Britain to Cut Tank Forces by 35% to Just 148 Vehicles Amid Renewed Focus on Navy: Remaining Tanks to Receive Upgrades

The British Defence Ministry has announced plans to shrink the country’s overall tank forces by 35%, and to upgrade remaining tanks to the new Challenger 3 standard. The British Army currently fields 227 Challenger 2, of which only 148 will be upgraded with the remainder expected to be retired. The announcement follows reports in August 2020 that the ministry was considering retiring all tanks in the country’s inventory - with Britain increasingly focusing on maritime power projection at the expense of its ground forces due in part to the evolving post-Cold War security situation. A force of 148 tanks will still be amount the very smallest in the world - with the U.S. Army fielding approximately 6000 and the North and South Korea approximately 5,500 and 2,200 respectively. This leaves Britain with by far the smallest tank force of any economically developed country, with even Japan has long left its ground forces as a third priority behind its Navy and Air Force, and maintained low defence spending levels of around one percent of GDP, still fielding approximately 1000 tanks. A force of 148 tanks would put Britain outside the world’s top 70 countries in terms of the size of its tank forces - below Singapore, Kyrgyzstan and the Democratic Republic of Congo.  

Unlike the Challenger 2, which was a new vehicle which entered service after the Cold War to replace the Challenger 1, the Challenger 3 will not be built as a new vehicle but will instead be an upgrade for the existing Challenger 2 chassis. The British Defence Ministry awarded the Anglo-German military vehicle production joint venture Rheinmetall BAE Systems Land an £800 million ($1 billion) contract for the upgrade, which will include a new digitised turret, improved sights, upgraded protection, and a smoothbore cannon to replace the older rifled one. The Challenger 2 was one of the very last tanks in the world to use a rifled gun, which is thought to have undermined its export prospects despite a number of significant performance advantages in other fields when compared to rival western designs such as the Leopard II. Defence Secretary Ben Wallace announced that the technologies which would be integrated into the Challenger 2 chassis to turn them into the Challenger 3: "allows us to deliver immense warfighting capabilities in battle spaces filled with a range of enemy threats." The Challenger 2's only foreign operator, Oman, is likely to also be offered the Challenger 3 upgrade package.