Australia's new submarines - What do we need?

[Shroom Man 777]

Submarines would also be excellent in fucking up the logistics train of this invasion/occupation force while the Aussies launch THE RESISTANCE and send WOLVERINES led by SHROOM CONNOR against the American invaders, in this hypothetical Australian-American War.

[tim31]

The hell they would invade. The foreign minister would refer the American embassy to the ANZUS treaty. We'd stop them with paper!

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

NZers don't have much conception of the world when it comes to defense and security matters beyond a bit of peace keeping and disaster relief in the pacific, and thats probably how the politicians like it. Labour does not like the armed forces and the National Party has no understanding of them, they sure don't want the public making them look foolish.

Doesn't matter anyway. NZ is so far off the side of the globe people could forget it existed beyond the Lord of the Rings. Nzers have it lucky that there's nothing strategic about their position and could probably get away with maybe a fairly large coast guard navy.

[Stuart]

Doesn't matter anyway. NZ is so far off the side of the globe people could forget it existed beyond the Lord of the Rings. Nzers have it lucky that there's nothing strategic about their position and could probably get away with maybe a fairly large coast guard navy.

Got news for you New Zealand has got a Coastguard Navy and that's it. Two underarmed frigates, a MPV, two OPVs and four OPCs. Good, sensible force structure. NZ is so far removed from the rest of the world that, unless there is a sudden worldwide interest in having carnal relations with sheep, nobody will want the place. It doesn't need an air force (so hasn't got one) needs only a Coastguard Navy (which it has) and a small but efficient army (to stop the sheep escaping).

I got the impression it was more like "let them destroy/occupy Perth and/or Darwin, then let's see them just try and cross that desert to anywhere else without supply".

That's more or less it. The catch is that its quite possible to seize one place as a bridgehead and then use that for leapfrogging amphibious operations along the coast, basically picking off each center of population at a time. That's very hard to defend against. Essentially it turns the "just try and cross that desert without supply" against the defenders. The only real option once things get that far is to pull back and defend a single national redoubt and let the rest go hang. Better to make sure things don't get to that point.

[Korto]

I got the impression it was more like "let them destroy/occupy Perth and/or Darwin, then let's see them just try and cross that desert to anywhere else without supply".

That's more or less it. The catch is that its quite possible to seize one place as a bridgehead and then use that for leapfrogging amphibious operations along the coast, basically picking off each center of population at a time. That's very hard to defend against. Essentially it turns the "just try and cross that desert without supply" against the defenders. The only real option once things get that far is to pull back and defend a single national redoubt and let the rest go hang. Better to make sure things don't get to that point.

Interestingly, I've been thinking about a story where, (as a side-issue), during the chaos caused by a massive worldwide plague Australia gets invaded by our Asian north. We end up getting pushed so far south that the Bass Straight become the defensive line, which we manage to hold due to the concentration of defending forces (most of our defense forces are still intact) and the difficulties the invaders have securing what they got already making them decide it's not worth the trouble of trying to take that last bit.

[Stuart Mackey]

NZers don't have much conception of the world when it comes to defense and security matters beyond a bit of peace keeping and disaster relief in the pacific, and thats probably how the politicians like it. Labour does not like the armed forces and the National Party has no understanding of them, they sure don't want the public making them look foolish.

Doesn't matter anyway. NZ is so far off the side of the globe people could forget it existed beyond the Lord of the Rings. Nzers have it lucky that there's nothing strategic about their position and could probably get away with maybe a fairly large coast guard navy.

Really? you think our standard of living and overall independence is not determined by the security of where we make the money that sustains our standard of living and independence? (lets ignore for now the German operations in our waters during the world wars because of that irritating habit of having superb armed forces and keeping the UK alive) and you think that does not attract attention when we act to defend those interests?

[Stuart Mackey]

Doesn't matter anyway. NZ is so far off the side of the globe people could forget it existed beyond the Lord of the Rings. Nzers have it lucky that there's nothing strategic about their position and could probably get away with maybe a fairly large coast guard navy.

Got news for you New Zealand has got a Coastguard Navy and that's it. Two underarmed frigates, a MPV, two OPVs and four OPCs. Good, sensible force structure. NZ is so far removed from the rest of the world that, unless there is a sudden worldwide interest in having carnal relations with sheep, nobody will want the place. It doesn't need an air force (so hasn't got one) needs only a Coastguard Navy (which it has) and a small but efficient army (to stop the sheep escaping).

And a healthy fuck you too, Stuart . Our armed forces are not a product of thought, more of public ignorance of reality and history, Labour ideology and the intellectual slovenliness of the local Tory party.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Really? you think our standard of living and overall independence is not determined by the security of where we make the money that sustains our standard of living and independence? (lets ignore for now the German operations in our waters during the world wars because of that irritating habit of having superb armed forces and keeping the UK alive) and you think that does not attract attention when we act to defend those interests?

That's because the UK "requested" its colonies and former colonies to contribute to the effort and bleed their people in the name of the queen and commonwealth brotherhood etc. etc. Why you would continue to do so now is quite beyond me when the UK is by no means capable of ensuring the security of NZ and you would just be regarded as meatbags for them (Why do you think all the colonies wanted to break away? Everyone realised they were expendable and didn't like the idea of someone else deciding that they were expendable.). NZ is sooo far away that no invader would so much as expand any effort to invade NZ, which is actually fairly defensible inland. Australia would probably exhaust them, and carting more troops to NZ will be probably a waste of effort. It's not like NZ doesn't have any strategic metals worth going for. Unless NZ makes itself a beach head for someone else, and also bleeding its people for that someone else for reasons beyond me, who would bother to invade NZ? NZ after all makes most of its money from tourism and export of agricultural goods and the economy is heavily export driven. You economy is too small to support too large a military. Heck it's even smaller than Singapore's economy. In which case, diplomacy is the only weapon available since the quickest way to bring NZ to its knees is literally ignoring NZ and not buying anything from NZ. The enemy wins without firing so much as a shot. Hence the general impetus to sign free trade deals.

[Stuart Mackey]

Really? you think our standard of living and overall independence is not determined by the security of where we make the money that sustains our standard of living and independence? (lets ignore for now the German operations in our waters during the world wars because of that irritating habit of having superb armed forces and keeping the UK alive) and you think that does not attract attention when we act to defend those interests?

That's because the UK "requested" its colonies and former colonies to contribute to the effort and bleed their people in the name of the queen and commonwealth brotherhood etc. etc.

Fuck off. We did it because we wanted to, if we didn't we wouldn't have, King and country had fuck all to do with it.

Why you would continue to do so now is quite beyond me when the UK is by no means capable of ensuring the security of NZ and you would just be regarded as meatbags for them

Oh, I dont know, for the same reason we sent soldiers to fight in Afghanistan on 01? We have everything to loose, but thats not why we went in 01.

(Why do you think all the colonies wanted to break away? Everyone realised they were expendable and didn't like the idea of someone else deciding that they were expendable.).

Jesus, could you possibly be more ignorant? I live in one of those former colonies and you have the fucking audacity to assume the reasons for why the colonies have their Independence? It had nothing to do with defending anyone from invasion, but every thing to do with your attitude here, your arrogance in assuming to know how we should best manage our own fucking affairs, expendability had nothing to do with it.
Sometimes you British (or are you a Yank?) just don't fucking learn.

NZ is sooo far away that no invader would so much as expand any effort to invade NZ, which is actually fairly defensible inland.

You know, no one here has ever seriously thought we would be subject to invasion, although the Maori might say otherwise because they were invaded by a country from the other side of the planet.....



(Dramatic Clarkson Pause)




Called Britain.

Australia would probably exhaust them, and carting more troops to NZ will be probably a waste of effort. It's not like NZ doesn't have any strategic metals worth going for. Unless NZ makes itself a beach head for someone else, and also bleeding its people for that someone else for reasons beyond me, who would bother to invade NZ? NZ after all makes most of its money from tourism and export of agricultural goods and the economy is heavily export driven.

Thats right, an export driven economy. What happens to us when our export markets are fucked over by war, you tosser?.
Quite apart from a general belief that aggressive wars are inherently bad and will, generally actively oppose them because we will end up suffering in the long run.
Quite apart from the fact that we, from time to time, do think about the out side world and we do remember history and we object to dictators and aggressive invasions and even random mass murder, we have this strange moral abhorrence to such things and we are even willing to put lives on the line to prevent it and now some damn foreigner with his Raj tinted glasses and his head up his arse presumes to tell us our own fucking business, you would almost think it was the 19th century.

Moreover an attack on Australia is an attack on NZ, and vice versa, if you don't know why then go and learn.

You economy is too small to support too large a military. Heck it's even smaller than Singapore's economy.

We had one in five in uniform during world war two, and our per capita losses were exceeded only by Russia iirc. We did and could do a damn sight more bleeding than you did, and at one point supplied half of the UK's food as well.
As for defense funding in the last 20 odd years, thats political and has little to do with what we could reasonably do, which is about twice as much as we are doing at about 1% of GDP.

In which case, diplomacy is the only weapon available since the quickest way to bring NZ to its knees is literally ignoring NZ and not buying anything from NZ. The enemy wins without firing so much as a shot. Hence the general impetus to sign free trade deals.

Well done, you might even have a clue about one reason why we have fought and continue to do so , you don't get paid unless you do the work, and I suspect that we wouldn't be fighting alone.

[ray245]

Jesus, could you possibly be more ignorant? I live in one of those former colonies and you have the fucking audacity to assume the reasons for why the colonies have their Independence? It had nothing to do with defending anyone from invasion, but every thing to do with your attitude here, your arrogance in assuming to know how we should best manage our own fucking affairs, expendability had nothing to do with it.
Sometimes you British (or are you a Yank?) just don't fucking learn.

He's a Singaporean.

[Shroom Man 777]

What the hell's Stuart Mackey rambling about? Fingolfin's just stating the fact that A.) New Zealand is far away that no potential enemy nation has any sea-lift capability to invade them (except... America ) and B.) There's no real reason for New Zealand to be invaded anyway, because it's small, and the cost of a long-ass invasion's not worth any material gain in NZ because unless NZ's got oil (or if NZ develops WMDs and forces the Amerikanskis to launch Operation KIWI FREEDOM) C.) What can New Zealand, militaristically, do at all anyway? The best it can do is send a few soldiers to support the Amerikanskis or British whenever they're off blowing people up or something.

None of these things are in any dispute, unless A.) New Zealand's in imminent danger of invasion, or someone can actually invade NZ B.) There's a good reason to invade NZ and C.) NZ's got a military that can go out and kick other people's asses.

[Stuart Mackey]

Jesus, could you possibly be more ignorant? I live in one of those former colonies and you have the fucking audacity to assume the reasons for why the colonies have their Independence? It had nothing to do with defending anyone from invasion, but every thing to do with your attitude here, your arrogance in assuming to know how we should best manage our own fucking affairs, expendability had nothing to do with it.
Sometimes you British (or are you a Yank?) just don't fucking learn.

He's a Singaporean.

He should know better

[Stuart Mackey]

What the hell's Stuart Mackey rambling about?

I have grey hair on my head now, I will ramble, you will listen. No respect for your elders, thats your problem. I my day we had it tough! got up at 05:00 after getting home at 05:30 to work for 36 hours at the mill and we payed for the privilege..tell young people that and they would never believe you!.

Fingolfin's just stating the fact that A.)snip bollocks

I see you have never studies your history, and certainly not ours. Its not about who might come down here, its about us looking after our interests and the problems that can attract.

[Stuart]

Our armed forces are not a product of thought, more of public ignorance of reality and history, Labour ideology and the intellectual slovenliness of the local Tory party.

Actually, for the first time in many, many years the New Zealand Defense Forces are the product of thought and rational analysis. Now, the results of that rational analysis may not be to your taste ('rational analysis' does not always equal 'the right answer') but the analysis was there.

The basic problem New Zealand faced (and faces) is that its economy is a one-trick pony. If the market for agricultural products sinks, the economy gets torpedoed. Over the decades, various New Zealand governments have tried to deal with that problem with remarkable lack of success. In the process, defense funding as a proportion of GDP sank steadily. For many years, the cuts resulting from that slow, steady drop in funding were distributed on an "equal pain for all" basis. By the late 1990s, this had reached the point where none of the armed services were capable of doing very much. The Navy drove a collection of geriatric and toothless frigates, the Air Force a handful of decrepid and over-modernized light attack bombers and the Army was a handful of battlegroups equipped with Vietnam-era cast-offs. It was not a pretty sight; in fact, for the military capability offered vs the money spent, a serious case could be made that the armed forces should be stood down altogether.

So, a rational analysis was made of New Zealand's defense requirements and strategic position. This revealed several interesting points. Distance was one of them; it is so far from New Zealand to anywhere else that any military assault on the country would be a massive undertaking. So much of a massive undertaking that if it was attempted at all, it would be attempted in such force that any resistance New Zealand could mount without equally massive external aid would be futile. In fact, under those circumstances, New Zealand's own forces would be virtually inconsequential compared with those of its enemies and allies. This was a hard nut to swallow and gave rise to the inevitable references to New Zealand efforts during WW2 but those complaints all missed one salient point. This is not WW2. Armies today are a lot more complex and a lot more expensive than they were back then.

This gave rise to another question, why would anybody attack the place? There are no real assets there worth a massive assault. In strategic terms, New Zealand is inconsequential. So, the "national defense" task went out of the window. The country isn;t worth attacking and is indefensible if it is attacked. Having cleared that out of the way, the next problem came down to "if the country can't be defended by a reasonable defense force, what can the defense forces do.

Protecting maritime resources and maritime law enforcement was one obvious task. That needs to be done but the remarkably toothless Leanders driven by the RNZN weren't the ships to do it. They had large crews, were expensive to run and had virtually no armament worthy of the name. The MEKO frigates were OK, they had their problems but as long as the bows didn't fall off one dark and stormy night upon the ocean They'd do fine as the heavy mob. (In passing it's notable that, with the MEKO-200 class, the Germans finally cured the problem of the sterns falling off their ships. In MEKO-200 the bows fall off instead). Getting rid of the Leanders and some other junk allowed the institution of Project Protector that essentially turned the RNZN into a Coastguard. That provided one multi-role vessel that doubled as a deep-water patrol vessel and a small LPD, two offshore patrol vessels and four offshore patrol craft. The execution of that program left much to be desired (they really should have looked at the ships they were ordering before signing on the dotted line) but the heart was in the right place. Maritime patrol and policing was Task One, that's where the real operational need lay. With Project Protector, the RNZN was orientated towards Task One as long as its MRV stayed upright anyway.

The next question was, what to do with the Air Force? The Skyhawks were a joke; their modernization amounted to installing a full GPS navigation system into a 1972 Morris Marina. They contributed nothing and drank up resources. They went. Without them, there was no need for fast-jet trainers. They went. That left the Air Force essentially flying P-3s and C-130s. The P-3s fitted nicely into the maritime patrol and policing requirement so the money that had been spent on allowing NZ pilots to think they were Biggles went to upgrading the P-3s and C-130s. The P-3 upgrade appears to have been successful and it reorienated the P-3K force (now the P-3K2) away from ASW and towards maritime control. If pinch came to shove and somebody did send a couple of warships into NZ waters with homicidal intent, the P-3K2 force could give them a nasty seeing-to with stand-off attacks. (Remember, this far from anywhere, a small naval task group would have no organic air cover). The C-130s? We'll get to them.

That left the Army. Now, the Army at that time was essentially a small, ill-equipped imitation of a conventional army. To be truthful it wasn't really useful for very much. It was too ill-equipped to be allowed on a mdoern battlefield and it was too small to do anything really useful. So, what to do? Well, the first question was, what does the Army have running for it? And the answer was, it had extremely good personnel. In fact, it probably had the highest quality troops around. That was a shocker because it showed just how much these troops had been let down by the "equal pain for all" policies. To slightly misquote Blackadder IV, the New Zealand Army was a collection of excellent soldiers armed with soft fruit.

Now, this gave rise to thought. Although a long way from anywhere, New Zealand was still a part of the international community. That meant taking part in the general course of international affairs. The way land combat affairs were (and are) going, small, well-equipped and well-trained forces make mincemeat of much bigger, ill-equipped forces. So, taking that logic further, a small, well-equipped and well-trained New Zealand force that could be deployed easily could - would - be a valuable partner in any international affair. So, the money saved by curring out redundant capability (and then some) was invested in correcting the years of deficiency in Army investment. The useless old Scorpions went; LAVs came in (too many and the wrong types I grant you - the Army is trying to trade the ones it doesn't need for the ones it does). Trucks dating from the 1950s went out, new ones came in. Most importantly, long-absent kit like body armor, night vision equipment and modern communications and battle management systems have been purchased. In effect, the Army has been converted from a 1960s force that tried to do everythinga nd could actually do nothing to a 2000s force that tries to do one thing and is very good at it. That makes their presence a valuable asset (instead of a liability) and that gives the NZ Government leverage in international affairs.

That brings us back to the C-130s and the MRV. They give the NZG not just a smallish but rather capable battlegroup, they can actually move it around from within their own resources. This adds to the value of any offers of military forces NZ offers. Current rumbles are that the existing C-130s may be replaced either by C-130Js or (wait for it) C-17s.

Viewed in the context of its times, the 2002 defense review was certainly courageous and it did address the main problem with the then-defense structure. That was much spending for little return. After the NZDF were restructured according to the review, they were at least getting capability in needed areas. Arguably a different set of decisions may have got them more but that's debateable.

There's another defense review going down now and it will doubtless change course to some extent. However, a few ground rules are already becoming apparent. If any more money is made available, it won't be much. The economic situation just doesn't allow it. Maritime patrol and policing are still Task One and that requires long-term thought leading to the possible replacement of the P-3s in the far term. The MEKO frigates desperately need modernization - is it worth spending money on that or would that cash be better invested in additional OPVs and OPCs? The New Zealand Air Force wants a large fleet of F-22s so they should be taken out into the parking lot and severely beaten. Seriously, there is a lobby pushing for the return of fast jets but it seems unlikely they'll get anywhere at this time. The Army is spending a lot of money quietly on new command and control capabilities and that looks set to continue.

[Stuart]

A quick PS.

It'll be interesting to see what the new defense review in New Zealand actually comes out with. There's a lot of noise and posturing at the moment but the last NZ defense budget was essentially marking time until the review comes out. It's already been delayed a couple of times and word from the herd is that the Government is having a hard job finding sensible changes to make. It may have to settle for a few foolish ones.

[Shroom Man 777]

@ Stuart Mackey:

How can you look after your own interests when your nation's so tiny, like your military? The best thing you can do is to make sure your interests coincide that of the big boys, so when you're looking out after your interests they'll also be looking out for their interests which is your interests. Which means, like, New Zealand can deploy its entire military and send its five soldiers on a boat to help the Americans kill Hitler. The best thing you can hope for is to play backup for the big mangs.

[Stuart]

How can you look after your own interests when your nation's so tiny, like your military? The best thing you can do is to make sure your interests coincide that of the big boys, so when you're looking out after your interests they'll also be looking out for their interests which is your interests. Which means, like, New Zealand can deploy its entire military and send its five soldiers on a boat to help the Americans kill Hitler. The best thing you can hope for is to play backup for the big mangs.

There's a balance question here. Because modern methodology and weaponry means that small, well-equipped forces will butcher large, ill-equipped ones, a small, well-equipped and capable force may well hold the balance between a campaign being plausible or so under-resourced as to be implausible. This argument has existed before (for example it was quoted as being one reason to send the BEF to France in 1914; because the BEF was so markedly superior to the French and German armies, it was argued that they would be just enough to tilt the balance irretrievably in favor of whichever sid ethey went in on. Didn't work like that.) but its stronger now than its ever been. For example, the Australian and New Zealand contingents in Afghanistan are reckoned to be worth more than the whole of the NATO forces put together.

So, small forces can exert political influence (or provide political leverage) out of all proportions to their numbers. That's the situation the NZG is aiming at.

[Shroom Man 777]

They're awesome troops are are formidable in their own right. Isn't the average New Zealand soldier trained to higher levels than American grunts, and are somewhere between conventional infantry and spec-ops (maybe a bit exaggerated)?

But still, as good as NZ soldiers are, aren't they too few to be winning any wars by themselves and thus are still only usable when becoming a (very killy) helpful part of a much bigger force composed of NZ's allies (who can bring more forces to bear) as well?

Just how well do the NZ and Aussie forces in A-stan acquit themselves?

[PainRack]

It should be noted that despite Singapore larger military, budget and capabilities, its actual effect on international relations is miminal and even smaller than ANZAC forces. Indeed, its arguable that NZ alone has just as large an effect on world relations than Singapore does.

So, if the argument is that the NZ armed forces are needed to oppose aggressive wars, its certainly doing much better than either Malaysia or Singapore. Neighbours which have larger militaries and "greater" capabilities.

Jesus, could you possibly be more ignorant? I live in one of those former colonies and you have the fucking audacity to assume the reasons for why the colonies have their Independence? It had nothing to do with defending anyone from invasion, but every thing to do with your attitude here, your arrogance in assuming to know how we should best manage our own fucking affairs, expendability had nothing to do with it.

Actually, you're full of it. One of the reasons why Australia and New Zealand seperated further and further away from the British was because they dropped into the American sphere of influence after WW2.
Considering that ANZAC had been dominions for yonks BEFORE WW2, guess what was the clinching factor? The utter failure of Britain global strategy and the resulting withdrawal/crunch after WW2.

[Stuart Mackey]

A quick PS.

It'll be interesting to see what the new defense review in New Zealand actually comes out with. There's a lot of noise and posturing at the moment but the last NZ defense budget was essentially marking time until the review comes out. It's already been delayed a couple of times and word from the herd is that the Government is having a hard job finding sensible changes to make. It may have to settle for a few foolish ones.

I can tell you some things, and its not interesting. Service chiefs will probably be one stars, Joint HQ will be two star and CDF at three stars. CDF will finally get authority over service chiefs. Due to the recession some unpleasing choices will be made, one of which may be the seasprite helicopters due to Kaman not being all that reliable on the spare parts front, that may get canned, frigate upgrade is on thin ice or may be gone.
If defense want anything new, beyond that which is budgeted for or brought, it must come from the existing budget, and this is true of just about every government department.

I think that there will be tinkering, the budget will not be reduced, but there will be no increase, because the finances just wont support it. But if you want a view of what wont happen look at what the government is not saying, literally. National does not know what to do with defense, never have, so nothing will happen beyond a superficial rearrangement of the deck chairs. In short, the noise and posturing you hear..its nothing but hot air, my sources tell me that not not much will happen.

The interesting thing is the strategic vision..or lack of, when the report comes out. That is what you should look at, you wont see much, because National has none. If you want a clue, have a look at Wayne Mapp's public statements and interviews recently with Guyon Espiner on TVNZ..not much going on there, which will show you what will happen on the capabilities side.

[hongi]

They're awesome troops are are formidable in their own right. Isn't the average New Zealand soldier trained to higher levels than American grunts, and are somewhere between conventional infantry and spec-ops (maybe a bit exaggerated)?

Not really. But the NZSAS, now they're quite special and are being put to good use in Afghanistan.

But still, as good as NZ soldiers are, aren't they too few to be winning any wars by themselves and thus are still only usable when becoming a (very killy) helpful part of a much bigger force composed of NZ's allies (who can bring more forces to bear) as well?

It's a niche that NZ has excelled in throughout its military history. Even conflicts close to home have been in co-operation with other countries, such as in East Timor.

And I suspect that part of NZ's thinking is that it doesn't need to be military powerful to get the world's thanks. It gets kudos simply for being there, a bit like Australia in Iraq.

[Stuart Mackey]

Our armed forces are not a product of thought, more of public ignorance of reality and history, Labour ideology and the intellectual slovenliness of the local Tory party.

Actually, for the first time in many, many years the New Zealand Defense Forces are the product of thought and rational analysis. Now, the results of that rational analysis may not be to your taste ('rational analysis' does not always equal 'the right answer') but the analysis was there.

Oh yes, I will grant you that thought has occurred, within the Labour party only; but most of us on the right here tend to think it was from false premises, that is to say an ideologically imposed mental vacuum leading to faulty conclusions.

The basic problem New Zealand faced (and faces) is that its economy is a one-trick pony. snip

You are right about the economy, but what you are not seeing is the way the forces spent the money they had, which was badly and that accounts for a lots of the 1980's issues. Spending millions on certain fire control 'computers' when a hundred or so calculators could have done the job for a few thousand, for example. As for the gear..well have a word with some of the people who excersized with us as I have..the gear was crap, but we made fools of a lot of overconfident allies at certain levels.

So, a rational analysis was made of New Zealand's defense requirements and strategic position. snip

Ok. You are getting your history mixed up here, in a major way. ANZAC frigates were a 1980's choice by Labour, mainly for political reasons; Navy wanted Dutch frigates, Kortenaars (sp?) and the last Leander, Canterbury, was retired a few years ago, replaced by L421, the new Canterbury.
No one in authority has ever seriously considered that invasion was going to happen, although there were contingency plans during the wars. The entire purpose of the navy and the air strike arm was to secure NZ waters from sea raiders and assist army against raiding parties on land, which were expected to go after econnomic/political targets, that was all that was expected, and we only ever got the sea based raiders. After that they may have been attached to allied forces where appropriate if the threat to NZ allowed it, that was the last two wars and never really changed.

The army was always an expeditionary force and had been since 1910 or so, based on the Boar war experience. Right up to the 1950's the plan was to raise a division and go and thump people a long way away, if we could get a lift and the gear. From the 60's onwards it was a deployable light infantry brigade. If you look closely at the territorial reserve you can still the shadow of the old division planning.

The First attempts at proper planning was the defense beyond 2000 report, in 99, and that, iirc advocated the axing of the P3's, eventually the frigates and the A4's with the army reduced to peace keeping only.
And then East Timor happened and all that went out the window.
Reality slapped Labour in the face and the Green Party couldn't come up with a defense policy for 9 years out of sheer embarrassment. All of a sudden NZ Frigates were at a war footing and tracking potentially hostile submarines, the A4's were bombed up and ready to go after enemy ships; the army might have to go into sustained, conventional combat for the first time since Korea and WW2. Left wing pacifism in NZ had a choice, and a crisis of belief, fight or be the one's who deliberately allowed mass murder on our doorstep. The public at the time, interestingly, was actually happy to fight Indonesia for Timor.
Once thing settled down then you get the armed forces as they are now, but the assumptions for that choice are based on Labour's historic dislike of the armed forces, an unwillingness to see beyond the pacific for defense planning, and other spending priorities like the ballet (its a good ballet btw). 9/11 caused a brief rethink on activities beyond the South pacific, but that was nothing that could not be met from existing forces, principly SAS and light reconstruction forces, the Bamiyan PRT. Hence the 2002 review was a preordained in the same manner as a train..the government had already laid down the tracks; a repeat of Timor, but without the nasty fast jets, anti-sub P3's. LAV3 was kept because of the Bosnia experience, not Timor, but that was because of pre 2000 army lobbying of Labour when in opposition.

Some points. The P3's..no ASM's: plan was to look at Harpoon, but that hasn't come about. We only ever got enough to track one sub at a time, but aI doubt we could do that now and their replacement may not be a modern equivalent like P8.

Restoring the Jet trainers/fast jet ability..nasty rumor started by me a few others, but you never know what might happen if the Singaporeans do send their pilots to Ohakea as I have been reading about recently.

C130's: that upgrade is a disaster we hope will not reach Aussie SH2G levels. C17 in the RNZAF: they wanted A400M, but as that has turned to custard the replacement will be probably be C130J and anything more will be spare capacity on Aussie C17. Their is a rumor about C27 as an Andover replacement, which wouldn't go astray for a lot of pacific island work, in conjunction with a pair of C17's, but I doubt it from the POV of platform redundancy, perception of cost.

LAV3. They wanted two battalions worth, but forgot about training and attrition reserves, made up some bullshit about only wanting one battalions worth and an independent squadron on reflection, to cover the error. As it happens I think they should have more of the other varieties in addition to what they have, and some tracked fighting vehicles. But the issue is not gear, even if they could get it, its lack of people, most of the LAV fleet are up on blocks at Linton, I think, as a result.

Project Protector: lots of lessons to be learned..some of which I cannot mention here, but planning was piss poor at navy and at government level.
Point to note: Heard that PM Clark actually said that they should have got a third frigate as well as the patrol ships on reflection on Timor and other activities, but it was to late by then for various reasons, mainly budgetary and political.

Us on the right of the debate here in NZ want spending back at 2% or 1.5% minimum, which would allow the restoration of a lot of lost equipment, and decent equipment levels, but as alluded to above, thats not the problem, the real problem is lack of people, gear means naught with out well trained people and we still have a recruitment problem.

[Stuart Mackey]

Actually, you're full of it. One of the reasons why Australia and New Zealand seperated further and further away from the British was because they dropped into the American sphere of influence after WW2.
Considering that ANZAC had been dominions for yonks BEFORE WW2, guess what was the clinching factor? The utter failure of Britain global strategy and the resulting withdrawal/crunch after WW2.

Go fuck your mother you little shit stain. You think I don't know my own history? NZ's constitutional evolution had nothing to do with failure of British global strategy, let alone falling into any one's sphere of influence, especially considering the Canberra pact was aimed at America, ffs, but with the maturation of our self identity since 1915, we simply did not need Britain at a certain point, although that happened faster for Australia, and they did have issues with the UK, but they are not NZ. Why else do you think we did not, formally, gain independence until 1947?.

[Stuart Mackey]

Not really.

They are better trained than their US counterparts, from the observations I have heard from those who have been there and done that. Where we fall down is lack of training at higher levels of operation beyond a certain basic level, about company level... fallout from the ANZUS bust up.

[Stuart Mackey]

@ Stuart Mackey:

How can you look after your own interests when your nation's so tiny, like your military? The best thing you can do is to make sure your interests coincide that of the big boys, so when you're looking out after your interests they'll also be looking out for their interests which is your interests. Which means, like, New Zealand can deploy its entire military and send its five soldiers on a boat to help the Americans kill Hitler. The best thing you can hope for is to play backup for the big mangs.

Further to what Stuart said re the BEF 1914 and our forces. We cannot win a war by ourselves, no, but we can be the tip of the spear that tips a campaign; 1st Division NZEF western front and 2 division 2nd NZEF as part of 8th army WW2. Latterly NZSAS wherever they go.