Canada's strategic airlift capability megathread (CC177, CC130J, A400M?)

[ytz]

Rapid Dragon uses JASSMs. The range of those places any transport well out of range of adversary weapons. But now their AD has to worry about so many more approaches.

 

[GR66]

Germany plans 16 new A400M airlifters, a lifeline for the program

Germany plans to buy 16 more Airbus A400M military transport aircraft, the German Defense Ministry said Friday, giving Airbus new work for a production line that has been running short of orders. "The changes adopted allow us, among other things,

defence-blog.com

Germany plans to buy 16 more Airbus A400M military transport aircraft, the German Defense Ministry said Friday, giving Airbus new work for a production line that has been running short of orders.

Germany already has 53 A400Ms, the largest fleet of the type in the world. Airbus began handing them over in December 2014 and delivered the last one in April.

By March, Airbus had delivered 139 of the 178 A400Ms ordered by 10 countries, leaving 39 still to build. The company has been trying to keep production at about eight aircraft a year as that backlog shrinks, according to AFP.

So Airbus has 39 aircraft left to deliver from the original order plus this additional 16 (if approved) leaving at most 7 years of production assuming they maintain the rate of 8 per year.

The A400M is the only in production western aircraft capable of transporting a LAV. Should we get in queue while the production line is still going? In seven years when the production line is running out of orders our C-130J fleet will be approaching the quarter century mark.

Or do we instead join the push to re-open the C-17 production line by making a commitment to purchase a certain number if the decision to proceed is made?

Or do we do both with A400Ms to replace/augment our C-130J's and new C-17s to replace/augment/expand our current C-17 fleet?