Both FRES Specialist vehicle Scout and the new and improved Warrior MICV will be fitted with the CTAI 40mm cannon. There are a number of debates about this, does the cased telescoping ammunition offer enough of an advantage to justify the cost, will we ever field advanced natures, is the calibre too high when everyone else uses 25mm to 30mm [...]
Information on the new 40mm cased telescopic cannon that will be fitted to FRES SV Scout and Warrior
It might be mischief making but I can’t resist keeping track of the General Dynamics FRES SV programme and the statement from the head of GDUK that FRES SV is ‘British to its Bootstraps’ Building from previous posts. Commenting on the deal, Dr Sandy Sandy Wilson, President and Managing Director of General Dynamics UK said. The ASCOD SV programme is [...]
Just seen this, thought it was interesting Plus, another video of Scimitar 2 (H/T Snafu)
Does anyone remember last year, following the announcement that General Dynamics had been selected for the FRES Specialist Variant, the phrase British to its bootstraps? At the time I did question this, given the vehicle was to be based on the ASCOD and have most of the main components provided by non UK organisations, creating a post on just that [...]
It will be a real shame if FRES gets cancelled but in an age of real austerity, a worsening economy and likely future cuts can the MoD afford it? Could more of these, plus a handful of upgraded Warriors, a mix of lighter vehicles, UAV’s and a a multi cap badge Regiment of dismounted specialists be the future of Formation [...]
Thought you might be interested in this video Did Sandy just say 11 people in the back? Also, check out the rear.
You know that £500 million that we are paying General Dynamics to create 7 FRES SV demonstrators, the same FRES SV that is based on a 20 year old design where all of the variants are already in service with Spain and Austria? Yes, that one that is ‘British to its Bootstraps’ Here is a photograph of the the first [...]
We have covered FRES in much painful detail but one of the notable ‘le grande cock ups’ was the UK’s decision to invest in the MRAP programme, then pull out after investing hundreds of millions and finally to put the resultant vehicle (Artec Boxer) through the subsequent FRES Utility Variant (trials of truth) Of course it wasn’t selected, it wasn’t [...]
A guest post from Jed, currently enjoying Florida I think! In his article “A need to rethink FRES” our friend Monty provided a number of alternative designs for a light weight tracked armoured vehicle to supplement the ‘heavy’ FRES SV in the shape of the GC ASCOD II Scout. The idea was that these designs were options for a [...]
In all the best TV cookery shows the presenter does a spot of preparation and then swiftly opens the oven and with a ‘here’s one we made earlier’ statement, out pops a fully formed dish, ready for serving. As we know General Dynamics UK have been awarded a £500m demonstration phase contract for FRES Specialist Vehicles to include 7 prototypes. [...]
If we cast our gaze back to the Future Family of Light Armoured Vehicles (FFLAV) study that ultimately spawned TRACER and MRAV it is as relevant today as it was then. It came to the conclusion that what was needed was a three tier vehicle fleet As per the previous post, a sensible solution is to make do with what [...]
A guest post from Monty After reading your excellent article on FRES, I think we have every reason to question the suitability of the ASCOD 2 vehicle that has been selected to replace CVR(T). It is as large as a Warrior IFV but doesn’t do anything that a Warrior couldn’t do if it were to be upgraded. I accept that [...]
In the previous post I looked at a few issues that might influence equipment and structure decisions. Do we employ stealth or fight for information, have organic or non organic reconnaissance units and what is the relative importance of secondary roles that reconnaissance units tend to get used for. If the answer to the first question is to use stealth [...]
As a warm up for the next ‘Future of the British Army’ post in which FRES will of course feature this is a brief(ish) look at the rather shabby history of the omnishambles that is the Future Rapid Effects System (FRES) Some of this content has appeared before on Think Defence but this is an amalgamation of some of the [...]
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