Eric,
Every nation will take a different approach to airworthiness, certification and capability.For example, the Bundesgrenzschutz Pumas, IIRC, don't have DAS/ASE or many of the other military systems the Puma 2 has. Replacing the airframes would have required extensive modification and re-qualification of the aircraft's survivability systems and other UK avionics. AW didn't do the work either - it was done by Airbus Helicopters, run out of Kidlington (but with much of the engineering done in Romania). Blackhawk always enters the mix, and it is a great aircraft (for the pilot). It gets very small in the back very quickly, but is a robust "built from the ground up" military helicopter. I'd rather fly the -60 into combat than the Puma, especially if I needed to do a DVE landing at the end....However, there was little/no offset and the cost/time churn of introducing, certifying, training and qualifying a completely new type with assorted support was likely a non-starter as Puma 2 had to be done quickly to uphold capability whilst the rest of FRC played out....JTO, agreed - the answer is two chinooks unless you want to assault a building in a congested built up area. You need something Puma/Blackhawk size not something -47/EH101 size....