArmChairCivvy
v good point “what the french who are in charge of developing new CTA rounds will do and if they will adopt CTA onto their vehicles and how we progress to airburst rounds etc..”
- getting on par with the much more bulky Bofors that has
– proximity fuse
– airburst with “good” scatter pattern
– not sure how the two would compare in armour piercing
bob
The CTA is an excellent weapon in its own right but it is only one part of the FRES-SV package.
IXION
bob
Ok so it’s got more armour, bigger better gun. With a full ‘intigration package’ (Posh sales talk for radios digital links and video feeds).
All good.
but
It will be bigger, Heavier, still based on a 30 year old design. all not good.
It is simply a change in the weight class of opperated vehicle, together with intigration of 30 years development of electronics, not the second comming.
AND
Strap on all the dodas and bells and whistles we have a vehicle which is 3 metres wide, (Officialy a wide load), 6 metres long weighs near the upper limit for road vehicles in europe, and thus is restricted to A road Bridges in many developed nations. Not Good for a reconasence vehicle.
EG
If it wanted to reconoiter from Casrlisle to Gretna Green it can only reconioter Via the M6!
NONE of the above is revolutionary enough to make it worth the years of effort and stupid development costs.
Whatever engine it has will be a development of existing engines, transmission will be off the shelf ( like RENK), tracks will still be steel pin designs), its not a magnetic levatating hover ship or an Imperial Walker. CTA (Which I like very much) has been a functioning weapoins system for at least 5 years.
So 2 cheers; but why so long and sofaking expensive?
IXION
Got some questions, anyone got figures on: -
When is this thing going to get into service?
In what numbers are the diamond crusted unobtainium hulls going to hit the streets?
Whats the unit cost going to be?
My guess is in reality it when eventually in service will spend most of it’s life like CVRT being deployed as infantry support and ‘light tank’ UN peace keeping/enforcing roles.
ArmChairCivvy
I certainly hope so “My guess is in reality it when eventually in service will spend most of it’s life like CVRT being deployed as infantry support and ‘light tank’ UN peace keeping/enforcing roles.”
- but one has to prepare for the war that one cannot afford to lose ( at least have the force structure and equipment from where to ramp up in numbers)
Pete Arundel
“Warrior would still have had less engine power and less armour than ASCOD-SV. ASCOD-SV will be the best protected and probably best sensor equipped force recon vehicle (as opposed to Warrior which is an IFV) in the world when/if it is procured and will form the basis of a family of vehicles.”
Sorry, Bob, you seem to have missed the point. ASCOD is basically a, marginally larger, steel hulled Warrior. It’s an MICV. ASCOD-SV doesn’t exist but, should it ever exist, will be, basically, a marginally larger, steel hulled Warrior with a newer engine, gearbox and stiffer torsion bars. It’s base protection is not claimed to protect against anything greater than a 14.5mm HMG round. It may turn out to be a good vehicle; reliable and well protected but Warrior is already a good, reliable and well ptotected vehicle which could, if Bae hadn’t bought and then closed down Alvis and Vickers)have been upgraded in exactly the same way as ASCOD is. I Have no beef with ASCOD-SV as a vehicle. I do have serious problems with claims that it is a wonderful new, heavily armoured wonder wagon as it manifestly is not.
And the same goes for the proposed CV90 FRES-SV that lost out to ASCOD.
Mr.fred
The French are in charge of developing new ammunition for the CTA cannon? Is it me or is there a problem here?
1) The French do not use said cannon, nor do they have any project that is committed to using the cannon.
2) The only country in the world that does use the cannon is… us.
3) The cannon is of unique design so the projectile could not be common with any other weapon system
To me, this boils down to the same situation we had with the RARDEN (except worse) in that we could not generate enough demand to develop new rounds for the RARDEN (despite being made in far greater numbers and being very similar to the 30x173mm round adopted by other armies). How are we going to generate the business case to develop all these wonderful ammunition natures anew for our unique cannon?
In the meantime, the US is spending about £500m for two design studies that may result in an IFV with a unit cost of £6m (although some estimates are as high as £8m). That’s before the development phase is accounted for.
Tony Williams
Mr.fred, CTAI is developing the gun and ammo. This is a joint Anglo-French company set up by BAE and Nexter, which happens to be based in France.
We don’t use the CTA, and won’t until the updated Warrior gets into service.
Whether the FRES SV makes it is looking a little shakier, given that it was omitted from the provisional list of major projects issued a week or two ago. We’ll find out in a month or two when the result of the latest round of cuts is announced.
ArmChairCivvy
UK version of Chinese water torture “. We’ll find out in a month or two ”
- how many months does a 3-month review take (oops; the PM on hols, add one)
- is it not really the PR11 that did not conclude, something has to come out, before the next PR is knocking on the door
jonesy
Mike W – it all comes down to two things – firstly the MoD not wanting to suggest that CVR(T) had any life left in it by doing a “visible” upgrade (to cause any confusion with FRES) and secondly that the Stormer hulls probably wouldn’t have had the necessary Mine Blast Protection.
Bob – do you work in DE&S? The issue I have with FRES is that we are paying a huge sum for these vehicles but getting comparatively pedestrian solutions. The Future Protected Vehicle studies which the MoD undertook with BAES and Thales which you can find online, have already identified many technological opportunities – which would have justified the price. My concern is that the MoD will not be able to adopt any of these until the 2030 timeframe, with a mid life upgrade for FRES.
ArmChairCivvy
This “the Stormer hulls probably wouldn’t have had the necessary Mine Blast Protection” is the bit I would be interested to find out about
- if there is no “edge” in the construction on this point, Stormer should have been the choice for the chassis
Bob
Pete Arundel,
You have no understanding of the scale of work going into the FRES-SV programme. For a star more armour and superior firepower (with superior sensors an systems integration) are fairly standard armoured vehicle benchmarks. The vehicle will also integrate considerably greater mine protection. So what if it is big? So is you beloved Warrior. Also, FRES-SCOUT is NOT an MICV, it will not carry infantry and is thus a recce vehicle in the mould of Scimitar.
Just because the concept seems pedestrian to an armchair general it does not mean that the detail design is. The turret, main gun, engine and transmission are all new and far and away the best available on the market- far superior to the Warrior.
Pete Arundel
“FRES-SCOUT is NOT an MICV,”
Never said it was.
Read my reply again.
Carefully.
“engine and transmission are all new”
No they’re not! The engine is an uprated version of the same MTU lump as already fitted to the Ulan in Austrian service (where it is rated at 720hp)
“just because the concept seems pedestrian to an armchair general”
Careful, Bob, you have no idea what I do for a living . . . and it IS pedestrian. Pedestrian to the point of the basic vehicle being obselescent. Improived mine protection? With bloody great torsion bars running across the hull floor? Do me a favour. It’s increased mine protection is purely increased mass in comparison to the vehicle it replaces.
Pete Arundel
Missed this on, Bob
“You have no understanding of the scale of work going into the FRES-SV programme.”
So you do? Just what IS your job?
You do keep popping up and telling us how great FRES-SV is.
In fact I can’t remember you commenting on any other subject . . .
IXION
Bob
I’m certainly Armchair (not much of a general).
But I an sorry there are a from the published
‘information’ there are a large number of terms: -
Systems intigration
Superior sensors
Wepons systems
Capability leap
Etc that each smack of 10 points in bullshit bingo, The kind I get from the IT Snake oil salesmen who pester me all the time.
What does system intigration actually mean,?
Intigrated with what?
What is a weapons System?
Superior sensors, Superior to what?
What kind of sensors?
Capability leap? Whats that in feet and inches?
Sorry to sound too sarcastic, but there is the whiff of the usual
‘Don’t you trouble your little head about it tax payer, leave it to the ‘experts’ there’s a good chap’.
To the uninitiated, it looks like we have spent hndreds of million pounds for 3/5ths of bugger all so far; and are now getting ripped off for warmed over 30 year old designs, with modern systems bolted on and in. Maybe carefully and ergonomicaly bolted on and in.
As has been noted the displayed ‘prototypes’ look like second hand kit.
But this is not Puma, or any other more modern design. The basic systems already exist and are in service. Double hulling, V huilling etc are not engineering rocket science in particular as there is a large amount of engineering info on IED and Mine protection in the public domain. Various companies do bolt on anti tank missile passive armour.
FRES SV will NOT be invulnerable to IED, it will not be THAT superior (even if it goes to plan), to the other armies systems. Indeed much of it’s systems will be on sale to anyone who wants to buy it.
‘You have no understanding of the scale of work going into the FRES-SV programme’.
You bet your ever lovin arse I don’t.
Cos whats published smacks of it being: -
‘ An intigrated, Single man portable, manually opperated, unpowered, variable angle, readily deployable, Multi terrain relocation implimant Mk 1′
Looks great, but I doubt the spoiler on the back is going to make any difference speed-wise…!
Do we know how many have been ordered?
- thinking post-Afghanistan, i.e. how will other procurements be impacted, or is it purely a UOR
Is it a spoiler?!? I thought it might be a solar panel based on the shot at 11 seconds that seemed to suggest a glass surface to the top of the panel.
wow, does this thing really exist!
my question is the same as AAC’s; is this a temporary UOR?
@Tubby
EW (Counter-IED jamming) antenna mounting – currently minus the antennas.
Most vehicles in theatre now have them. The rectangular ‘Spoiler’ is the most common (Panther, Scimitar, Challenger, etc). Mastiff now has small mounts on the roof corners and Warrior has two roughly triangular mounts on the rear of the troop compartment roof.
Please please tell me this is not happening – take one obsolescent turrent from worn out chassis, bolt on bits and pieces and mate with a not-so-worn out chassis, save money, “new” vehicle for deployment…
@JamesD – At least it’s something I guess, rather than muddling on until 2017 or whenever FRES SV’s Scout variant is currently looking at it’s ISD.
We are so slow in this country even for urgent needs. Whilst a different type of role/vehicle, the war fighting focus of the US can be seen in them taking less than 12 months for their M-ATVs to go from competition proposal (Eventual winner Oshkosh’s submission was in Jan ’09), down-selection of winner, fielded prototype and then full on 1000 vehicle per month (per month!) production (by Dec ’09).
@TD – Spamitar (my entry for the ridiculous name bucket)
@JamesD – At least it’s something… and we don’t even know the details
- presumably the body with more volume to help to build in mine resistance ( I am not sure one can tell apart the V-hulled Stryker by looking at it from outside?)
- BAE is working with many types of new armour; any of them in it? Otherwise it is just MG-proof?
If they had just “welded” the two parts together, it would not have taken this long (Welded, well, I guess the turret has to turn)
Stitching together various bits of information to create a theory, there was chat sometime back about procuring new Scimitars due to their all round usefulness as recce vehicles in Afghanistan, however there are persistent rumours that due to the weight having been piled on the vehicles through the UOR process the hulls were cracking- which would of course make new-build Scimitars less than attractive. The Spartan chassis also has a bit more volume which is always useful and could of course take all the automotive upgrades undertaken for the family so far. It seems that the Scimitar Mk2 is actually the Spartan with a Scimitar turret.
FYI: The “spoiler” is for electronic equipment.
Further; It seems like the new-build Scimitar plan never went anywhere and Scimitar 2 will actually use stored Spartan chassis.
TD, nice bit of video. The mk2 is now in theatre and so there will be significantly more information being made publicly available in the next few weeks.
“Scimitar 2 will actually use stored Spartan chassis”, so
- the best one can do to improve the mine resistance is to use the height for a double-floor?
Didn’t the earlier models already get Fox-turrets? Is it those that are on Mk2?
If the chassis comes out of storage, then there will hardly be a plan to try to fit the turrets chosen for FRES (much too big, anyway?).
Clearly we need to await the MoD machine with its official news, but I have it on good authority that the hulls are not old Spartans or old anything.
What I would really like to know is whether there are going to be any variants of the hybrid. From the video it looks just like a basic recce vehicle (à la Scimitar).
If it is to be a vehicle for 16 AA Brigade and 3 Commando Brigade (FRES SV being too heavy etc.), then surely other variants will be needed: e.g. recovery and repair, command, possibly ambulance, etc.
ArmChairCivvy’s question “or is it purely a UOR?” could lead to the right answer, though. Like him, I would love to know the answer to the question “How many have been ordered?”
In answer to the points Bob raised: eg. “there are persistent rumours that due to the weight having been piled on the vehicles through the UOR process the hulls were cracking- which would of course make new-build Scimitars less than attractive.”, I thought I read somewhere very recently that , contrary to many rumours, the hybrid vehicle was still to be new-build but I might have got that wrong. According to the story, I seem to remember, BAE Systems put together a Scimitar turret and a Spartan hull. This ‘vehicle’ was then sent to the Armoured Development Unit at Bovington to see whether the concept would work. As it was successful, the MOD ordered two new vehicles and they were delivered to Bovington earlier this year for further trials.
Anyway, I think it is to be officially unveiled at DSEi in September.
Forget any notion of anything FRES making its way onto this vehicle. FRES-SV is a long term core budget development programme that at the very least will produce some prototypes for a truly excellent vehicle- but that will not be for a while. This is clearly a UOR programme.The hull in that video looks VERY Spartan. There would be other advantages to using the Spartan hull, notably the larger internal volume.
Going well ahead of things with this one:
- active armour is still in trials (battle trials with the Israels at least)
- as it is so new (, expensive) and so far (almost)unproven, all are retro-fits to existing IFVs/ MBTs
There is potential for the CVR (T) class of vehicle becoming feasible again, as the normal armour would only need to suffice against HMGs (Mines, IEDs… a different story).
Put in the hybrid-electric drive (as in SEP) and you might do some sneak-and-beak again (mounted, rather than only dismounted).
Because of the dominant role of electronics (only passive sensors are not hugely power-hungry) in recce versions, battery capacity will never go wasted.
The engine sounds overburdened to me.
Sad, sad, fakkin sad
Is this really all we can achieve / afford, some 40 years after the originals came into service ?
Nothing good to say about this….
“FRES-SV is a long term core budget development programme that at the very least will produce some prototypes for a truly excellent vehicle”
I just snorted curry . . . At eh very least it will prototype some powertrain upgrades that GD can sell to the Austrians and Spanish. At best it’ll create a new Warrior.
Having 7 of the prototypes, RE
“very least it will prototype some powertrain upgrades that GD can sell to the Austrians and Spanish. At best it’ll create a new Warrior.”
will (just my private thinking) afford tactical trials that establish the true value-add of the new Scout over the Warrior (do we have prototypes of the “Improved” to use, as the programme has been kicked to the long grass repeatedly? Except that now , finally, it should start)
Todays Daily Flail had an item on McClarren. Apart from racing/sports cars, they also make carbon fibre anti IED seats for armoured vehicles. Wonder if they will appear on MoD ordered FRES or CVR?
@RW
Now two with the same ID……. can be confusing
@ACC
Don’t think that the money for FRES SV is mainly about the mechanicals. more the new plug and play electrics etc.
But, much more importantly, the new turret with the CTA gun and CTA ammunition handling and positioning being new technology and needing to be integrated with other turret features so requiring development level funding
Which therefore also means there should be some spin off contribution to the warrior upgrade, through an understanding of such problems as placing CTA ammo outside the turrets crew compartment ( to generate more space) etc…
I saw no mention of FRES SV in the latest round of approved funding, but Warrior Upgrade was included. FRES SV may be killed off and Warrior will do its job.
That has to be better than this bastard child of Scimitar and Spartan. Turret = old and outdated without 40 mm CTA cannon. Chassis = old and worn out
Height and weight too great. This must be a one-off feasibility study, wasting tax payers money when the outcome of such trials is easy to predict.
@John Hartley
nice work by McClaren but why was it for the US office for naval research rather than the MOD !!!!!
http://ingenia.org.uk/ingenia/issues/issue40/Bradley.pdf
Depressed.
As usual a flying lashup of old bits and 30 year old technology, added up with some up to date electrics.
This is no way to do this long term.
As for FRES I will believe it the day something enters service until then Fres is a bed time story for tired soldiers.
‘Go to bed now and be good little soldiers and in the morning there will be FRES’.
I rather suspect that you could do a lot better than Scimitar in a Scimitar-shaped package.
Aluminium alloys and welding technology has developed a lot since the 1970s. For the same basic package you could get something stronger and better protected.
Power electronics and motors have also developed significantly – you could probably build a Scimitar with a powered and stabilised turret without increasing weight too much, if you didn’t mind keeping a Rarden. That said, you could probably swap for an M230 like the Apache or maybe something more powerful like an MK30 or a Russian 2A42, but it might start getting cramped.
Thanks everyone who pointed out that it was panel for EW antenna mounting – I was thinking solar panel as I presumed it was lashed up UOR solely for Afghanistan. I find it interesting that there appears to be a split in the rumours – half have heard it is new build (so presumably if new build it will have modern armour, power train and sensors, and maybe even a modern gun with some sort of stabilisation ?), while the other half suspect it is a cut and shut designed as a stop gap.
Even if it is new build I see no reason why it would be any different to the UOR variants of the CVR-T family which have already had most of their automotive systems modified, additional armour and upgraded thermal sights. A stabilised gun is highly improbable.
I dont understand the FRES-SV bitching. The vehicle itself will be outstanding and will offer a step-change in capability for the British Army with its combination of mobility, sensors, firepower and protection. There are plenty of questions to be asked about the conduct of British armoured vehicles policy in the last 20 years but from a technical perspective ASCOD-Scout should be outstanding.
BOB
The Fres program has been going for a decade or more if you add in its predecessors even longer.
Half a billion for a box on tracks (of a type that has been in service for 10 years)
And the program is still not producing any actual deployed vehicles. Nor is it likely to do so in the next 5 years, by which time they will have spent the other half of the billion.
And our solider wil still not have any actual kit in service.
Sigh ‘A STEP CHANGE IN CAPABILITY’ Yea right. But (if i believed thay it would), It will only deliver it when it is in service.
The FRES vehicle is derived from the ascod, which is the same vintage as warrior. It is to all intents rather conventional in design terms with little real innovation which will be a rather uninspiring by the time the current mini sdsr add a bit more delay to 2017.
What I still can’t understand is why the Stormer hulls were not used for such a vehicle. When Stormer HVM was first introduced, the British Army had approx. 160 of them. Now the latest plan is, according to at least one source, simply to retain two batteries of the self-propelled HVM in 12 Regiment RA. Although they will be using a vastly improved system, these batteries will probably only field approx.30 vehicles all told (40 with reserves?). What has happened to the other 100+ vehicles? Probably sold off at Withams for a song.
The Stormer is a more recent and more spacious vehicle than the Scimitar. Surely it could have done a job as a recce vehicle for a fair number of years? They can’t be clapped out. Otherwise why continue with them in the Stormer HVM SP role?
” The vehicle itself will be outstanding”
In what way?
” and will offer a step-change in capability for the British Army with its combination of mobility, sensors, firepower and protection”
Apart from sensors it’s no real advance on Warrior.
Bob, this is a serious question; do you actually work for GD?
IXION,
Yes the programme has been going on for years, the vehicle itself will be an excellent piece of kit, and yes it will be s step change in capability, the changes being made to the ASCOD are dramatic to the point that it will effectively be a new vehicle- that takes time.
Jonesey,
What more innovation do you want? What magic technology that is genuinely combat ready is not included? What engineering achievement will render it obsolete? Inspiration is irrelevant capability is paramount and SCOUT-SV has the potential to provide it.
Peter Arundel,
It will be a major advance on Warrior having a higher GVW potential, far better protection and superior mobility afforded through a higher power to weight ratio. People forget that Warrior was originally conceived as a vehicle with a 750hp engine and chobham armour but was scaled back to what it became on cost grounds.In the proposed but unfulfilled concept the Warrior would still have had less engine power and less armour than ASCOD-SV. ASCOD-SV will be the best protected and probably best sensor equipped force recon vehicle (as opposed to Warrior which is an IFV) in the world when/if it is procured and will form the basis of a family of vehicles.
I am not a GD employee I just know what I am talking about.
please can we remember that FRES SV has a CTA cannon firing CTA ammunition which will be a world first when operational and not focus on the chuffing tracks
what we should ponder is what the french who are in charge of developing new CTA rounds will do and if they will adopt CTA onto their vehicles and how we progress to airburst rounds etc..
its the possible types of ammo that CTA can bring that should be the real FRES SV story not whether it looks or sounds like a warrior
yes its a tracked vehicle, so it looks like the others, but does it fight like the others ????
v good point “what the french who are in charge of developing new CTA rounds will do and if they will adopt CTA onto their vehicles and how we progress to airburst rounds etc..”
- getting on par with the much more bulky Bofors that has
– proximity fuse
– airburst with “good” scatter pattern
– not sure how the two would compare in armour piercing
The CTA is an excellent weapon in its own right but it is only one part of the FRES-SV package.
bob
Ok so it’s got more armour, bigger better gun. With a full ‘intigration package’ (Posh sales talk for radios digital links and video feeds).
All good.
but
It will be bigger, Heavier, still based on a 30 year old design. all not good.
It is simply a change in the weight class of opperated vehicle, together with intigration of 30 years development of electronics, not the second comming.
AND
Strap on all the dodas and bells and whistles we have a vehicle which is 3 metres wide, (Officialy a wide load), 6 metres long weighs near the upper limit for road vehicles in europe, and thus is restricted to A road Bridges in many developed nations. Not Good for a reconasence vehicle.
EG
If it wanted to reconoiter from Casrlisle to Gretna Green it can only reconioter Via the M6!
NONE of the above is revolutionary enough to make it worth the years of effort and stupid development costs.
Whatever engine it has will be a development of existing engines, transmission will be off the shelf ( like RENK), tracks will still be steel pin designs), its not a magnetic levatating hover ship or an Imperial Walker. CTA (Which I like very much) has been a functioning weapoins system for at least 5 years.
So 2 cheers; but why so long and sofaking expensive?
Got some questions, anyone got figures on: -
When is this thing going to get into service?
In what numbers are the diamond crusted unobtainium hulls going to hit the streets?
Whats the unit cost going to be?
My guess is in reality it when eventually in service will spend most of it’s life like CVRT being deployed as infantry support and ‘light tank’ UN peace keeping/enforcing roles.
I certainly hope so “My guess is in reality it when eventually in service will spend most of it’s life like CVRT being deployed as infantry support and ‘light tank’ UN peace keeping/enforcing roles.”
- but one has to prepare for the war that one cannot afford to lose ( at least have the force structure and equipment from where to ramp up in numbers)
“Warrior would still have had less engine power and less armour than ASCOD-SV. ASCOD-SV will be the best protected and probably best sensor equipped force recon vehicle (as opposed to Warrior which is an IFV) in the world when/if it is procured and will form the basis of a family of vehicles.”
Sorry, Bob, you seem to have missed the point. ASCOD is basically a, marginally larger, steel hulled Warrior. It’s an MICV. ASCOD-SV doesn’t exist but, should it ever exist, will be, basically, a marginally larger, steel hulled Warrior with a newer engine, gearbox and stiffer torsion bars. It’s base protection is not claimed to protect against anything greater than a 14.5mm HMG round. It may turn out to be a good vehicle; reliable and well protected but Warrior is already a good, reliable and well ptotected vehicle which could, if Bae hadn’t bought and then closed down Alvis and Vickers)have been upgraded in exactly the same way as ASCOD is. I Have no beef with ASCOD-SV as a vehicle. I do have serious problems with claims that it is a wonderful new, heavily armoured wonder wagon as it manifestly is not.
And the same goes for the proposed CV90 FRES-SV that lost out to ASCOD.
The French are in charge of developing new ammunition for the CTA cannon? Is it me or is there a problem here?
1) The French do not use said cannon, nor do they have any project that is committed to using the cannon.
2) The only country in the world that does use the cannon is… us.
3) The cannon is of unique design so the projectile could not be common with any other weapon system
To me, this boils down to the same situation we had with the RARDEN (except worse) in that we could not generate enough demand to develop new rounds for the RARDEN (despite being made in far greater numbers and being very similar to the 30x173mm round adopted by other armies). How are we going to generate the business case to develop all these wonderful ammunition natures anew for our unique cannon?
In the meantime, the US is spending about £500m for two design studies that may result in an IFV with a unit cost of £6m (although some estimates are as high as £8m). That’s before the development phase is accounted for.
Mr.fred, CTAI is developing the gun and ammo. This is a joint Anglo-French company set up by BAE and Nexter, which happens to be based in France.
We don’t use the CTA, and won’t until the updated Warrior gets into service.
Whether the FRES SV makes it is looking a little shakier, given that it was omitted from the provisional list of major projects issued a week or two ago. We’ll find out in a month or two when the result of the latest round of cuts is announced.
UK version of Chinese water torture “. We’ll find out in a month or two ”
- how many months does a 3-month review take (oops; the PM on hols, add one)
- is it not really the PR11 that did not conclude, something has to come out, before the next PR is knocking on the door
Mike W – it all comes down to two things – firstly the MoD not wanting to suggest that CVR(T) had any life left in it by doing a “visible” upgrade (to cause any confusion with FRES) and secondly that the Stormer hulls probably wouldn’t have had the necessary Mine Blast Protection.
Bob – do you work in DE&S? The issue I have with FRES is that we are paying a huge sum for these vehicles but getting comparatively pedestrian solutions. The Future Protected Vehicle studies which the MoD undertook with BAES and Thales which you can find online, have already identified many technological opportunities – which would have justified the price. My concern is that the MoD will not be able to adopt any of these until the 2030 timeframe, with a mid life upgrade for FRES.
This “the Stormer hulls probably wouldn’t have had the necessary Mine Blast Protection” is the bit I would be interested to find out about
- if there is no “edge” in the construction on this point, Stormer should have been the choice for the chassis
Pete Arundel,
You have no understanding of the scale of work going into the FRES-SV programme. For a star more armour and superior firepower (with superior sensors an systems integration) are fairly standard armoured vehicle benchmarks. The vehicle will also integrate considerably greater mine protection. So what if it is big? So is you beloved Warrior. Also, FRES-SCOUT is NOT an MICV, it will not carry infantry and is thus a recce vehicle in the mould of Scimitar.
Just because the concept seems pedestrian to an armchair general it does not mean that the detail design is. The turret, main gun, engine and transmission are all new and far and away the best available on the market- far superior to the Warrior.
“FRES-SCOUT is NOT an MICV,”
Never said it was.
Read my reply again.
Carefully.
“engine and transmission are all new”
No they’re not! The engine is an uprated version of the same MTU lump as already fitted to the Ulan in Austrian service (where it is rated at 720hp)
“just because the concept seems pedestrian to an armchair general”
Careful, Bob, you have no idea what I do for a living . . . and it IS pedestrian. Pedestrian to the point of the basic vehicle being obselescent. Improived mine protection? With bloody great torsion bars running across the hull floor? Do me a favour. It’s increased mine protection is purely increased mass in comparison to the vehicle it replaces.
Missed this on, Bob
“You have no understanding of the scale of work going into the FRES-SV programme.”
So you do? Just what IS your job?
You do keep popping up and telling us how great FRES-SV is.
In fact I can’t remember you commenting on any other subject . . .
Bob
I’m certainly Armchair (not much of a general).
But I an sorry there are a from the published
‘information’ there are a large number of terms: -
Systems intigration
Superior sensors
Wepons systems
Capability leap
Etc that each smack of 10 points in bullshit bingo, The kind I get from the IT Snake oil salesmen who pester me all the time.
What does system intigration actually mean,?
Intigrated with what?
What is a weapons System?
Superior sensors, Superior to what?
What kind of sensors?
Capability leap? Whats that in feet and inches?
Sorry to sound too sarcastic, but there is the whiff of the usual
‘Don’t you trouble your little head about it tax payer, leave it to the ‘experts’ there’s a good chap’.
To the uninitiated, it looks like we have spent hndreds of million pounds for 3/5ths of bugger all so far; and are now getting ripped off for warmed over 30 year old designs, with modern systems bolted on and in. Maybe carefully and ergonomicaly bolted on and in.
As has been noted the displayed ‘prototypes’ look like second hand kit.
But this is not Puma, or any other more modern design. The basic systems already exist and are in service. Double hulling, V huilling etc are not engineering rocket science in particular as there is a large amount of engineering info on IED and Mine protection in the public domain. Various companies do bolt on anti tank missile passive armour.
FRES SV will NOT be invulnerable to IED, it will not be THAT superior (even if it goes to plan), to the other armies systems. Indeed much of it’s systems will be on sale to anyone who wants to buy it.
‘You have no understanding of the scale of work going into the FRES-SV programme’.
You bet your ever lovin arse I don’t.
Cos whats published smacks of it being: -
‘ An intigrated, Single man portable, manually opperated, unpowered, variable angle, readily deployable, Multi terrain relocation implimant Mk 1′
Or as we call it ‘a spade’