Regarding all the discussion about NZDF airlift, there do seem to be a number of different points that either need to be made, or perhaps have people reminded or/reinforced.
One of the first has often been called, "the tyranny of distance," that impacts NZDF and NZG operations as a whole. Some of the airlift (kit, goods and/or personnel) missions can have a very long way to fly, to get to their destination.
There is also a paucity of available runways in many areas of interest to NZ.
Between the two, this means that some long-ranged aircraft are required, that are also capable of operating out of some potentially substandard (i.e. not suitable for commercial aviation) LZ's. This also can mean that some large, high-cap aircraft might be mostly empty during a lift mission, because a small load needs to be transported a long distance. This last point is important, because IIRC there have been many cases where RAAF, USAF and RNZAF C-130 Hercules were flying at much less than max cap because their range was needed, not capacity.
In the case of NZ though, the ranges are sufficiently great in a number of instances where even the range of a C-130 would be insufficient. The same has also been found for the B757's in RNZAF service as well. From my recollection of the USAF C-130H factsheet, a fully loaded aircraft has insufficient range to reach mainland Australia from NZ...
Adding something like a C-17 or A400M into the max should increase the max distance that airlifts can be conducted without requiring refueling (either in-flight or on the ground), and depending on mission can also allow greater weight or out-sized cargoes to be moved. I would hazard a guess that in the last decade, NZ would have found such options useful a number of times for HADR, never mind military operations.
The situation has been described as needing tactical airlift at strategic distances.
NZ also needs something for the more "local" tactical airlift missions. What needs to be estimated is what sort of airlift loads (in terms of size and weight) NZ needs moved over what distances, and how often.
There is no question that something with greater legs than a C-130 or similar is required to meet the strategic airlift which is currently being met, sort of, by the B757's. What is IMO question is just how much smaller and/or shorter-ranged can the RNZAF go below a C-130 for the tactical airlift component.
There is also the question of numbers required to meet potential concurrent operational reqs alongside maintenance and training. So far NZ has been operating with 2 strategic and 5 tactical, but due to maintenance and equipment failures, there have been missions cancelled due to a lack of available airlift. The Thai coup springs to mind, where the one (yes, 1!) C-130 that was "available" for operations had to return to base due to an onboard equipment failure when it had been tasked to fly to Thailand to transport Kiwis back to NZ.
As for adding in a Chinook capability... I personally would prefer CH-53 myself, but I doubt that Gov't would spring for any heavy rotary-airlift. As long as NZ sticks with the 105 mm howitzer that should be somewhat acceptable. If they are all replaced with M777 lightweight 155 mm guns though, the NH-90 lacks sufficient lift capacity to move a gun and then NZ would really need something larger, or only ever plan on towing guns. I suspect as well that the NH-90 will also be found to have problems lifting some vehicles into or out of some AoO further down the track.
What I suggest people do, is look at what aircraft can meet the strategic and tactical airlift components, and when they are available and required.
-Cheers
