New British Army tanks capable of detecting enemy five miles away now ready for deployment

The vehicles, which can find an enemy positioned five miles away, will arrive sixteen years after the £5.5billion programme began and eight years later than planned.

However, the scheme has proved controversial, as soldiers working on the programme have suffered from hearing problems.

A handful of those working on the project had to be discharged from the army or medically downgraded as a result of noise and vibration issues.

Hearing devices are being distributed to troops to block out the noise and other measures have been brought in to reduce the level of vibration.

Procurement Minister Luke Pollard told The Times: "Ajax has overcome significant challenges but importantly we can say it has left its troubles behind.

"Ajax has proved itself in the field to be the most advanced medium-weight armoured fighting vehicle on the planet. We have more than a full squadron ready to fight."

Pollard did not rule out sending the vehicles to Ukraine in the event of a ceasefire deal.

However, it was unclear whether they would be useful in a training mission.

Each vehicle takes three months to build and costs around £10million.

Chief of the general staff General Sir Roly Walker described Ajax as the "world’s first truly digital armoured fighting vehicle".

He added: "We are delivering an army that is ready to out-think and out-manoeuvre any adversary."

More than 165 of the vehicles have now been delivered, but full operating capability (FOC) may not be reached for another four years.

Ajax replaces CVR(T) vehicles, which first entered service in 1971, and the new fleet was put through its paces to meet IOC by the Household Cavalry Regiment, based in Bulford, Wiltshire.

Mr Pollard said: "It’s a really important milestone today. This is a programme that did have significant problems, it was right that under the last Government the trials were paused so the lessons could be learned around the vibration and noise issues.

"Those issues are firmly in the past.

"We would not be declaring IOC if it were not safe, we would not be putting it in the hands of our frontline forces if it were not safe, and I’ve been reassured from the top of the army down to the folks that work on the platform that it is safe.

"There are lots of lessons that we can learn from this."

"We want to see huge improvements in the value for money for defence procurement, we want to see speeding up of those procurements, and we want to see more of an increased defence budget being directed at companies in Britain."

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