Recommendation 20

General Dynamics has proposed modifications to vehicles that seek to reduce the impact of noise and vibration on crews and include, for example, the damping of hand controllers and seating, and changes to improve body posture. However, the Department said it still needed to test the whole system—including the communications and electronic interface—and understand crews’ experiences of using the modified vehicles by running user verification trials.40 The Department said it did not yet know whether the proposed modifications would be effective or whether a more fundamental redesign of the vehicles was required. It told us that it was cautiously optimistic that these modifications will allow the programme to move on to next phase of the work. However, if they do not and a fundamental redesign is needed, this could have significant implications for the programme because, by December 2021, General Dynamics had already built 324 hulls that might need to be redesigned.41 The Department did not expect to make decisions on how to resolve the noise and vibration issues until late 2022, more than two years since it first identified potential injuries to soldiers.42 On 19 May 2022, the Minister for Defence Procurement announced that the Department had re-started user verification trials.43 35 Q 32; C&AG’s Report, para 2.25 36 Qq 35, 39, 81; C&AG’s Report, para. 14 37 Qq 18, 21, 35, 38, 39 38 Qq 42, 44, 45; C&AG’s Report, para. 2.21 39 Qq 43, 42, 44, 45; Letter from Ministry of Defence to Committee dated 6 May 2022; C&AG’s Report, para. 2.22 40 Qq 40, 41 41 Qq 35, 47; C&AG’s Report, para 2 42 Q 81 43 Ministerial Statement 19 May 2022 14 Armoured Vehicles: the Ajax programme