BONUS EPISODE: The Ajax, The British Armored Vehicle That Hates You Ft. Rory Blank
Joe and Tom are joined by artist Rory Blank to talk about the Ajax, the new British armored vehicle that has rolled off the factory floor so half-assed and unsafe that it might cause the British government to sue General Dynamics.
Check out Rory's comics and shirts:
https://roryblank.bigcartel.com/
SOURCES:
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c74xv4yp4v9o
https://nationalsecuritynews.com/2025/12/the-tragedy-of-ajax-how-on-earth-did-we-get-here/
https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/mp-warns-ajax-flaws-threaten-welsh-armoured-jobs/
https://www.spectator.com.au/2025/11/the-ajax-scandal-is-worse-than-embarrassing/
https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/over-one-third-of-ajax-vehicles-caused-crew-health-problems/
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/12/23/inside-army-ajax-disaster/
Comments (88)
Love dipping a burger but not ketchup. Dipping it into something fun like a hot sauce
Relistened to this episode when the replacemt of yhe ajax was anounced.....The Ajax 2
The snow story reminds me of the time Maryland got hit by a big snowstorm and they were all paralyzed but my friend who grew up in Massachusetts was just casually cross country skiing down one of the major roads because there were no cars out there.
SICK AS HELL
Also, mechanized scout vehicles are pretty obsolete now - but a light tank with the firepower of an MBT with better mobility would be pretty good. RIP Booker - you weren't very good, but you were cool.
Action Park! Jersey pride! Come here for your vacation, we'll find a way to kill ya!
Dip the burger in the ketchup!
That's burger etiquitte that is itself a symptom of depression.
So... another 30 years of the warrior then?
Joe, your face does not look like a foot. 😂 You’re really handsome. Let that one go my guy.
“oh, it gets worst” –Joseph Armin Kassabian
I could so totally design you a better AFV in like two hours maximum
still stand by it, Le Comet Deux literally just the Comet tank from ww2 but French the British army would fight better in their ww2 kit than their current shit[ please uk govt hasten your own downfall ]
[ }%}%%~%~%~%~%~^^} R A T T L E {%%~%~%~%%~%~^^{%{]
Only the Ajax reduces an entire soldier to a soup-like homogenate in 30 seconds.
You had me at Jazz tank. Now I cant stop hearing 80s Miles saying "Yeah"
WE’RE DECONSTRUCTING THE ROOTS OF WHAT A TANK IS?!!
https://www.sarna.net/wiki/Quikscell_Company GM is cannon in the BattleTech universe. Now we know that GD is in universe as well.
That's an incredibly rare insult.
Perfect solution - sell the Ajax to US police forces, make money, keep Welsh folk employed, and buy drones.
Also fucks up cops
It sounds as if the Ajax is just an armored, mechanized Bond-Wiggler.
YEEEEES you have no idea how happy this comment makes me
Nothing more toxic than a kitchen. Takes a specific kind of fucked up to do it for a living.
well, not always, there’s some fucked up circumstances in this world
Spooktron uploading stuff on the same vehicle at the same time, god is good
The Schlitterbahn decapitation was in Kansas City and it was a 10 year old. The seat belts on lots of rides there did include duct tape back in the day.
The Ajax: a vehicle the British accidentally designed to give both itself, and it's crew, shaken baby syndrome
"TM of around 300 pages" *Laughes in Army Aviation*
I will buy so much Jazz Tank merch
The guy who ran action park of course was a libertarian who didn’t believe in insurance, so he set up an “insurance” company in the Cayman Islands to avoid insurance pay outs. My parents used to go to action park a teenagers. Some of the stories they told about it were wild.
Why do I recognize all of these names? Why do I know what a Piranha fighting vehicle is? I must be pulling these from some youtube videos I watched stoned as hell years ago.
I think the way to get the manual leaked on war thunder is to proceed to go full teaboo and say it’s the best tank ever and rage bait someone to leak it.
We just had someone dox a nuclear sub on accident
Oh I hate waking up at 6am, I woke up at 11am for years but now I'm waking up super early for a new job.
I, too, am a three drink bisexual
The Question from the Legion reminds me of the time a friend told me I "look like Mr. Plinkett sounds" and it permanently damaged my self-esteem
Speaking as a car nerd and an amateur mechanic, this thing has the worst case of Jeep Wrangler death wobble I’ve ever heard of.
I need 2 mares
The British military would have been better off buying the Bradley, and that's saying something
Rory was awesome! Definitely a good fit for the crew. Would absolutely love to hear him on the show again!
The iron lung thing had me on the floor.
Thanks Ajax for answering the question, "What if we remade Pentagon Wars with the cast of Monty Python?"
Pentagon Wars but real, and even dumber
The development of this Armored Parkinsons Simulator coinciding with the cancellation of HS2 is so funny.
I'm sort of surprised no one mentioned pouring your condiments into the corner of the fry basket. Now you don't need a cup and you're not getting your hands full of ketchup.
Fellow burger dipper, must be a Texas thing
I'm a dipper in Missouri. I love the wets on food.
The child murdering waterslide was actually in Kansas City, Kansas. My best friend’s dad was a carpenter/builder out there for years and years and had been a part of the group building that slide at one point or another. Claimed that even the peeons knew it was a fucking disaster waiting to happen (dozens of push backs for redesign, safety inspection failures, yada yada). We used to get drunk in the parking lot and go swim there for free or with discounts since my buddy worked there part time or whatever during the summers. We drank enough courage to get in line for the slide once yet got too nauseated and bored sitting in the sun that we gave up and just got back in the lazy river. The kid died the very next week. Wild place. RIP little dude.
Was it at Schlitterbahn? The Verruckt slide decapitated some poor kid because the raft would get too much air and nearly go off the slide so they put in metal hoops with netting, and, well... I kind of want there to be a bonus WTYP about amusement park disasters since so many of them were preventable if standards were enforced or regular safety checks were done. Or in the case of Action Park, maybe don't let drunk teenagers help with design/ run the place.
I genuinely believe all US Citizens should be forced to do 2 years of work in the service industry between high school and college, Restaurant, Retail, Hospitality etc. builds character.
Unevenly
Why do this when Bradley exists? The Bradley is a great vehicle that has a significantly better safety record and weapons setup
Not everyone wants to buy American. At this point, actively avoiding it seems to be in the interest of world safety. While this vehicle is an obvious mistake, subsidies to the American economy is in no one's best interest at the moment.
Joe got that tank autism
top-tier episode, top-tier guest. "It's a jazz tank . . . it's about the parts the tank doesn't have" REALLY got me
The "Do Heroin, build a tank" t shirt would go hard as a "keep calm and carry on" parody
Which episode is the failed railgun ship?
Zumwalt class, IIRC
Mustard dunkers unite! There are dozens of us!
Mixed mustard application
Soon at Fort Troff, the personal Ajax2
Australian for NO, "Yeah, nah...."
I'm so excited to hear Joe talk about the ifv that vibrates you to death. I've been hearing about it for years from the praxis cast folks
I was looking up the Ajax as my daughter and I were waiting for the bus. I thought I found an image, clicked on it, and suddenly was linked to Temu. Hmmmm
An iron lung does look like itd be a chill place to be if you could leave
What Rory said, it reminded me of a scene in King of the Hill where it starts snowing and all hell breaks loose, which is good portrayal of what happens when it freezes here.
And here we go again this weekend
"Only the Ajax reduces an average soldier to a soup-like homogenete in 30 seconds."
I weirdly love working as a dishwasher. Its simple, straightforward, you can be social with the cooks, etc. - maybe I've just been lucky and always done it in nice kitchens.
That was the one job I didn't mind doing in the dorm cafeteria. I wouldn't have to deal with anyone complaining that the ice cream or milk machines needed to be refilled, or having to wipe up the ungodly amount of ranch dressing that would get all over the salad bar. All I had to do was scrape the food off plates, rinse, and put into the conveyor leading to the jaws of the industrial size dishwasher (almost the same size as my actual dorm room).
British, inflated, and way behind schedule. Should have called it Pyrocynical
I feel like I could crayon out a copy of a Warhammer Imperial Guard tank and sell the British MoD on it
For anyone else who doesn't already listen to it, the Action Park episode of Behind the Bastards is the main episode we listen to when we get depressed. The Animal Fact, if you will.
I'm thinking of the nazi "bigger is better" doctrine when it came to tanks. At least they were TRYING to make a beast.
It's a a vehicle made for the British government. It's supposed to hate and maim the people it serves
Non-euclidean just means curved, FYI.
no--their use was cromulent. curves exist in Euclidean space; non-Euclidean means that space itself is curved, which would explain certain attributes of the Ajax.
Wish dot: Leonardo de Caipirinha?
I used to bike commute in the winter in Boston. I'd slide out on the ice at least once a year. Sometimes I miss the feeling of riding, but then there are days like yesterday when the air hurt my face while walking to the T and I realize how soft I've gotten in my old age (10 years ago I would have just put a balaclava on and hope my tears wouldn't freeze my eyelashes together).
Never felt more proud to be latino. God bless our brasilian brothers across the pond
Damn I was thinking about buying a steam deck but maybe nah? And it’s “Yeah nah”…. Which is both yes and no and is dependent on context and uses subtle changes in tone to express a vast range of things….🤣
I never realized that was a Midwestern thing. I just got used to saying "yeah, no" and "ya know" in the same intonation despite having different meanings.
Did AJ Ditty write that into?
I was literally thinking the exact same thing, I had to double check the guest name.
Dishwasher conscription = Teach your child how much work sucks Front staff conscription = Teach your child how much people suck
And if your family are immigrants with a restaurant, you get to experience both... unpaid (they already put a roof over your head and feed you and now you want money?!).
I'd kill for some more Rory Blank x LLBD crossover merch, just putting that out there