The Army’s biggest equipment procurement programme, which is already late and costing at least £14 billion, is going back to the drawing board after disappointing field trials.

The Ministry of Defence had been expected to announce this week the winner of a contract to design the basic utility version of a new generation of armoured vehicles.

The eventual contract will be to supply more than 3,000 vehicles for up to 16 battlefield roles, including troop-carrying, reconnaissance and combat.

Three options for the proposed Future Rapid Effect System (FRES) were put to the test in the summer. But defence sources admitted that there remained a number of unexpected problems and it was not yet possible to choose any of the three vehicles on offer. The three options were the Piranha, built by the US company General Dynamics; the VBCI, offered by the French company Nexter; and the Boxer, a Dutch/German design.

An announcement by the MoD had been expected today, but defence sources said that more work was now needed, and the only statement would be that final decisions have had to be postponed. The in-service date for FRES is said to have slipped from 2009 to “some time in the next decade”.

In February the Commons Defence Committee said that the MoD’s attempts to replace the Army’s ageing fleet of armoured vehicles had been “a sorry story of indecision, changing requirements and delay”.

The need for a new family of medium-weight armoured vehicles has been underlined by the experiences of British troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Their armoured Land Rovers were too vulnerable to roadside bombs and rocket-propelled grenades.

The MoD changed the specifications for FRES, to ensure that vehicles would be sufficiently protected. That meant much heavier vehicles. That change caused a new problem: FRES was supposed to be transportable in the RAF’s Hercules C130J. But with the added weight, it would have to be carried by the A400M transport being developed by Airbus. That has had its own development problems and its own in-service date keeps on slipping.

To fill the gap, the MoD has had to spend £120 million to buy 200 Mastiff and Vector armoured personnel carriers off the shelf to provide sufficient protection.

Nearly £2 million was spent by the MoD on resurfacing tennis courts and building all-weather sports pitches instead of fixing leaking barracks roofs.

The Commons Public Accounts Committee said that in 2006-07, £13.5 million for maintenance work on poor-quality Service housing was deferred in MoD budget cuts. But “at least £1.6 million” was put aside “for the refurbishment of sports facilities”.

Vice-Admiral Timothy Laurence, chief executive of Defence Estates, admitted: “With the benefit of hindsight, we might look back at one or two of those decisions and think that they look questionable, but at the time it was what the customers wanted.” A plan to use the former RAF base at Coltishall, Norfolk, as an immigration detention centre has been dropped because the accommodation is too poor, defence sources have told The Times.

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