Well possibly......
The MOD has always known that withdrawing the C-130J would leave it with insufficient lift. However, it isn't quite this straightforward for a number of reasons:
- The requirement for lift (both strat and tac AT) depends on whether people think that future expeditionary ops are likely, whether the politicians think that tooling up for more (unpopular) expeditionary wars is a 'good look' and whether QEII and PoW are seen as the favourite way of prosecuting such wars. The RAF's Voyager/C17/A400M Air Mobility Force is already pretty impressive when compared to most European air forces so there is potentially not much of a real world justification.
- Other RAF capabilities are looking a bit thin following the latest SDSR round of cuts and probably need more investment than Air Mobility - ie an AEW&C force with more than 3 aircraft.
- Money, as ever. If the UK wanted extra A400Ms for cheap we would buy the Spanish and German cast-offs currently available. However, Dreadnought is going to swallow a large slice of the defence budget over the next decade, the country has borrowed massively over the past 18 months and we probably just don't have the money for more aircraft. Defence inflation will likely make 22 x A400M look sufficiently unaffordable by 2030 without worrying about a bigger fleet.
An existing production line with customers and a manufacturer who will probably be happy to juggle slots probably makes this a good option for end-of-year underspends if such things exist (probably) and if the Treasury allow it (probably not).