I have never said it was to replace "heavy lift" aircraft or do the heavy lift mission. I have said repeatedly that it was billed as the replacement for the 46 and 53D citing official USMC statements that confirmed that. You are quite mistaken when you suggest I ever said otherwise.
The heavy transport task for OTH was to be done by the LCAC and CH-53E/K. The LCAC is seen as being too vulnerable to make beach assaults which is why the EFV and Osprey were seen as the "Assault Vehicles".
As the Osprey can carry only the Growler Vehicle and French Mortar system (Two Growlers each pulling a trailer or mortar) internally and only an unarmored Humvee externally...it certainly cannot meet the heavy lift tasking and was never supposed to do so.
A for instance....it was once going to be a minesweeper....but very quickly that tasking was dropped.
I have read as much as I can about the Osprey's difficult birthing....and if one reads widely it becomes patently obvious the Marines and other Osprey proponents way over hyped the machine and its abilities. They have had to walk back many of their statements.
They were so involved in defending the Osprey at one point intentional false reporting of progress and reliability came to light and resulted in serious repercussions for those found to be culpable.
Rather than continuing to argue about history....lets focus upon current events.
The Navy/Marine Corps are spending Billions of Taxpayer Dollars on OTH based equipment needs....one program was terminated after even its supporters admitted it was a total failure. Now we are left with a growing fleet of aircraft at great cost, a growing number of OTH Amphib ships that are being modified to new standards to accommodate those aircraft, while at the same time removing the multi-role capability they were initially designed to have. The USMC have fabricated at great expense and compromise of safety standards....a specialized vehicle that will fit inside the Osprey, and yet we still have no OTH capability to effectively accomplish that mission as called for by the Marine Senior Leadership.
Pardon me if I sound like I am unimpressed by the situation! All those Billions could have and should have been spent obtaining improved combat capability for the Marine Corps and not plain ol' squandered chasing a pipe dream.
The Marines are used to being at the bottom of the spending barrel....and from what I have seen in the EFV and Osprey programs they certainly suffer from not having the experience of spending money in the past as they sure have pissed away a huge chunk of money for no significant gain in their ability to field unified units of any size all the while chasing the elusive OTH Strategy imposed upon them by the Navy's decision to insist upon keeping Ships further at sea than in the past during Amphibious Assaults.
We have to remember all this spending was to provide the Marines with the ability to do large scale amphibious assaults.....and it has been an utter failure.
http://www.quantico.usmc.mil/MCBQ%20...ps21stCent.pdf