UK Selects BAE’s Archer as Interim AS90 Artillery Replacement
The UK Ministry of Defence has formally announced its intention to acquire the Archer self-propelled gun system from BAE Systems. The British Army will receive the first 14 artillery systems later this month. The guns will replace the 32 legacy AS90 155mm self-propelled howitzers which have been gifted to Ukraine.
The first 14 Archers will become fully operational by April 2024, and will act as an interim replacement for the AS90s until a new system cam be selected and procured. The Archer is manufactured by BAE Systems Bofors in Sweden and offers a serious upgrade in terms of range and rate of fire when compared to the AS90s they will replace. UK Defence Minister Ben Wallace said in a statement that:
“Archer artillery systems are powerful, protective and can be rapidly deployed. This agreement with a close European ally will sustain the British Army’s requirements until the longer-term Mobile Fires Platform comes into service – a programme we are working hard to accelerate.”
The wheeled 6×6 Archer has a high degree of automation and is designed to be deployed rapidly, fire a barrage and disengage rapidly. Archer can be brought in and out of action in around 25 seconds. This ‘shoot and scoot’ tactic has proven highly effective during the fighting in Ukraine. Archer has a range of 50km and can fire up to eight rounds a minute. It is capable of firing the full range of NATO 155mm ordnance, including BONUS and M982 Excalibur guided projectiles.
Lieutenant General Sharon Nesmith, Deputy Chief of the General Staff said:
“Archer is a potent, modern artillery system procured at a speed previously unseen in Defence. Today’s agreement took only eight weeks to secure and the guns will be in service with the British Army by next Spring. It will provide a bridge to the next generation of artillery systems, the procurement of which is being accelerated to speed up modernisation.”
The selection will feed the ongoing debate within the British Army surrounding wheeled versus tracked vehicles which has been exacerbated by the UK’s struggling tracked armored vehicle programs. Archer is one of the systems taking part in the future fires tended but what the British Army’s Mobile Fires Platform program eventually selects remains to be seen. But operating Archer in the interim may influence the final decision.
According to the UK Ministry of Defence the interim artillery system procurement took just two months to negotiate and will take the shape of a government-to-government sale is being negotiated by the UK Ministry of Defence’s procurement agency – Defence Equipment & Support and Sweden’s Defence Materiel Administration (FMV).
Header image: A Swedish Armed Forces highly mobile Archer Artillery System fires a round at a demonstration for U.S. Soldiers and Airmen on Nov. 15, 2021, at Camp Atterbury, IN. (US Air National Guard/Staff Sgt. Bryan Myhr)