You guys, are giving me some really good ideas for a late 1970's Far East Fleet. The idea is the Brits don't fully withdraw from Singers, but maintain a small but highly effective FEF to support the two reduce Brigades in the region the 28th Commonwealth Brigade and the Gurkha Brigade along with the Honkers Brigade which is under the command of UKForces Hong Kong.
The RAF maintains a small support group in the Far East, such as the Wessex Sqn in Honkers and a small rotary FLT at the Jungle School, but no combat Aircraft except for the odd ex and the odd Nimrod deployment.
The Royal Navy, Far East Fleet is base around 1 Malta Class and HMS Victorious Carriers with HMAS Hermes being the 3rd Carrier and along with her escort group. The Amphibious SQN is built around 1x RM Battalion Goup with a Fearless Class LPD and Tobruk Class LSL. When combined with the Combine ANZAC Amphibious SQN it becomes a Brigade size group. Support Group is RFA, RAN and RNZN. All FEF ships are based in Singers apart from UKForces Hong Kong RN Ships, and both RAN and RNZN rotate through Singers as required.
Both Australia and New Zealand each maintains an Battalion Group, with the Australian Battalion Group in the Butterworth area and the Kiwi's in Singers. They have formed a combine Air Task Group split between the Butterworth and Singers built around Fighter Sqn, Maritime FLT, Transport Sqn and Rotary Wing SQN.
As a result of the last Commonwealth Heads of Meeting, Great Britain said it will ditch its idea to join the EEC, but formed a Commonwealth Common Market (CCM) and the Commonwealth Defence Organisation (CDO) which reinforces the Five Power Defence Treaty already signed.
As a result of this arrangement see's Australian and New Zealand Navies re-quip with modified British design Naval Ships built in Australian Shipyards and the both the Navy Dockyards in Singers, Australian and in New Zealand along the Shipyards in Australia provide support ie refits etc to the FEF also noting that Simonstown Agreement is still maintain which later becomes very handy during the Falkland's war.
The Australian Navy see's the HMS Hermes transfer to the RAN. Her Air Group is the 3 Skyhawk SQNS (2 RAN and 1 RNZAF/RNZN) with each maintaining a SQN each at home as well. Combined ASW SQN of Gannets SQN, AEW FLT, the COD Section is base on the Dornier V/STOL Transport (as a result of the UK selling the Harrier to Germany) and SAR FLT.
HMAS Melbourne becomes a ASW/ Command Assault Carrier for the Combine ANZAC Amphibious SQN.
The RAN has 3 Daring Class Destroyers which are later replaced by 6 County class destroyers, 12 Type 12 Leander class and 6 Type 12 River Class Frigates.
Support Group is 2 Fort Class Ships and 2 Leaf class ships.
Amphibious Group is 1x Fearless LPD, 2 x Tobruk Class LSL and 2RAR is transferred to the RAN to formed Royal Australian Marines and is slowly expanded to a Brigade minus.
Small Ship Group is what ever present number is.
The New Zealand Armed Forces see's a massive change under big Norm Kirk.
RNZN has 6 Type 12 Leander class and retains the 2 Type Whitby Frigates and later a 3rd is added.
Support Group/ Amphibious Group is 1x Fort Class, 1x Leaf Class (Both Ships are also able to do the run south), 1x Fearless LPD and Tobruk Class LSL ships.
1x Ice breaker/ Repair Ship (Fleet Standby Ship)
Home/ SW Pacific SQN is not part of the FEF ORBAT.
The Army is re-rolled to a Light Amphibious Group with 1x RF Battalion Grp, 1x High Readiness Battalion Grp (TF Soldiers on a 5yr contract with 18mths fulltime service) 4 TF Battalions later reduced to 3 with a reinforce Armoured Group of 5 Sqns (3 Cav and 2 APC SQN's) which is not part of ORBAT of Light Amphibious Group, but used as a bolt on when required ie 1x Cav and 1x APC SQN's.
The biggest Change is the RNZAF itself.
The Air Strike wing becomes is a Joint Force command (RNZAF/ FAA) with 2 A4 Skyhawk SQN's with one SQN assigned to HMAS Hermes and the other SQN based in NZ along with the Light Attack/ Lead in Fighter SQN.
Maritime Group is a Joint Force command is based around 5SQN using 9 P3's and 6SQN using Gannets minus one FLT as its assigned to HMAS Hermes.
The Rotary Wing is a Joint Force command with 3SQN and the FAA SQN that's assigned to Support/Amphibious Group equip with Wessex Helo's, expect for the Frigate base Helo's that SQN is solely FAA equip with Wasps and later Lynx's Helo's.
Transport Group is 9 C-130's, 6 Belfasts and 18 Heralds.
All Flying training is run by the RNZAF and the FAA.
Once my other builds are out of the way and I'm happy with skill level. I'm going to convert my 1/600 Airfix HMS Victorious to a 1/700 Malta Class and slowly build dream FEF up.