The idea of purchasing new LAVs for ourselves to make up for a potentially killed deal with the KSA is interesting to say the least. One other way to figure out how many LAV 6.0 hulls to build might simply be to count up the various micro fleets of TLAVs, Bisons, Coyotes, etc that we have. Over the years I have seen various figures suggesting we should have purchased @ 1000 LAV's to replace the various vehicle fleets we had (the highest figure I recall was @ 1400), so the figure Infanteer came up with is in the ballpark when added to the existing fleet of @ 400 or so.
Given that the government has committed to increasing military spending by 70% in order to get closer to the 2% GDP spending we are committed to through NATO, the idea that we "can't afford" it seems a bit ludicrous. Indeed, once you take the logistical streamlining by having only one fleet family as the basis of the fleet of vehicles then you should come out slightly ahead in terms of O&M, not to mention lower unit costs by building them assembly line fashion and getting economies of scale.
Sadly this is just a fantastical vision given the extreme difficulty we have getting boots and other very simple. low tech equipment to the troops.
