What about cost-effectiveness?
The Herc's days are numbered? So what MLT will go where the C-17 cannot? And what SRT will go where the C-130/C-27 cannot?
You touch on a good point AP. Nations make a very big investment in military hardware and especially transportation platforms which should be optimised for in-service utilisation as long as is practicable and cost-effective to capitalise on the initial taxpayer funding. For decades now, armies have been merrily chasing new bits of hardware that are no longer deployable by C-130 instead of that aspect being fundamental to equipment design. The arms manufacturers are also guilty of deliberately ignoring this basic consideration.
The MRH90/NH90 is a high cost medium lift helicopter and not a utility type easily deployable by C-130. Compare the operating cost of MRH90 if known with say Huey II (about $5,000 per flying hour); also the cost of deployment by say C-17 compared with C-130 operating costs.
Taxpayers cannot provide a bottomless pit of funds to support ever more costly and questionable hardware acquisitions that are driving military operating costs off the clock. The operating costs for armed forces around the world are soaring with defence budgets being curtailed. It really amounts to a self-defeating exercise by defence planners worldwide.
And why buy a UH-1Y Venom (Super Huey) at maybe $20million when you can get a Huey II for $2million that will do pretty near the same job? The only saving grace for the Kiwis is they have not wasted as much money on the MRH90 as Australia.