Originally Posted by
Davef68
Were the
Js not originally meant as an stop-gap replacement for some of the Hercules fleet until the then EUROFLAG, later A400, came on stream to replace the C-130. That's why they operated alongside the remaining Ks for many years.
One of my Flt Cdrs was behind the original procurement of C-130J. The plan was (initially) to replace 60 odd K's with 30 J's. However we only bought 25 (and failed to buy the tanker capability).
AFAIK the reason the Ks were kept on for so long was because the J's only had a limited RTS for air-drop for quite some time.