The REAL story of the LUH is one that must make Bell marketers stay up late, staring at the walls as the nice program they built was stolen by EC. It all began in Columbia a few years ago....
The Columbian government wanted a good mountain helo to carry teams into the war on drugs. The US Army said, "Buy the Black Hawk, it works real fine up there, and bullets don't bring it down!" So the Columbians put their order in for 60 Hawks, courtesy of the US Gov, which was chartered to help them with cash to fight the drug war (since the Columbian drugs end up on Main Street, of course.)
Bell sniffed the multi-million dollar order, and wanted a piece of that action, so they invented the "new" Huey, the 210. It was like dressing up a 60 year old and making her look like Jessica Alba. They argued that the Hawk was too big and too powerful for Columbian mountains. They argued that the simple Huey was a wonder-helo, the best ever made ( You remember the Huey? Every hill in Vietnam has 4 of them marking each point of the compass. No, you don't remember? Oh, that's right, that was 35 years ago!!)
The Army tried to stop them, and so did the Columbians, but the marketers knew how to press Congressional buttons, so they managed to make a Congressional compromise that allowed 30 Hueys to be sold, and the Hawk order dropped to 30 aircraft. Everybody won but the Columbians who watched those clunkers land and sit, unable to fly in the mountains.
Meanwhile, the heady feeling the Bell salesmen felt made them start on the US Army to sell out the Guard and have them take a Stateside-only mini-copter. The "proven" Huey was the choice, one that had no place in US Army operations, but could be used for Guard duty (this was back when the Guard went to college and played Monopoly on weekends, kiddies.) The Army crapped, Army engineering in Huntsville practically had a collective heart attack, but Congress kept on coming.
The Iraq war then started (all by itself) and the bills mounted, so even the Army decided that Rummy was right, a cheap stateside helo was OK. The Bell 210 was a shoo-in, but THEN someone decided to make it a competition. Uh-Oh. Now the Huey would have to run against some REAL helicopters. Bell tried to stop the insanity, but it was too late. The clunker had no chance against helos designed 45 years later (sort of like OJ trying to run the 100 yard dash today!)
Is the 145 a good light helo? You bet! Is it a good combat helo? In a pigs eye. There isn't a single system that can take the punishment that a Hawk or an Apache can take, and the Army crews will pay the price for it, when the time comes and everybody forgets that the Guard was supposed to stay home and play Katrina with the new LUH.