Operational experience reshapes UK defence procurement requirements - FRES commentary

Speaking during the run-up to an expected downselection of contenders for the Future Rapid Effect System (FRES) Utility Vehicle requirement, Major General Simon Mayall, the UK's Assistant Chief of the General Staff (ACGS), outlined how recent operational experience has affected future UK requirements:

We're using a term 'transforming in contact' at the moment. We set, as the strategic intent, current and future operational success and of course we're transforming just by the nature of the operations we're doing in Iraq and Afghanistan. Already we're transforming our tactics, our techniques; we're transforming our thinking about future equipment.

Regarding FRES, we would have been looking at a vehicle nearer 20 tonnes five years ago; we're probably looking at a vehicle nearer 30 tonnes now. And it's interesting to spot that the Americans, with their FCS [Future Combat System] programme, have moved in the same direction. The whole counter-IED [Improvised Explosive Device] battle has absolutely changed the [requirement].

You'll never get a vehicle that will make you invulnerable, but I think what we've found is that not only do you need heavier vehicles for 'door-kicking' operations; you need quite well-protected vehicles for stabilisation operations. I think we got a slightly false impression about what peacekeeping, even peace enforcement, was in Bosnia.

We looked at having heavy, light and medium under Future Army Structures and I think medium is now going to force out both heavy and light. I think it's not going to be 'third, third, third'; I think 70 per cent is going to sit at the medium level. But equally you've got to balance that against the deployable capability that defence requires.

Asked if a heavier FRES vehicle will fit into the UK's future A400M strategic transport aircraft, the ACGS said he thought:

[The A400M] keeps us honest; otherwise the demands of protection will begin to militate against medium-weight capability, deployability, low logistic footprint ... but if you've got a baseline vehicle that's heavy enough to do the majority of tasks and you have the capacity, with open architecture, to absorb electric armour, hard-kill DAS [Defensive Aid Suites], then you have an 'overcoat' of old-fashioned protection and also the capacity to move towards novel armour.

Source: Jane's

Related Defence Supplier Guidance

• Programme Overview: UK MOD Future Rapid Effect System (FRES)

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