Minimized US kit in NATO:

[Elan Vital]

Hi everyone!

Over at AH.com, we have recently started a thread about minimizing the use of US equipment in European NATO after the 1957 Defense White Paper by finding existing and proto European equivalents (or proposed variants of such) that could be competitive at a relatively comparable cost/timeframe if produced in large scale.

I feel like this is the perfect kind of thread for Secret Projects Forum since finding proposed/proto European analogues of certain pieces of US equipment can be tricky with just mainstream knowledge.

I'm particularly interested in the question of finding an analogue (or the earliest replacement) to SAMs like Hawk and Sea Sparrow, a C-130 analogue (Argosy developments were suggested), and 155mm SPGs (only French solutions exist in the 50s and 60s from what I know).

AHC: no (minimised) US kit in NATO.

This is an English speaking board, and the biggest English speaking country is the US so its hardly surprising that when discussing that when discussing various countries military hardware options invariably someone suggests that said country could/should have gotten this or that piece of US...

www.alternatehistory.com

What do you guys think about the current proposals in the AH.com thread, and what would you possibly add?

 

[isayyo2]

Can NATO exist without the Mutual Defense Assistance Act?

 

[uk 75]

France is the country to look at. A French led Europe would have tried to use French kit.
France used Hawk but I suspect something like Murene/Masurca could have served.
Crotale is France's Sea Sparrow.
France initially didn't use the C130 having the Nord Noratlas and then the C160 Transall.
As you mention France has its own 155mm towed and sp guns. Initially using AMX13 and then AMX30 chassis.
The AMX30 and Leopard were originally supposed to be the same tank. If France and Germany had not had plenty of M47 tanks they might have been keener on a joint project.

The UK is not much use to you as it focuses on East of Suez in this period and is grateful for as much US kit as it can get for NATO duties.
SP guns based on Centurion were dearer than M44s as were the later Blue Water SSM so Honest John and Lance.
Seawolf is too bulky to replace Sea Sparrow on European ships, Seacat 2 might have done the job.
Where the UK does field its own kit in Germany it is either feeble (Abbot 105mm SPG) or too cumbersome (Thunderbird SAM and Chieftain MBT) for our NATO partners.
A Gaullist France earlier than in our timeline with Adenauer at the helm in Bonn might well have gone down the path you want.
Mirages instead of F104 and F4 and later on F16 and Tornado. Vive l'Empereur!

 

[starviking]

The UK is not much use to you as it focuses on East of Suez in this period and is grateful for as much US kit as it can get for NATO duties.
SP guns based on Centurion were dearer than M44s as were the later Blue Water SSM so Honest John and Lance.
Seawolf is too bulky to replace Sea Sparrow on European ships, Seacat 2 might have done the job.
Where the UK does field its own kit in Germany it is either feeble (Abbot 105mm SPG) or too cumbersome (Thunderbird SAM and Chieftain MBT) for our NATO partners.
A Gaullist France earlier than in our timeline with Adenauer at the helm in Bonn might well have gone down the path you want.
Mirages instead of F104 and F4 and later on F16 and Tornado. Vive l'Empereur!

But, in this scenario Western Europe becomes potentially a much more profitable market for UK defense companies. Money will more freely spent making British products attractive to our European allies. Weapons like Tigercat may appear earlier, and development partners will be found - more likely in West Germany than France, but you never know.

The F-104‘s absence leaves an opening for the SR177 to make a return from the morgue, and the Buccaneer also has potential.

The non-availability of the Mauler SAM means Europe may get moving earlier on what became Sea Wolf & Croatale. It could give Sea Cat 2 a boost too.

 

[apparition13]

If you're looking at existing kit, Sweden? Saab 32, 35, 37, and the Rb-04. J-35 and Mirage III as fighters, Buccaneers with night attack capability for long range strike over land and sea. Buccaneers and Rb04 would be an interesting capability as well. A-32 would make a fine BAI aircraft. The Swiss FFA P-16 flew, and was designed for the CAS mission. There were proposals to fit it with a pair of Oerlikon KCA which fired the (non DU) round the GAU-8 fired, so it could be a potential tank killer for the Fulda Gap.

If we're talking projects, the HA-300 development is still in Spain. Switzerland has the P.16. The Gnat 4 and 5 proposals look interesting. You might be able to build enough of them to compete with the Soviets on numbers as well.

I really like the SO 4060 and Br 1120 proposals. The last two in particular could replace Phantoms and Starfighters respectively. Bonus: both have carrier based proposals as well.

Eliminate US kit and both the CF-105 and TSR.2 look more attractive, perhaps enough to survive.

I envision CF-105s operating in the GIUK gap, or even from Alaska to Norway, with J-35s on the continent. HA-300s and Gnat mk 4/5 would make up the air defence and air superiority numbers. TSR.2 for nuclear strike (both UK and France), with Br. 1120 and SO 4060 operating from carriers and as next gen land based multi-role fighters. Buccaneers would fill the numbers for strike aircraft, with A-32s and P-16s in the BAI and CAS roles.

Beyond 1970 the butterfly wings will have flapped everything into uncertainty.

 

[uk 75]

The British aircraft industry in this altered Europe is still the one that is too small and fragmented in the 50s and early 60s.

Neither SR177 not TSR2 and P1154 get any more practicable and affordable in this scenario.

Buccaneer , however, does provide a capability that the Mirage family lacks. The West Germans and possibly the Italians might take it especially for maritime strike.

Lightning in a Phantomless Europe might get more development. A two seater VG Lightning for both the RAF and RN would compete with Mirage G/AFVG as an option.

Nike and Hawk were pretty fundamental to NATO air defence planning. Bloodhound and Thunderbird are the real world alternates. Bloodhound compares pretty favourably with Nike. Not so sure about Thunderbird.

 

[starviking]

The British aircraft industry in this altered Europe is still the one that is too small and fragmented in the 50s and early 60s.

But it was aware of, and addressing those problems. DH proposing the Airco consortium to build the DH121 Trident, SARO having DH do serial production of the SR177.

And, sauce for the goose… were the air industries of the major European nations any less fragmented?

 

[Hood]

Depends who is footing the bills for all this kit.

The original AH thread seems to shy away from paper projects for good reason - someone has to foot the R&D bill.
Historically the early bilateral developments (like AMX-30/Leopard 1) and NBMRs all came a cropper due to workshare squabbles and finance issues. For this reason I don't think it's likely that a lot of "exotic" kit would be introduced.
France and Britain are likely to pick up more orders from the norther group, but realistically smaller southern NATO nations (Greece, Turkey) are always going to be reliant on US aid and kit.

 

[alertken]

If there is any logic in PoD of 4/57 it is that UK+France recoil from US unsupport for post-colonial adventures East of Suez, so set about securing operational sovereignty (French ships/Mystere IVA/F-84F/Noratlas, many UK aircraft at Suez, 11/56, were MSP-$-funded!)

What actually happened is that:
UK did, France attempted not to, increase Inter-dependence with US;
and that NATO attempted to avoid duplication in complex kit by agreeing more Standard Types, through the NBMR process.
Which failed, due to Nationalist Protection...and to the problem of US scale (e.g: >700 P-3 variants of L-188 Electra: who in their right minds would waste a decade producing Atlantic, Nimrod as mere also-rans?)

If...Euro-NATO Nations had chosen to go-it-sans US for ever-more costly clever kit...and:
If US had shrugged, ignoring Euro-squander, and pressed on with domestic procurement of nearly everything (it is inconceivable US would buy/licence much Euro-kit), then:
inter-operation/Standardisation suffer. Consequences include fewer US nukes in NATO inventory (I can think only of US NDBs on Ital/Dutch Atlantics and RAF Shackleton/Nimrod); then 1980s, B61 on FRG/It Tornadoes). Euro Defence Budgets take strain.

All of that simply weakens NATO. This is a depressing, not a stimulating AH.

 

[Elan Vital]

If there is any logic in PoD of 4/57 it is that UK+France recoil from US unsupport for post-colonial adventures East of Suez, so set about securing operational sovereignty (French ships/Mystere IVA/F-84F/Noratlas, many UK aircraft at Suez, 11/56, were MSP-$-funded!)

What actually happened is that:
UK did, France attempted not to, increase Inter-dependence with US;
and that NATO attempted to avoid duplication in complex kit by agreeing more Standard Types, through the NBMR process.
Which failed, due to Nationalist Protection...and to the problem of US scale (e.g: >700 P-3 variants of L-188 Electra: who in their right minds would waste a decade producing Atlantic, Nimrod as mere also-rans?)

If...Euro-NATO Nations had chosen to go-it-sans US for ever-more costly clever kit...and:
If US had shrugged, ignoring Euro-squander, and pressed on with domestic procurement of nearly everything (it is inconceivable US would buy/licence much Euro-kit), then:
inter-operation/Standardisation suffer. Consequences include fewer US nukes in NATO inventory (I can think only of US NDBs on Ital/Dutch Atlantics and RAF Shackleton/Nimrod); then 1980s, B61 on FRG/It Tornadoes). Euro Defence Budgets take strain.

All of that simply weakens NATO. This is a depressing, not a stimulating AH.

This was already brought up in the original thread. This is why its focus is not on replacing US equipment where an analogue has to be developped from scratch (also hence why no paper projects), but rather managing some Euro programs better so they become credible alternatives to US equipment at a reasonable cost.

So for examples nukes pretty much don't change here because aside from Blue Water, European analogues that could actually succeed did not really exist.

 

[alertken]

I don't grasp the subtlety of "not developing from scratch" v. "managing non-US progs better". Help me: would an example be: find a way of compressing Tornado (6 Nations started it, 7/68; 3 deployed it, 7/84): if done quicker might others, even US, have bought it?

If that is the AH thrust, then I confess some disdain: no-one deliberately slows R&D, which is not an end in itself, but is a necessity onway to production. So...If the 1968 MRCA Interested Nations could have produced Tornado quicker...they would have tried to do so. But that would have involved the Bigger Buyers riding roughly over the lesser folk....thus reducing 6 Nations to, soon, none. France was ejected from that programme precisely for that reason; then again Rafale: Typhoon; and now again on 6G.

My AW point involved the cost/time to clear US stores onto non-US platforms: a factor in, say F-16 Deal of the Century v, say Mirages. FRG has just bought F-35, stated as to avoid said pain to hang B61 on Typhoon (done for Tornado, but burdensome). When PM Macmillan chopped Blue Water SSM he blamed US for peddling Sergeant "like washing machines - not a rocket but a racket of US industry". No.
UK was intending to put a UK warhead on Blue Water...had a little think about why; settled on out-of-NATO-Area; decided not to go there; so rode happily on $, weapon (we waited for Lance)+warhead. If UK saw no point in clearing a UK warhead for a UK weapon, who would?
1960 Central Europe AW Mission could only be on a US platform: even with no foot-drag deliberate delay, US must first clear US weapons on US platforms. Talk of SR.177, Buccaneer, Mirages is...a mirage.

Let's get it right sooner, cheaper...is not AH, but is fantasy. No-one knows how to do that. See JSF, origin 1983, USMC IOC 7/2015. All of us know how not to do that. See FIMA, 9/82- (para-drop Clearance) 9/2022!

 

[zen]

Hi everyone!

Hello.

Over at AH.com

Oh dear.

I'm particularly interested in the question of finding an analogue (or the earliest replacement) to SAMs like Hawk and Sea Sparrow, a C-130 analogue (Argosy developments were suggested), and 155mm SPGs (only French solutions exist in the 50s and 60s from what I know).

Well you've come to the right place.

What do you guys think about the current proposals in the AH.com thread, and what would you possibly add?

I wouldn't even look.

This is why its focus is not on replacing US equipment where an analogue has to be developped from scratch (also hence why no paper projects), but rather managing some Euro programs better so they become credible alternatives to US equipment at a reasonable cost.

Flawed approach.
Thunderbird is the UK analogue of Hawk.
But PT.428 is the UK alternative to Mauler and Sea Mauler.
However the 1957 alternative was Orange Nell, a very tightly defined system.
By 1968 the tripartite group of UK, Netherlands and France were working on short range naval SAM issue. But couldn't agree on the capability/cost tradeoffs.
System B became Sea Wolf.
System A prefered by the Dutch then opted for Sea Sparrow BPDMS (basic point defence missile system).
The French wanted System C which was the highest performance. But ultimately got Crotale instead.

 

[GK Dundas]

The only reason NATO even exists is because of the Americans. It was presented as Counterbalance to the Americans.
Leading to the infamous comment "Less chance of rape with seven in the bed."

 

[zen]

The only reason NATO even exists is because of the Americans. It was presented as Counterbalance to the Americans.
Leading to the infamous comment "Less chance of rape with seven in the bed."

No the only reason NATO exists is because of the UK.
Counterbalance to US isn't possible in this period.
Comments on rape in connection to alliances is highly emotive and unhelpful.

 

[Elan Vital]

I don't grasp the subtlety of "not developing from scratch" v. "managing non-US progs better". Help me: would an example be: find a way of compressing Tornado (6 Nations started it, 7/68; 3 deployed it, 7/84): if done quicker might others, even US, have bought it?

If that is the AH thrust, then I confess some disdain: no-one deliberately slows R&D, which is not an end in itself, but is a necessity onway to production. So...If the 1968 MRCA Interested Nations could have produced Tornado quicker...they would have tried to do so. But that would have involved the Bigger Buyers riding roughly over the lesser folk....thus reducing 6 Nations to, soon, none. France was ejected from that programme precisely for that reason; then again Rafale: Typhoon; and now again on 6G.

My AW point involved the cost/time to clear US stores onto non-US platforms: a factor in, say F-16 Deal of the Century v, say Mirages. FRG has just bought F-35, stated as to avoid said pain to hang B61 on Typhoon (done for Tornado, but burdensome). When PM Macmillan chopped Blue Water SSM he blamed US for peddling Sergeant "like washing machines - not a rocket but a racket of US industry". No.
UK was intending to put a UK warhead on Blue Water...had a little think about why; settled on out-of-NATO-Area; decided not to go there; so rode happily on $, weapon (we waited for Lance)+warhead. If UK saw no point in clearing a UK warhead for a UK weapon, who would?
1960 Central Europe AW Mission could only be on a US platform: even with no foot-drag deliberate delay, US must first clear US weapons on US platforms. Talk of SR.177, Buccaneer, Mirages is...a mirage.

Let's get it right sooner, cheaper...is not AH, but is fantasy. No-one knows how to do that. See JSF, origin 1983, USMC IOC 7/2015. All of us know how not to do that. See FIMA, 9/82- (para-drop Clearance) 9/2022!

The example that is brought up the most is Britain focusing on a Lightning+Hunter mix post 57 to cover initial RAF needs rather than keeping the Lightning program small until things like P-1554 and other risky programs come online. And then instead of discouraging its exports, promoting it, in particular in Germany which was interested at the time (and yes, this was seemingly back when they needed a strike fighter and initially wanted SR.177). Why was there German interest in the SR.177, Buccaneer and Lightning in the first place if the necessary choice for the strike role is an American fighter? Evidently they were willing to go for a mixed fleet back then.

Or the typical proposal from Archibald about pushing M53 demonstrators sooner so F1 or F3/M53 can arrive just in time for the 1973 Belgian decision before the govt falls and is pressured by the Dutch to get F-16.

Nobody is suggesting a "let's get it right sooner" TL.

@zen How did Thunderbird compare with HAWK? Was any further development or export to the rest of Europe attempted?

 

[GK Dundas]

The only reason NATO even exists is because of the Americans. It was presented as Counterbalance to the Americans.
Leading to the infamous comment "Less chance of rape with seven in the bed."

No the only reason NATO exists is because of the UK.
Counterbalance to US isn't possible in this period.
Comments on rape in connection to alliances is highly emotive and unhelpful.

Part of the the problem as I see it is rather simple. Its that the economic problems facing Europe were incredible.
The UK's economy was screaming for mercy post war . The French were in just as bad shape. The Dutch and Belgium were in slightly worse shape.
And Germany's until the early to mid 50s for all intensive purposes barely had an economy.
So the question is how do you pay for all this ?And simply the only the only economies that were functioning at any level capable of providing both the funding aid not to mention the industrial aid was in North America and that was almost exclusively the United States .
As for the comment I think if you research the beginnings of NATO's founding you will find both it and other similar comments made by more the a few civil servants as well as diplomats .
It's an historical comment made during one of the founding meetings.

 

[uk 75]

I think this thread imakes the usual mistake of blaming the US for the shortcomings of the European defence industry.
Whenever the Europeans produced decent things like Canberras, the British 105mm tank gun, Iralian minehunters and more, the US did buy them. The US paid for all the Hunters that served with NATO countries and funded development of the P1127.
It helped the Germans develop a tactical strike fighter moving them fron VSTOL.to a variable geometry plane that became their part of Tornado. Even the baroque MBT70 led to Leopard 2.
SR177 was completely impractical and its cancellation saved much latet.misery and test pilots' lives.

 

[riggerrob]

You guys are all looking at it from the perspective of end-users and designers.
OTOH politicians tend to look at weapons purchases as huge out-lays of cash that could equally be spent on medicine, education, roads, etc.
The leading question in every politicians' mind is "how many dollars will be spent in my riding?"
Due to the Berry Amendment, most US purchases of European designs: Barretta, Carl Gustav, English Electric, Fabrique Nationale, Heckler & Koch, etc. are manufactured in factories within the USA. Often those factories are built from scratch solely to build a foreign-designed weapon.
From a budget and finance perspective, it makes more sense to build all of one model of weapon in the same factory, because that avoids duplicate tooling and the need to train too more production crews.
It also makes more sense for a French factory to cast and do the basic machining (e.g. turret ring teeth) all of the tank turrets of one type, then ship them to a German factory to install German-specific optics.
As for high-volume, low-tech equipment like uniforms, it makes more sense to sub-contract that work to the NATO partner with the lowest wages ... say Portugal ... However this clashes with the "national security" issue of restricting access to a unique national pattern of uniform.

 

[zen]

@zen How did Thunderbird compare with HAWK? Was any further development or export to the rest of Europe attempted?

That you can look up.
However we can say a mkIII with uprated sustainer motor was proposed.
We can also say there was a relationship with Blue Water.
A Thunderbird II battery of 12 missiles weighs 1,600,000lb and a Hawk battery of 36 rounds was 630,000lb.

R.V Jones Report 1964 suggested a new system weighing 200,000lb for 24 rounds.

Arguably had Orange Nell been funded, this could have been improved to achieve such.
Though PT.428 was it's likely solution. Albeit limited in range.

Equally options existed for Land Dart variants of Sea Dart. For a while Sea Dart had potential to garner Dutch and German users.

We can also say that upto 1957 the Stage II System would cover parts of France. So arguably a rollout of such is on the cards. With French and German support potentially a Stage III System could be realised.

However funding NIGS would alleviate some of this.

 

[alertken]

EV: the point being made here (#8, 16) is: why would Ministers bother to duplicate (analogue) a US System on offer on reasonable terms, then inter-operable with US Forces. We chopped Blue Water (#11) in part because BAOR's need was to serve 12 launchers: Wiki has Vought as building 2,133 Lance rounds. UK not only duplicated Raytheon Hawk, but duplicated itself: my note is of 783 Bloodhound Mks.I/2 rounds built and 140 Thunderbird Mk.I (presume Mk.2 was similar). Raytheon and its licensees built >40,000 rounds. HSD/Lostock for long had a repair contract (though UK did not operate Hawk): I surmise that employed more, more profitably than, say, HSD's decades-long muddling through Seaslug (similarly pitiful numbers cf Tartar/Talos).

Small Nations' addiction to local design, for operational sovereignty, squandered Defence budgets, and was a Soviet secret weapon. uk75,#17 surely has it right: selectivity, play to our strengths. As we now try to do (e.g: P-8A, not Nimrod MRA4. But don't mention AJAX).

Sir Roy Fedden, (Bristol Engines and more): Britain's Air Survival, Cassell,1957, P.11: "Instead of cutting our coat to our cloth we have spread our limited resources over too many projects...trying to do too much...succeeded in...too little...suffered from delusions of grandeur that we can do as much as US or USSR. We cannot, but we could do a few things at least as well as either.”

 

[zen]

Magical thinking going on here.

States are not 'colonies'.

Assumption here is any European state's requirements are 'wrong' to differ from US requirements.

Assumption State A is interchangeable with State B.

Assumption states A, B, C always agree and always support each other and would never seek to gain advantage by interference with arrangements. Let alone withdraw support in face of threatening by State X.

Origin of separate programs is not always hubris or arrogance.

Difference is not a sin.

 

[Pioneer]

The European countries that became part of NATO could have alleviated their economic pressures and reconstruction, if they'd not so willingly swallowed the contrived propaganda that the Soviet's were set and eger for world domination and that they were coming Westward to eat our babies mentality. Then there was the likes of Churchill's political self-purpose speech about 'Iron Curtin descending on Europe'......
There was so many real-world factors that were tarnished and capitalised on for both political gain, let alone ideological tripe 'in the name of defence, security and democracy'.....

I've always been intrigued as to why the British sold RR Nene turbojet to the Soviet's. All I could ever find was the bias rhetoric of anti-communist/socialism narrative of the then leftist British government, until one day in an aviation museum in Australia, I found a practical and sensible reason for such a sale of such a high tech secret being sold to the Soviets, 'because Britain desperately needed vast amounts of timber to rebuild it's cities after the devastation of the war and to trade in good faith with the Soviet's would facilitate this reconstruction.....'
So I guess what I'm saying is in truth, Western Europe realistically never needed to gear up its military to the extent it did. It could and should have spent more of its limited wealth on reconstruction and strengthening their economies, with the advantage of fortifying their societies 'against the influence and subversion of evil communism!'


P.S. The American's also subsidised the development of the Blackburn Buccaneer.

Regards
Pioneer

 

[kaiserd]

The UK sold the Nene to the USSR because they really needed the export income and because they saw Nene as soon to be obsolescent “dead-end” technology and were themselves already moving on from centrifugal compressor jet engines to axial flow jet engines like the Avon.

It’s a strange one in that (1) they somewhat underestimated the development potential left in the Nene’s centrifugal compressor configuration, generally being a bit too pleased with themselves particularly given subsequent Avon teething problems, and (2) they greatly underestimated what a massive boast even not entirely the most advance jet engine technology would give to Russian aviation and the USSR’s airforces capabilities in that period.
And (3) in post script it should be noted that the UK authorities weren’t entirely wrong; the Russians did find the Nene/ VK-1 configuration as ultimately a dead-end (though they pushed it further than the UK or the US did) and then had their own problems with axial flow jet engine development when trying to push into supersonic fighters.
The MIG-17 and the sea of failing prototypes before the eventual MIG-19 emerges owe their existence to these issues.

I think an argument can be made re: the pros/cons and opportunity costs of specific programs and the pitfalls of a general climate of fear but unfortunately the rearmament of Western Europe was not unprompted or unreasonable given the circumstances. The Cold War was a mutual trap, mutually driven by the insecurities and actions of both sides. The ultra paranoid wounded post-war USSR with Stalin in charge was a legitimately serious threat to Western Europe that couldn’t be ignored or just wished away.
How much of the funds expended in this relatively rapid re-armament of Western Europe were actually well spent is a separate matter.

 

[Nick Sumner]

The European countries that became part of NATO could have alleviated their economic pressures and reconstruction, if they'd not so willingly swallowed the contrived propaganda that the Soviet's were set and eger for world domination and that they were coming Westward to eat our babies mentality. Then there was the likes of Churchill's political self-purpose speech about 'Iron Curtin descending on Europe'......
There was so many real-world factors that were tarnished and capitalised on for both political gain, let alone ideological tripe 'in the name of defence, security and democracy'.....

With all respect, I think you've got the wrong end of the telescope here. You cannot judge a potential rival/foe on intentions because intentions are unknowable. You have to judge on capabilities. A military/industrial machine that destroyed the German army, had 5.7 million men under arms (in 1955) and was led by such questionable characters as Stalin, Khrushchev etc was something that you underestimated at your peril.

 

[Nick Sumner]

Small Nations' addiction to local design, for operational sovereignty, squandered Defence budgets, and was a Soviet secret weapon.

Certainly, but its not just operational sovereignty that building your own kit gives you. Its sovereignty sovereignty too.

High tech kit relies on hard to make spare parts. Crisis comes. You deploy your foreign bought hi-tech kit. Purveyor of said kit doesn't like it. 'No spare parts for you!' Operational sovereignty evaporates because in the time it takes to mend your supply chain you've lost the conflict. Is it a step too far to blame the Anglo-French push for home developed kit on Eisenhower's (regretted) response to Suez? Reagan flip-flopped on supporting an ally against a fascist regime in the South Atlantic...

 

[alertken]

Yes. It's no fun being a Minister.

 

[zen]

The thing with certain technologies is that success doesn't come immediately and sometimes it takes decades.
ASRAAM led to CAMM. But the logic of "waste and duplication" never seems to applied to others as it is to the UK.
Yet CAMMs current success and it's very existence owes a lot to ASRAAM. Which could have been cancelled when the US and Germany walked away.....

Which rather shows that giving up when you are not successful today guarantees you won't see success tomorrow.

Duplication isn't entirely a wrong when different approaches are used. An evolutionary strategy favours the maxim "let a thousand flowers bloom" for the variety improves the chances some will survive.
The unitary solution is a very Command Economy type approach......comrades

 

[Yellow Palace]

As has been noted up-thread, the US provided kit to NATO on favourable terms because it suited the US to have a strong NATO. If it is not doing so, it is - presumably - because it does not suit the US to have a strong NATO.

Given the role the US played in establishing NATO, one might question whether it would then exist at all. But we can imagine a similar outgrowth of the Western Union.

Implicitly, since neither Western Europe nor the US is likely to go Communist, the US must be isolationist in this scenario. Which has huge implications: the burden of deterring the Soviet Union falls on Western Europe. The cost of doing so will be significant, no matter which kit is bought. Or, just declare that you aren't hostile to the Soviet Union....