Australia to dramatically scale back spending on infantry fighting vehicles in major defence overhaul

The move aims to free up funding for the government to accelerate and expand other projects

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Australia is set to dramatically scale back the number of infantry fighting vehicles it buys for the army as part of a defence overhaul to be announced on Monday.

The army had planned to acquire up to 450 infantry fighting vehicles, at a cost of up to $27bn, to replace Australia’s Vietnam war-era armoured personnel carriers.

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