Yes
RAAArtyGunner ...you are absolutely correct in needing to maintain cross compatibly with US communications
We must remember the Lord Warden of the British Sinque Ports [our PM Menzies] favoured British war equipment's........was there not a Labour PM [Hawke or & Hayden] who developed our closer military ties with the US? ....then little Johnny just sensibly followed along
Our cross compatibly with US communications was
electrifying when one of our British built Oberon Class submarines [with US software] penetrated the defence ring of US Frigates. Destroyers, Anti-Submarine vessels etc guarding the
Big EIt was off the West Australian coast [1987?] where we were part taking in a
RIMPAC exercise with the US......and our Oberon took a periscope image of our torpedo cross-hairs
within range and directly against the Carrier
The image made it to the front page of the West Australian newspaper....however this evidently embarrassed Kim Beazley [Kimbo] who was the Minister for Defence...as the image was withdrawn the next day & never to be reprinted again
[it appears that all is forgotten in
love & war as many years later the same Kimbo was appointed as our OZ junket attaché in America for 10 years
]
When we think about it, the Malaysian Navy, Singaporean Navy & a few others all have cross compatibly with US communications ..so why not maintain this status?
[on a different track, it was said that Kimbo had an image of me in his Parliamentary Office in Canberra with cross-hairs
against me.....but that is years ago and another set of [2] stories]