| Post Vietnam the ADF was for all intents and purposes gutted. What if, instead of cutting defence during the 70's we had a long hard look at our new need to effectively defend our selves in light of the US Guam Doctorine.
Projects that were canned in the 70's after progressing to a varying degrees are:
Strategic airlift - C-141 or C-5
Supersonic lead in fighter trainer - CAC-101 or Jaguar
Replacement advanced trainer - Hawk
Strategic/Tactical recon - RF-4C or RF-111
Multi-role fighter - F-4E
Air superiority fighter - F-14 or F-15
Tanker - KC-135
Attack helo - AH-1 Cobra
Carrier - Eagle and / or Hermes eventually 3 STO/VL carriers
Total of 23 - upto 10 DDL or FFG-7 or Tromp, 3 Adams, 6 River, and ? Amazons?
AOE - Protector
LST - 6 australian designed LST instead of smaller LCH
Logistics ship - 1 12000t ship inplace of Tobruk
SAM - HAWK
SPG - M-109
These are the ones I know of and I don't doubt there were others.
Other suggestions I heard but haven't read anything on were:
the Leopard AS-1's going to the Cavalry and Mech Inf Btn's with Leopard 2's being bought for 1 Armoured Regt.
Marders, Geopards and Marder/Roland being bought to harden the land force.
G-3, HK-21E, MG-3, G-8 and G-33/53 to replace SLR, AR, M-60, SMLE Sniper, and M-16/F-1.
Mirage being replaced with a mix of 50 F-15's and 50 Harriers
What ideas do the rest of you have? |