Military Projects Cancelled by the End of the Cold War

Heavy TRIGAT is another, which included telescopic mounted RWS on Leopard 2/3, Challenger and others. Go on the Secret Projects forum.
 
Patria TC-500 IFV, based on MOWAG Trojan chassis:
IMG_0015-500x500.jpg

12341302_10207410988045597_8377652862846175095_n%20%281%29.jpg
 
On the European side we might have seen the British Army buy into the Eurocopter Tiger or the A129 Mangusta attack helicopter. There was a long term aim to replace all the Sea King, Puma and Lynx with the new Merlin 'battlefield taxi'.
IIRC the AAC was pretty dismissive of the Tiger and Mangusta, and always wanted Apache as the Lynx attack helicopter replacement.

There was certainly no appetite for Merlin as a support helicopter in the RAF - they viewed it as being almost as big as a Chinook for far less capability, and the handful they got were primarily political. The RAF was looking at replacing the Wessex under AST.404, which was originally seen as a straight competition between the WS-70 (an UH-60 with RTM.322 engines) or the Super Puma - then the Westland WG.30 came in as a token domestic design, and NH90 cropped up just as it became apparent nothing was going to happen.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Defense_Anti-Tank_System

Not technically cancelled, because they did enter service with the Canadian Forces in small numbers, but the US was planning to purchase a few hundred before cancelling their orders in the early '90s.
Bradley ADATS would certainly come along. Bradley LOSAT might well see service replacing TOW in the anti-tank companies of mechanized battalions. EFOGM probably would come along (IOTL it was a higher priority than LOSAT), presumably with the M113-based heavy fire unit. Things like the M4 Command and Control Vehicle and the M1070 Electronic Fighting Vehicle seem highly likely too. Longer term, TRACER/FSCS would hopefully make it into production in the early 2000s, along with Crusader, the Block III tank (mandatory if the Soviets produce Object 477 or Object 195) and the Future Infantry Fighting Vehicle. In the UK, a Challenger 1/Challenger 2 mixed fleet was planned, and I suspect that the L/52 upgrade to AS90 would have come along. Presumably the FV432 replacement would have been pursued at a less glacial pace than OTL too.

On the naval front, SEAWOLF would eventually be replaced by something like VIRGINIA - there was a lot going on in that timeframe technologically that made the SEAWOLF approach very difficult to modernise. A new boat would be necessary to incorporate newer technology. A full build of 24 OHIOs, unless arms control blocks that, about thirteen CVNs - there are two 'gaps' in the NIMITZ-class build schedule that are easy to fill - and successors to the SPRUANCE and TICONDEROGA classes. Not necessarily ZUMWALT as we know her, there was a lot of post-Cold War logic in that. No arsenal ships, and the battleships would have decommissioned. The Royal Navy would have got its' two new carriers slightly earlier (probably 2012 & 2015 as originally planned), avoided the crunch in surface combatant numbers, and probably also that in submarine design and construction. Very likely nine UPHOLDER class in RN service alongside eighteen SSN and four VANGUARD class. The French will get their second CVN and the third and fourth HORIZON class destroyers.
 
Blame cost plus contracts. They encourage a company to over-promise, knowing that they can get all the extra funding the need down the line (See: F-35; also seen LCS).

A boss of mine put it well - cost plus is where the company makes money by spending our money. There are other contracting methods which can be used - strangely the contractor is often unwilling to use them...
 
The AGM-131 SRAM II and its W89 nuclear warhead were cancelled in 1991. Shortly after the SRAM I was retired. The W91 warhead for the tactical SRAM II was cancelled as well.

The B90 nuclear bomb/depth charge to replace the B57 bomb/depth charge was denied funding in 1990 and cancelled in 1991

The W88 warhead was supposed to have a production run of 4000 to 5000 warheads and completely replace every other SLBM warhead in service as Trident II was introduced. In the end only 400 or so warheads were manufactured and the W76 warheads on Trident I were moved to Trident II to bump up the numbers.

The W82 155mm artillery shell was cancelled in 1992 without any production units while the 203mm W79 was cancelled only part-way into its production run.
 
Presumably the FV432 replacement would have been pursued at a less glacial pace than OTL too.

I think that may well have still dropped off the bottom, priorities wise, especially if the MoD is buying lots of shiny new kit. At best IMVHO the army would get something like the FV430 'Bulldog' upgrade with a proper replacement pushed to the right.

One British thing I can think of would be the stand-off weapons that was to have replaced WE.177. IIRC it was called the Future Guided Stand-Off Weapon.
 
A boss of mine put it well - cost plus is where the company makes money by spending our money. There are other contracting methods which can be used - strangely the contractor is often unwilling to use them...
People are excessively hard on cost-plus. This type of contract is very appropriate for procuring items that have not yet been developed and have a great deal of technical risk associated with them. No sane company would take Air Force contracts for new aircraft on anything other than cost-plus, for example, because there's always the risk that it ends up being much more expensive to actually build the aircraft than originally anticipated. If they were being produced on a fixed-price contract, the contractor might then be on hock for hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars, which could drive them out of business. Whatever you think of Boeing or Lockheed Martin, they're not stupid enough to take contracts which could cost them that amount of money when things go wrong (and in aerospace, things always go wrong).
 
If I remember correctly ASMP was pretty much a done deal, kind of linked in with Storm Shadow in a bit of jointery stuff.
 
I'll take your word for it. My memories of FGSOW are quite dim, although I do seem to remember that the requirement that led to Storm Shadow (CASOM?) came after FGSOW was cancelled.
 

Ak-84

Banned
Going a bit outside the NATO-Warsaw Pact region. The Pakistan Air Force intended to deploy a big silo based IRBM called the Shaheen* in the mid 1990's. This was supposed have a range of 3500-4500 KM carrying an SRV or maybe eventually MRV (not MIRV, which was beyond Pakistani capabilities at that time). These would have been targeted against the USSR. Canceled in the early 1990's.

*The current Shaheen family of mobile IRBM's used by the Pakistan Army began development in the mid 1990's using propulsion technology developed for the earlier Shaheen, but these were mobile system designed for use versus India where big silo based systems were less useful, and used completely different and new guidance and payload systems. The name was retained, officially to acknowledge the earlier system's influence on the design, but in reality to obfuscate matters from the Finance Ministry to make them think that it was continuation of the previous canceled project and also probably as a fuck you to the PAF.
 
People are excessively hard on cost-plus. This type of contract is very appropriate for procuring items that have not yet been developed and have a great deal of technical risk associated with them. No sane company would take Air Force contracts for new aircraft on anything other than cost-plus, for example, because there's always the risk that it ends up being much more expensive to actually build the aircraft than originally anticipated. If they were being produced on a fixed-price contract, the contractor might then be on hock for hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars, which could drive them out of business. Whatever you think of Boeing or Lockheed Martin, they're not stupid enough to take contracts which could cost them that amount of money when things go wrong (and in aerospace, things always go wrong).

The issue is using the same contracting framework for each stage of a project - there are different pressures in concept / demonstration than in manufacture... Cost plus tends to help a requirement creep culture rather than mitigate against it, and in manufacture that can be dangerous. However, having a cost plus element while change is at its cheapest is probably a good thing
 
RN would have got the W class sub. RCN may, just may, have got its dozen Trafalgars
Probably not the WS, they were seen as ludicrously expensive in the early 1980s, more likely a less ambitious B2TC before the ASTUTEs. Canadian TRAFALGARs or RUBISes requires a big change but might just happen if all the stars align.
If I remember correctly ASMP was pretty much a done deal, kind of linked in with Storm Shadow in a bit of jointery stuff.
Wasn't it ASLP that was being developed to replace both WE.177 and ASMP? Though a lot of that went into ASMP-A.
 

CalBear

Moderator
Donor
Monthly Donor
People are excessively hard on cost-plus. This type of contract is very appropriate for procuring items that have not yet been developed and have a great deal of technical risk associated with them. No sane company would take Air Force contracts for new aircraft on anything other than cost-plus, for example, because there's always the risk that it ends up being much more expensive to actually build the aircraft than originally anticipated. If they were being produced on a fixed-price contract, the contractor might then be on hock for hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars, which could drive them out of business. Whatever you think of Boeing or Lockheed Martin, they're not stupid enough to take contracts which could cost them that amount of money when things go wrong (and in aerospace, things always go wrong).
While their is some validity to this, the reality is that the current system comes down to over-promise and under perform.

The absolute poster child for the Cost plus contract is the F-35. Cost plus allowed Lockheed to look everyone dead in the eye and say "Sure, we can do it for $75M an aircraft". Which was, and IS, a bald faced lie. If this process had been done in time of war, the Lockheed representatives would find themselves in the same basket as the Fools who ran Brewster. Instead all the execs are getting massive bonuses while the Air Force. Corps, and NavAir soldier on with aircraft that are over hours and becoming collective hanger queens.
 
I wonder what would be the successor to the BMP-3? My good guess is that it would be a lot more like that Kurganets IFV coming out IOTL.

And as for the assault rifle of a continuing USSR after the AK-74, I'm surprised that the AEK-971 isn't considered a candidate.
 
The LCS (Littoral Combat Ship) is ungodly expensive, but is so screwed up that the Navy is literally unwilling to subject it to combat shock testing, while the spectacular new weapon systems the ship was supposed to carry were all cancelled or found to be no significant improvement over other systems. As a result the USN is now stuck with TWO classes of corvettes that cost damned near as much as a DDG (although the contractors state the cost will come down, at best the three of the LCS will cost as much as a Burke, and be incapable of performing 1/10 of that ship's missions) that the CNO states will not be sent into "anti-access areas" in groups of less than three ships and will always be covered by a DDG. Yes, the CNO stated at the corvette/light frigates will be ESCORTED by a DDG. Might as well call the LCS the Alaska II class. At least in 1945 they were smart enough to stop after the third one.

Just to pile on CalBear's deserved rant against the LCS, it's so bad that the US Navy is seriously considering reactivating mothballed Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigates as well as extending the service life of the Burke DDGs.

https://news.usni.org/2017/06/13/cn...g-life-extension-options-build-355-ship-fleet

There are a lot of hulls in the fleet that have been over worked and aged prematurely over the last 15 years. A continued Cold War would probably not see the LCS developed as it is supposed to fight insurgents close in to shore. Instead you would see continued evolution of traditional ship classes. I'm having trouble finding anything that would be suitable as the main Fleet building plan developed after the 1st Gulf War, SC-21, was focused on developing more land attack capable ships like the Zumwalt which lead to the idea of the LCS. If there is a continued need to be able to defend the G-I-UK Gap and protect convoys across the Atlantic from missile and sub attack then those plans are worthless. What's interesting is the US sold and gave away a lot of Perry-class frigates to allies, many of whom have upgraded their capabilities! So there are OTL examples of what an upgrade/life extension program would look like for the Perry class. It is likely a continued Cold War means those ship are not sold off and are instead upgraded and kept by the US. Maybe instead of building a new frigate the Navy just builds more Burkes or a new class of DDG and phases out the frigate class.
 

CalBear

Moderator
Donor
Monthly Donor
Just to pile on CalBear's deserved rant against the LCS, it's so bad that the US Navy is seriously considering reactivating mothballed Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigates as well as extending the service life of the Burke DDGs.

https://news.usni.org/2017/06/13/cn...g-life-extension-options-build-355-ship-fleet

There are a lot of hulls in the fleet that have been over worked and aged prematurely over the last 15 years. A continued Cold War would probably not see the LCS developed as it is supposed to fight insurgents close in to shore. Instead you would see continued evolution of traditional ship classes. I'm having trouble finding anything that would be suitable as the main Fleet building plan developed after the 1st Gulf War, SC-21, was focused on developing more land attack capable ships like the Zumwalt which lead to the idea of the LCS. If there is a continued need to be able to defend the G-I-UK Gap and protect convoys across the Atlantic from missile and sub attack then those plans are worthless. What's interesting is the US sold and gave away a lot of Perry-class frigates to allies, many of whom have upgraded their capabilities! So there are OTL examples of what an upgrade/life extension program would look like for the Perry class. It is likely a continued Cold War means those ship are not sold off and are instead upgraded and kept by the US. Maybe instead of building a new frigate the Navy just builds more Burkes or a new class of DDG and phases out the frigate class.
Worst part of that is that the Perry's were a low cost compromise themselves, the "low" part of the high/low mix that budget restraints forced on the Fleet. The design was supposed to do the "scut work" of ocean escort while the Spruances worked with the Battle Groups. Of course their were never enough Spruances to go around so...

So an early 70s design, which was always meant to be a low cost alternative, is getting new life because a brand new pair of designs (which currently are costing WAY over a BILLION DOLLARS each) can't carry their own water.

FML
 
Top