The Government has cut nearly £2bn from frontline British Army equipment as it attempts to plug a multibillion-pound hole in the defence budget.
The Army has scrapped plans for three new armoured vehicles, all variants of the Boxer, as part of “reprioritisation” by military planners, defence minister Luke Pollard said.
Among the equipment cut are repair-and-recovery vehicles, which Conservative MP and former Army officer Ben Obese-Jecty warned could leave soldiers “fighting with one hand behind their backs”.
It comes one week ahead of Chancellor John Healey’s first Budget, where he is expected to outline how he will fill a £4.7bn defence spending gap left by Sir Keir Starmer’s government.
What is the Boxer – and which versions are being cut?
The Boxer is an armoured fighting vehicle that is modular, meaning it can have different functions fitted atop a common frame and engine.
The Ministry of Defence has in recent years ordered 623 Boxer vehicles, which it says will enable the Army to “operate differently from conventional industrial age combat forces”, offering “unique competitive advantage whether fighting, peacekeeping or delivering humanitarian aid”.
But the latest annual Government finance reports show the budget for the Boxer programme was cut from just over £7bn to £5.16bn.
Asked about the funding removal, Pollard confirmed in a parliamentary statement last week that the Army is no “longer pursuing” three variants of the Boxer and is “considering how the underlying capability requirements will be addressed”.
One is the mounted close-combat overwatch version, a long-range system providing anti-armour support, capable of carrying multiple missiles weighing up to 50kg with a range of around 10km, defence blog reports suggest.
The second is the armoured mortar variant, which includes a mortar weapons system integrated onto the Boxer and allows the vehicle to fire while moving. Its prototype was first revealed in 2024, with the UK Defence Journal reporting that the system “can perform both direct and indirect fire, adding flexibility to various combat scenarios”.
The MoD declined to say what role these vehicles were designed to play in the Army or how they could be replaced.
But the slashed variant causing the most concern in defence is the repair-and-recovery vehicles used to retrieve and refit damaged Boxers.
Repair vehicle cuts ‘huge disadvantage’ on battlefield
Under the plans, the MoD will also no longer buy a dedicated repair-and-recovery vehicle for Boxers.
While all Boxers are technically capable of helping tow other Boxers, Obese-Jecty said that it will be impossible to tow a vehicle if its wheels have been blown off, or unsafe for crews to get out and attach a winch in a firefight.
The lack of a dedicated recovery vehicle means heavy damage could take Boxers out of a fight – left on the battlefield and destroyed by the Army – rather than recovered and reused, Obese-Jecty said.
“We would lose vehicles that you could otherwise save for want of having a recovery vehicle,” he told The i Paper. “This is a huge disadvantage on the battlefield. If [the] 3rd Division gets deployed in a warfighting scenario, it may be unable to recover any of its vehicles.”
The 3rd Division is one of the Army’s two deployable divisions held at operational readiness, and includes armoured brigades.
“These cuts mark a reduction in overall capability for Boxer, which was supposed to be the future of the Army’s mechanised infantry capabilities,” Obese-Jecty said.
“If the Government is skimping on the number of Boxers being purchased and the capabilities they have, this calls into question the wider strategy for the Army’s development and the deployability of [the] 3rd Division, who could be going into battle with one hand behind their back.”
Soldiers could be left vulnerable
At 38 tonnes, Boxers are difficult to recover and repair, said Sam Cranny-Evans, an associate fellow at Rusi. Due to extensive use on the battlefield, Boxers can shed tyres, break down, get stuck in mud and suffer damage from explosives.
If Boxers cannot be easily recovered, their crews could be left vulnerable, and forced to ditch an expensive vehicle that could otherwise have been fixed and reused. This is particularly alarming at a time of strained defence budgets and concerns about military resources available in the case of all-out war.
Without a recovery vehicle, “you’re selling yourself short on that vehicle’s full potential”, said Cranny-Evans.
Cranny-Evans pointed to the experience of US forces deployed in Afghanistan, who had a similar vehicle named Striker, 10 to 20 tonnes lighter than Boxer. If Striker went over an IED or mine, it would lose its tyres and lock up the brakes or suspension, leaving it stranded.
“The US didn’t have a Striker-based recovery vehicle. They just had a general vehicle which serviced all of the vehicles they were using in Afghanistan. Because of this, there is anecdotal evidence that [they] had to sometimes leave guys outside of vehicle to defend it while they waited for recovery to come,” he said.
Obese-Jecty also noted that other armoured vehicles, like the Ajax and Challenger 2s, have designated recovery vehicles.
Released cash could be spent on higher priorities
But defence insiders stressed the money had never been fully committed to the three Boxer variants, and this was all a future funding plan. There are no changes to the immediate £2.2bn budget for Boxer over the next four years.
An MoD spokesperson said the British Army is still receiving “hundreds of cutting-edge Boxer vehicles to support soldiers on the front line” which will “absolutely have the ability to recover such vehicles from the battlefield”.
The MoD has also ordered Boxer equipment-support vehicles in production, and plans to procure a heavy-wheeled recovery vehicle that could help recover damaged Boxers.
“We are prioritising spend against those capabilities as recommended by the Army,” Pollard said.
An Army source suggested they could use existing recovery vehicles, like the Challenger 2’s version, to rescue Boxer if needed.
And in a life-or-death situation, the Army may choose to abandon the Boxer anyway. “The living take priority over the dead,” Cranny-Evans said. “In a mass war, you’re just going to leave it.”
He added that if the money is being diverted to other capabilities more important for the Army in the short term – such as ammunition and shells, whose stockpiles are feared to be low – this could ultimately be a sensible decision.
“Bluntly, if you don’t have bullets, you can’t fight a war,” he said. “If they’re saying, ‘We’d rather have ammunition’, that’s the right decision.”