First live firing test for Ajax 40mm cannon future armoured fighting vehicle of British army 10904162

Defence & Security News - United Kingdom
 
First live firing test for Ajax 40mm cannon future armoured fighting vehicle of British army.
The future British army armoured fighting vehicle Ajax formerly known as the Scout SV has performed its first live firing test at Radnor Ranges in Powys, Wales, involved testing the main 40 mm stabilised cannon and machine gun while the vehicle was static.
     
The future British army armoured infantry fighting vehicle Ajax formerly known as the Scout SV has performed its first live firing test at Radnor Ranges in Powys, Wales, involved testing the main 40 mm stabilised cannon and machine gun while the vehicle was static. British AJAX armoured fighting vehicle during first live firing test at Radnor Ranges in Powys, Wales, UK.
     
The next test firing is planned for later this year, and once again will involve a fully instrumented vehicle and be used to gather further evidence before progressing to manned firing in early 2017.

The United Kingdom has renamed its Scout SV tracked reconnaissance vehicle as Ajax, it was announced at DSEI 2015 on 15 September, along with the unveiling of the first Ajax prototype.

The AJAX (Scout SV) is a program for the British Army to provide a new generation of light tracked armoured vehicle. The Scout SV program is lead by the Company General Dynamics UK with the goal to replace the CVRT (light armoured vehicle) fleet of the British Army.

The AJAX Scout SV is fitted with a two-man turret developed by Lockheed Martin UK, armed with a CT40 40mm automatic cannon and a 7.62mm coaxial machine gun. The 40mm cannon is integrated into a revolutionary, user defined, fightable turret.

General Dynamics UK, the British arm of the US-based defence and aerospace company, last year won a £3.5b contract to build 589 Ajax vehicles for the British Army (245 of which will be fitted with a turret). The company will start delivering the vehicles in 2017, with the last of them rolling down the production line in 2024.

On 3 September 2014, the British Government announced the order for 589 Scout SV vehicles ahead of the NATO Summit in Wales on 4 September 2014, totaling a cost of £3.5 billion excluding VAT. A number of Block 2 variants has been merged into the Block 1 order, which still encompassed the planned 589 vehicles.

The Ajax family is seven variants of the standard vehicle AJAX Armoured Fighting Vehicle using same tracked chassis but designed for different missions including the ARES armoured personnel carrier, Apollo armoured repair vehicle, Atlas armoured recovery vehicle, Argus combat engineer armoured vehicle, and Athena command post armoured vehicle.