After the armoured vehicle fiasco, a dud cannon to waste our billions on
IN Wednesday’s TCW I wrote about the Army’s new Ajax armoured reconnaissance vehicle and whether it is any longer relevant in the context of developing military drone technology.
Today I consider reports that the vehicle’s noise and vibration issues are causing health problems for soldiers using it, despite assurances from procurement minister Luke Pollard that the vehicle ‘has left its troubles behind’.
Concerns were raised over the summer after a ‘small number’ of soldiers were taken to military medical centres for assessment for noise and vibration-related issues; the MoD claims that these were investigated by a safety team and ‘no systemic issues were found’.
Initial problems, it seems, were picked up as early as 2016, according to a government review in 2021, when it was acknowledged that a ‘safety notice’ relating to internal noise had been issued in 2016, although it was asserted that ‘extant controls’ adequately mitigated any residual risk.
More problems emerged when ‘Rehearsal Battlefield Missions’ began in October 2019 on the ARES variant, and the following January it was mooted that noise and vibration were being underestimated, leading to users being exposed to ‘excessive levels’.
When actual medical problems were reported in August 2020, relating to hearing loss, action was taken to identify the causes of the problem and a brief, non-specific list of vehicle-related issues was set out. The net result was the recommendation to implement some engineering changes, improvements in noise and vibration monitoring and better hearing protection.
By March 2023, it was being confidently asserted that the programme was back on track and an initial operating capability was scheduled for this December, with full operational capability by September 2029.
With that, all the problems were supposed to have been resolved and it must, therefore, have been embarrassing and irritating to have further problems reported at the final testing phase, only months before the vehicle becoming operational.
However, despite the earlier detail given on the vehicle testing problems, there was a curious omission, reflected in the fact that there was not only a new type of vehicle being evaluated but also a new type of gun.
As part of the overall Ajax programme, the MoD had decided to finance the development of a revolutionary type of weapon called the Cased Telescopic Cannon. With the calibre of 40mm being selected, this acquired the designation 40CTC.
What makes the system so different is that, unlike existing cannon, with a brass cartridge and the shell inserted in the top, this uses cased telescoped ammunition (CT) which integrates the projectile fully within a cylindrical polymer or composite case containing the propellant.
The system offers substantial theoretical benefits, such as reduced weight (up to 40 per cent lighter than brass-cased equivalents), compact storage and improved performance. However, the gun systems need specialised barrels, feeding mechanisms and chambers to handle the unique cartridge shape and pressures.
Development has not been without its problems and, in fact, the pioneer in this technology was the United States which initiated the Combat Vehicle Armament Technology (COMVAT) programme in the late 1980s. In the early 1990s, it was focused on integrating a 45 CTA gun into a modified Bradley infantry fighting vehicle (IFV) turret.
Despite the multi-million expenditure, the US Department of Defense issued a report in 1996, highlighting inherent flaws in CTA technology, including ballistic inefficiency (eg high muzzle velocities causing excessive barrel wear and erosion), propellant gas blowby, projectile balloting and muzzle debris issues.
The design’s complexity, it said, added bulk, heating problems, and created sealing issues in the barrel. Prototypes performed well in tests but it was felt that the risks outweighed benefits for operational use. Systems were deemed more expensive to develop, produce and maintain than conventional guns, with higher life-cycle costs due to specialised materials (eg plastic cases) and limited scalability. The report thus concluded that CTA was unnecessary, as conventional cannons met needs at lower cost and risk.
Nevertheless, the US had made the technology available to its partners and, in 1994 the French and British formed a joint development company called CTA International, inherited by the French weapons systems company, Nexter, and our own BAE Systems.
It is CTA International which has produced the gun for the Ajax, the only one of its type in the world. No other nations (eg China, Russia) have publicly fielded CT systems at scale.
Within the Ajax development, though, the full weapons testing programme for the installation was carried out only through late 2024 and early 2025, just when the latest crop of noise and vibration complaints emerged.
Why this may be significant is that, because of features inherent in the design of the 40CTC, the noise produced during firing is much louder than conventional guns.
During tests, it was found to be 3-6dB louder than the 40mm Bofors gun (where 3dB on the logarithmic scale represents a doubling of the sound pressure level) peaking at 155dB inside the turret – louder than a jet engine at 100ft and well above the pain threshold. These increases persist even after mitigation.
Furthermore, again for reasons inherent in the design, vibration levels are substantially increased, producing 80 per cent more vibration than the comparable Bofors gun. So severe was the vibration that it cracked the turret ring of one Ajax vehicle during firing trials.
Whether this was responsible for the latest problems cannot be said, but it is the case that the gun has also been fitted to the French EBRC Jaguar, of which 100 units have been issued to the French Army. Although there are differences between the systems, no problems have been reported, although it has to be said that the French are probably even more secretive than the MoD.
Nevertheless, it cannot be the case that the intense noise and vibration produced by the gun is without its problems and, if they do exist, they would not be the only problematical aspects of the gun.
Because cased telescopic ammunition is not fully seated in the throat of the breech, unlike conventional rounds, there is increased and inconsistent wear to the barrel.
Not only does this reduce barrel life, but misalignment and inconsistent shell engagement with the rifling can result in poor shot-to-shot consistency, reduced accuracy and increased dispersion. At worst, it can potentially lead to catastrophic failure due to extreme pressure spikes.
Worse still, the system is extremely vulnerable to damaged or dirty ammunition, the sort of effects that might occur under realistic combat conditions. It has a low tolerance for contamination or deformation of the cartridges which at one level can cause misfires or troublesome jams. A single compromised round can halt the entire weapon system for five to 15 minutes in combat, requiring turret access, tool use and possible magazine unloading to clear.
At another level, increased barrel erosion can potentially lead to a breech explosion, a gas blow-by (escape of combustion gases), cook-off or catastrophic failure, with potentially fatal results for the vehicle crews.
As far as current approvals go, the system is qualified only for clean ammunition use, but it is anticipated that combat-degraded ammunition could reduce the mean time between failures (MTBF) by 60 to 80 per cent.
In simulated combat trials, one major jam per 250 to 300 rounds with dirty ammunition is predicted. Overall, the 40CTC is 3-5 times more prone to stoppages from combat-damaged ammunition than legacy systems, with a Bofors gun experiencing no more than one jam per 1,500 rounds fired.
Thus, in high-intensity desert or muddy combat the 40CTC requires near-pristine ammunition discipline to avoid frequent, mission-critical stoppages. This is considered a major Achilles’ heel in the weapon’s performance, despite its ballistic superiority, and is one of the reasons why the US Army discontinued its development, preferring more reliable weapons.
In British use, it reinforces the MoD’s reputation for procuring high-priced, unreliable weapons systems, with over-long development, to deal with problems that are never completely resolved. No doubt, in the instance of the Ajax, it is contributing to the final programme costs which have now reached £6.3billion, up from the £3.5billion originally projected.
How many troops it will kill has yet to be determined.
This article appeared in Turbulent Times on November 9, 2025, and is republished by kind permission.
Featured image: The Register
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