During this time the US, Germany and Denmark have completed two major upgrades, whilst Russia has fielded five new variants with a sixth pending,' she said.
TANK FORCE SWITCH UPGRADE
In her first speech in her short stint int he role before being replaced by Ben Wallace, Ms Mordaunt said: 'Challenger 2 has been in service without a major upgrade since 1998. Last year then defence secretary Penny Mordaunt warned that the age of the Army's armoured vehicles meant that the UK was falling behind other nations without an expensive investment programme. Mr Cummings' involvement in the review has prompted controversy in Whitehall with MPs having warned armed forces chiefs that they need to improve or face the prospect of the aide 'sorting you out his own way'. It emerged in July that Mr Cummings, Boris Johnson's most senior aide, had been given the green light to tour classified sites including MI5, MI6 and the SAS headquarters ahead of the review. Tobias Ellwood, the Tory chairman of the Defence Select Committee, said Mr Cummings must not be allowed to drive a 'coach and horses through our defence architecture'. Britain simply cannot afford for ministers to pursue pet projects or repeat the past mistakes of knee-jerk cuts to defence assets.'
TANK FORCE SWITCH FULL
'The Secretary of State must make a credible assessment of Britain's defence requirements based on a full consultation with military chiefs and stakeholders.
Having botched the last two Strategic Defence and Security Reviews and with the ship building strategy seemingly in tatters, this government's track record fails to reassure that the national interest will be served in this review. 'The Integrated Review comes at a time of national crisis and further cuts to the defence budget are likely. And in the top row, the armoured vehicles still used by the armed forces in the UK The evolution of Britain's tanks in the bottom row. Labour's shadow defence secretary John Healey said: 'This Government has shown time and time again that it lacks the strategy and competence needed to maintain our national defences, with little to show from a decade in power other than a shortage of troops and an equipment funding black hole. It comes after senior MPs demanded Boris Johnson's chief aide Dominic Cummings submit to questioning about his involvement in a major review of the UK's defence and security capabilities. The Warrior, of which there are almost 400, has been in service since the 1980s.īritain already sounding out Nato partners about giving up its heavy armour and focusing instead on aviation and cyber warfare, the Times reported.Ī government source told the newspaper: 'We know that a number of bold decisions need to be taken in order to properly protect British security and rebalance defence interests to meet the new threats we face.' The Challenger II has been the UK's main tank since the late 1990s, with cavalry regiments using it in Iraq. The cost of upgrading the heavy armour and a desire to switch military focus to modern threats like cyberwarfare could see the battlefield heavies put out to pasture, little more than 100 years after they were invented. The UK's Challenger II main battle tanks and Warrior infantry fighting vehicles are said to be at risk because of swingeing budget cuts expected to follow the coronvirus crisis. The British Army's entire force of hundreds of tanks and armoured vehicles could be scrapped under sweeping modernisation plans.
0 kommentar(er)
