The British Army has formally inducted the ARES light tracked armoured personnel carriers, according to General Dynamics UK report.

General Dynamics United Kingdom (General Dynamics UK) has announced that the first two ARES troops carriers were formally delivered to the British Army following the successful completion of General Acceptance Testing.

The vehicles will be used initially by the Defence Equipment & Support (DE&S) team in Bovington for training purposes.

ARES will be used to deliver and support specialist troops across the battlefield to enable organic combined arms manoeuvre at the lowest tactical level, alongside AJAX-equipped troops.

In service, ARES will provide safe transportation of fully-equipped soldiers in a well-protected environment. On dismount, troops will be able to more effectively conduct a variety of tasks, such as dismounted surveillance (including patrols), observation posts and close target reconnaissance.

Lethality is provided via a Remote Weapon System, which provides a self-defencecapability  that can be fired on the move, under armour.

ARES also provides the Common Base Platform flexibility that can be adapted for other roles, such as Engineer Reconnaissance and Command and Control.

https://defence-blog.com/army/first-two-ares-vehicles-were-formally-delivered-to-british-army.html/amp

Looks like a m113 with some cosmetic changes. Hope they don't make a version that looks like and acts like M577. They sucked!

No.  Its an MBT equivalent APC.

Much more armor protection.

Thats a Class 50.

ETA put a trophy on it and a laser designator and its a huge improvement over the 113 and probably the bradley.

The British seem to do much better at making variants within an AFV family.

It's around 42 tons, so I assume it's a steel hull with modular armor. Looks like they went with a solid incremental upgrade, rather than trying some radical game-changing design. Which is why the US has failed to come up with a suitable upgrade in thirty years.

Seem to be the only Euros who invest in defense.

Ares is based on the ASCOD IFV (GD out of Spain with the Austrians also part of a joint design), but it's very much upgraded over those vehicles as that was a generation ago. Also new turret.

Surprised they didn't go with the CV90 since that is a BAE design.

I have no idea if it has a steel lower hull, but I know it’s at least not all steel.  Where I work we are rolling the ingots to slab that will get rolled to plate at another location I used to work at.   GDLS also has a nice big contract rebuilding M1 Abrams for the export market that we are making plate for (plus some for US tanks, but in smaller quantities and different sizes)

The last place I worked at thought BAE would get the small MRAP contract.  So they built up a huge stockpile of ingots and slabs.   Instead it went to Oshkosh as part of their bailout (they were in chapter 11 and UAW, so who do you think FBHO would award it to?)
Maybe now BAE isn’t greasing the skids over there?

Universal stainless?

I know they were making the barrels for M1s local to me.

No. This is in Brackenridge and  plate mill is in Washington Pa

I know of Universal Stainless.

That’s where you go to work as a engineer or manager when you can’t find another steel job in SW Pa.  and you probably won’t stay or last there more than a year.   Horrible turnover.    They used to run ads in the local papers for managers looking to fill the same position every six months I swear.  I’ve known a few people that worked there (but none for very long).

The plant manager at the lordstown OH location used to work at my former employer.   Flaming commie.  Well educated (CMU) but an idiot.   Reminded me of chumley from Tennessee Tuxedo cartoon.  He is no longer there.  .

Needs more side armor

For all the ridiculing we do of the Nazis and thinking their wonder weapons making up for numbers and cost we sure seem to be falling into the same trap.

apples and oranges.
our wonder weapons are pretty fuckin wonderful (and battle tested)

Yeah, all-steel would be very heavy. The modular armor is likely composites and aluminum. As Sylvan noted, these are vehicles designed to operate in close concert with main battle tanks. The biggest issue with US armored units is the APCs and light AFVs can't keep pace with the tanks, which limits an armored unit's combat effectiveness.

They can keep pace just fine.  What they can't do is survive.

Damn that's wide.

This one did well in a chase.

Brits look to be prepping for an urban war. Maybe retaking London???

As a tank commander I really dislike the CROWS.  RWS just doesn't seem to be as smooth or responsive to me over just old school free gunning.  I have a tits on 240 when my gunner zeros it well and a sniper rifle of a smooth bore gun when it is well boresighted.  I don't need to be a sniper with the 50.

Isn't that the Ajax variant ?

We removed all the CROWS off of our MRAPs in Iraq. God damn things wouldn't hold zero for shit after bouncing down canal roads and such.

Maybe they're better on a more stable platform like a tank or APC, but they suck donkey balls on a maxxpro-plus that has the suspension of a fucking water bed.

Besides, haji wasn't scared when you pointed a CROW system at him, but when my FEMALE .50 gunner swung the gun around he pooped his man dress and got the fuck out of my way.

This, indeed.
Good to see another army moving in the right direction (after the Israelis in the Namer and the German Puma, to an extent at least)

There may be some Aluminium in there
But what we are not rolling Al armor plate or steel for this vehicle, or the abrams.

Interesting In the Steel armor world they are looking at new ferrous alloys for MBTs to try and cut the weight down
That is a slow moving thing, and not sure what kind of success they are having as they try to scale up from small lab ingots to 25,000# ingots
I don’t think it’s an alloy that is suited to being continuous cast.   It’s not a new idea but one that some people in MD have been looking into for at least ten years

The vehicle is based on the ASCOD, which has Level 3 mine protection. This one seems to be a bit beefier though, so it wouldn't surprise me if it's at Level 4.