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DeliciousScimitar 'past its sell-by date'
Monday, June 07, 2010The Scimitar armoured reconnaissance vehicles used by the British army are outdated, prone to breaking down and urgently in need of replacing, according to Britain's most decorated serving soldier.
In an interview with the Daily Telegraph, Corporal Major Mick Flynn, 50, said: "The British Army is well short of new vehicles go into war. This has to be said because we really need to move this forward. There is all the controversy over Snatch and its weaknesses but the Scimitar too is a problem vehicle.
"It is so wrong that it takes us an age to get things sorted."
Flynn, who serves in the Blues and Royals, has received the Conspicuous Gallantry Cross and the Military Cross during his career in the army, and has served in Northern Ireland, the Falklands, Bosnia, Iraq and Afghanistan.
According to Flynn, the FV107 Scimitar, which has been in service since 1971, had been "a good vehicle" but was "past its sell-by date"
"We go out to Afghanistan and see the Germans, Canadians and Americans with far superior scout vehicles to us," he said. "We just keep fixing a broken vehicle."
Flynn said that the Army "desperately" needed "a new reconnaissance vehicle to bring us into the 21st century".
The Future Rapid Effects System (FRES) programme had been intended as a replacement for Scimitar, but despite its protracted development time no vehicles have yet been delivered.
An MoD spokesman said: "Scimitar continues to play a vital role in Afghanistan, providing an essential firepower and surveillance capability to commanders."
HAVE YOUR SAY
Why does the MoD keep trotting out the same well worn phrases time after time in response to the remarks from people on the ground.
These are the end users and KNOW what the situation is as opposed to some bean counter sitting behind a desk.
Give them some actual experience I.E. send them out on a fact finding mission and embed them with the people using scimitars for a few weeks and let them see the problems for themselves.
mike - notts
Why waste money on big ticket items when we all know that once the British retreat from Afghanistan they will not have the money or stomach to get involved in any other war for at least a generation!
Bob M - Surrey, UK
The Scorpion/Scimitar family weigh in at just over 8 tons. Armoured up FRES Ascod will weigh in at 42 tons. Am I the only one who can see a problem here? 42 tons is greater than a C-130J or A400M can carry. The RAF will have only 7 C-17s to carry them, plus all the other large loads.
The Scorpion evolved into the 13 ton Stormer family. Even an up armoured IED resistant Stormer should weigh in under 20 tons allowing carriage by C-130J. British jobs too. An Ascod stuck in Britain is no use to troops on the Frontline thousands of miles away.
John Hartley - Woking/Surrey/UK
The main political parties clearly don't think that the armed forces need equipment like the Scimitar to do their job. We're going to spend all the defence budget on new nuclear weapons to replace Trident, and that will be all we need to protect us from any threat that might emerge. How foolish of anyone to think otherwise.
Jimbo - Colchester
Just what scout vehicles are employed by Germany, Canada and the US?
Precisely what particular (and useful) capabilities does the Scimitar offer that means we can't deploy Ridgeback or Panther or Warthog in this role?
Jason Smith - UK