EyeBrock EyeBrock:
Boots,
The C17 is a strategic transport, the C130 is a tactical transport. Two very different aircraft. 1 can carry 18 aircraft pallets or an MBT and the other can carry 5 pallets.
The C130 has been performing strategic re-supply missions because the Polaris (the Airbus) hasn't the capacity to undertake strat-airlift. The C17 has changed all that.
Without strategic and tactical airlift, we would be renting Antonovs for deployments.
Airlift is key to enabling our very small combat forces the flexibility they need to rapidly deploy.
Having 3 regiments of combat troops without airlift is futile, and that means C17s AND C130s.
I'll have to sit down with you and have a chat about air power sometime!
I'm well aware of the differences in the two planes, however, I still don't see the need to tie up almost $7 billion from our capital expenditures budget on transport aircraft (AKA most of the budget). If we were the US, with a massive budget, it wouldn't make that big a difference. But we don't and I'm sure we could have stretched the procurement over a longer period of time and/or used the C-17 in a tactical role temporarily, which is what it appears the service is doing anyways.
Like I said, it's a matter of priority. Because of the Harper government spending somewhere in the area of $10 billion in the past couple of years on transport aircraft (Chinooks, C-17s, C-130Js, and if they get their way, C-127 Spartan SAR planes soon), we've been prevented from buying anything else for the other two services. That means no replacement LAV IIIs (roughly one-third of the fleet is out of action nowadays due to action in Afghanistan) and no new ships (not heavy icebreakers, slushbreakers, AORs, destroyers, nothing).
I'm not criticizing the purchases, just the poor line of thought behind them. Our entire budget is relatively small - in the area of $20 billion (and procurement is less than 25% of that budget), so when you spend $10 billion or so on one service in a matter of four years, the other services suffer, and suffer greatly. Our destroyers are just about as old as the C-130s we have (some are actually older), yet have the Conservatives even considered replacement? Nope. They've screwed the pooch on the AOR file too, wasting four years. Now, instead of the three the Liberals promised (and Harper too initially), we might get two. Not as bad as the Liberals and the MHP, but it's bad.
The CC-150 does have strat lift capabilities, it's just not a RO-RO like the C-17 and can't carry anywhere near the load that the C-17 does.
CKA Uber 
CKA Uber 
