I will never understand how this did not go to one of the two in-production medium lift military helicopters in the U.S. - either an H-60 variant or the UH-1Y.
At the same time that the USAF was arguing that it needed to divest entire aircraft Type/Model/Series in order to achieve savings - and used that as justification to park the KC-10, the A-10, and now the F-15C/D - it’s now adding a completely new and effectively “orphan” (within the larger DOD) MH-139 fleet that it now needs to stand up a full maintenance and training infrastructure for.
It doesn’t even seem like there have been any benefits along the line of “COTS will be cheaper or more reliable” either. Heck, even remanufactured UH-60A or UH-60L like Portugal is getting from the likes of Arista in the U.S. would have probably made better sense…