I think if they went A400 they will just stick with the original plan and see out the Hs till 2020, the closing down sale is what's forcing govts hand regarding C17. Depending on how quickly (or not) they want to make a D and commit funding may work in A400s favour with bought time.
And how many upgrades, modifications and rebaselines the A400 will need before NZ accepts it will never meet its original specification and makes do with what it can do. After Tiger, MRH90 and MU90 I have little faith in developmental Euro projects, in a decade or so, once it is fully sorted, like the C-27J, not a problem, until then, lots of problems.
3 of the 8 are modified with flotation devices so these would have been the ones that needed the uprated landing gear.
From what I understand the ADF MRH have the NFH landing gear, which our NH90s should've had considering that they were going to be used in conjunction with the Canterbury. I see that as the then Labour govts miserly penny pinching attitude and anti defence ideology. The NH90s have steerable front landing gear from what I've been told. I actually wonder how much it would cost and how difficult it would be to retroactively fit NFH landing gear to the the RNZAF NH90s.
I used to work with a bloke who had worked on NH90 from the early days and he told me certification was an absolute nightmare because there were so many different configurations, basically every customer ordered a bespoke version tailored specifically to what they thought they needed. This meant that besides certification, training, spares, maintenance were a major problem as each variant of each version needed to be individually certified and supported.
Reg, personally I think that the NFH is too large for an OPV. It's basically a 10 tonne helo. However the AW109 has a maritime variant, the AW109NK which comes with maritime search radar, ASW and ASuW fit out. Maybe that one could be an OPV helo without the ASW fit out.
The problem with 'saving' in hindsight evetually costs more in the long term, a silly mistake IMO considering they went to the trouble of fitting the flotation equipment therefore knew exactly where these particular airframes could/would end up and what was required. I assume it could be a case of swapping out the landing gear for a heavier duty set up capable of taking the stresses of repeated hard deck landings as does not look structurally any different and NFH still turns so no change there. RNZAF A109 will have an even lighter landing gear so there goes that plan as well although Sweden has a naval variant c/w shorter tail boom.
In what scenarios do you see such an asset being employed in? Having a 109 capable of engaging small craft (RHIBs) with a door mounted gun is one thing , having a scenario where you need to engage a maritime target at standoff ranges from a light helicopter with anti-ship missiles is entirely different.
Paraphrasing Donald Rumsfeld (God I wish it was someone else) you go to war with what you have and at this rate we aren't going to have very much. Tooled up A109's might be something that buy us time in the event of a major dust up to get serious warfighting equipment whilst being fiscally manageable now.
Actually the Seasprites are classified as light helicopters as well and the NZs carried Mavericks whilst the Is carry Penguins. investigating whether or not Penguin could be integrated into a AW109NK ASuW helo would be prudent because that gives another platform if said integration is possible. At present we are reliant upon eight Seasprites for any antiship missile capability that NZDF have. The Orions do have nay and most certainly the frigates do not have any. In fact without the Seasprites the frigates do not have any anti ship capability apart from the 5" gun and they would be sunk a long time before they got into range to use those. Hence any way to increase the spread of AShM capability across NZDF should be investigated. To answer your question about a scenario, it may be against a hostile vessel or vessels of a state actor or a non state actor. It is quite a feasible scenario and there has already been one recent case of an attempted terrorist hijacking of a Pakistani Navy frigate.
There is also 3.8 tonnes difference in the max takeoff weight. The idea of a Augusta carrying a Penguin or a Maverick is absurd.
So, what state actors are likely to send something big enough in to the region, in a platform large enough to justify lobbing missiles at, and where the only way to deal with them is an armed attack, by NZ attacking alone, with a light utility helicopter?
Why is it absurd? I am just saying it could be investigated, that is all. If you forget our regional interests also include Polynesia, Melanesia and South East Asia, plus other areas within Asia. Now it is like an insurance policy, you have one in case something bad happens, such as the Christchurch earthquakes, so just because things appear benign at the moment they are not always and can change quite quickly.
If the outcome you are looking for is an ability to deal with a small-scale, medium intensity marine threat in the region, then that's fine. I don't think it's likely within the next 5-10 years, but it doesn't matter for arguments sake.
No it's not and I never said it was. I just stated it as a possibility That's all. No in my post I suggested other weapons as armament with the possibility of either Hellfire or Brimstone albeit expensive possibilities. But the idea of a 109NK with 25mm cannon and 70mm rocket capability on an OPV doing anti piracy patrols is not silly, plus the ability to provide armed overwatch and CAS for the Army.
Agree with you that a medium intensity scenario would best be dealt with by starting with P-3's and Frigates. However if we discount or leave aside for the time being integration of Penguin to A109. Would you agree the money and effort purposed to the arming in some form of the A109 would be useful in a given number of likely scenarios beyond that of pintle GPMG? And as feasibility allows work from there?
Both countries are reducing their buys but I doubt they are going to give up their delivery slots on the remainder. Both countries are critically short on airlift capabilities and I would bet that some people in Germany are regretting they didn't do what the UK did and go with a mixed fleet of C-17s and A400Ms.