Problems with vibrating tanks ‘may never be resolved’

VIBRATION problems experienced by the Army’s Ajax tanks may never be resolved, a National Audit Office (NAO) report has warned.

The £5.5billion project was “flawed from the start”, said the Whitehall spending watchdog.

In a scathing assessment, the NAO said the Ministry of Defence (MOD) did not fully appreciate the scale and complexity of the work it was undertaking.

Delays to the programme – which is more than four years behind schedule – could now jeopardise plans to restructure the Army around a new generation of digitally-enabled armoured fighting vehicles, the NAO said.

Gareth Davies, head of the NAO, said: “A series of failures have led to delays and unresolved safety issues that will have a significant impact on the Army’s ability to use the vehicles.”

Ministers publicly acknowledged last year that the programme was in trouble, after excessive noise and vibration left dozens of troops needing urgent hearing tests after manning the vehicles during trials.

The NAO said concerns around noise and vibration, which are yet to be resolved, represent a “significant risk” to the programme.

General Dynamics UK was contracted to supply 589 of the armoured vehicles, which were due to enter service in 2017. Despite being paid more than £3 billion, it has so far delivered less than 5 per cent of the order (26).

Trials with Army crews have been halted, but the NAO said the company continued production in 2021 without receiving any payment.

However, the MOD has yet to set a revised date to get the first tranche into service and has no confidence that an April 2025 target date for full operating capability can be met.