Recommendation 47

Many of Dr Allport’s assessments of the capability shortages regarding the Army’s fighting vehicles align with what we discovered when we produced our 2021 Report on the challenges faced by the Army in updating its heavy armoured capability.76 When we suggested that there were serious deficiencies in the Army’s capabilities to the Chief of the Defence Staff, he told us that: We have a warfighting division that we put forward to NATO, and we recognise that we need to strengthen that division. That is what is in existence now, and we will strengthen it even further. … I have to be careful when it comes to specific numbers, but I absolutely acknowledge, on the Challengers that we provided to Ukraine and the AS-90s, that we had, on 74 As outlined in the 2021 Integrated Review and the subsequent Defence Command Paper. 75 Human Security Centre (AFR0004) 76 Defence Committee, Fifth Report of Session 2019–21, Obsolescent and outgunned: the British Army’s armoured vehicle capability, HC 659 Ready for War? 21 paper, quite large fleets, but the number of tanks and batteries of guns that we could put forward with confidence was lower than we anticipated. … We accept that the vehicles are really old. We are investing like crazy in our warfighting division to improve it for 2030. It is still a warfighting division; it is not the one that we want.77