Regarding the transport needs, those Spanish A400M that are surplus look surely interesting.

Guys from Seville already were in NZ with the combo 295/A-400, 295 in two roles, transport and MPA, A-400 as the ¿best? way to deploy the NZ Nh-90. They did the same at least in South Africa.

Given the 2012 figues ($24mil for TTH and $39mil for NFH), here is the rough listing (not including spares, ordnance or support cost, disregarding economy in scale)

NH90
Australia – ca $1.1bil
Greece – ca $480mil
Netherlands – ca $480mil
Sweden – ca $430mil
Finland – ca $480mil
Norway – ca $550mil
Spain – ca $890mil
Belgium – ca $250mil
France – ca $2.7bil
Germany – ca $2.9bil
Italy – ca $3.5bil
New Zealand – ca $220mil
Oman – ca $480mil
Saudi Arabia – ca $1.5bil

Total – ca $16.3bil

We are paying more than 1,5 € billion for 19+1 TTH, 1 kind of naval TTH or something like that (prototype), 1 CSAR or at least a wannabe (as prototype, again), with tools, spares for ¿5? yearsand all that, it looks we are getting F-35 or something, not a crappy utilitary helo.

Argentina is already building, in its own shipyards (which are perfectly capable of building such vessels), the first of a planned four or five 80 metre OPVs.

Like this (click if you only see a thumbnail) – [ATTACH=CONFIG]217654[/ATTACH]
but without the Chilean flag.
Designed by Fassmer. http://www.fassmer.de/index.php?id=190

Not yet, still is a project

Mainly because they spend more than the double than us in defence, we are under the 1%.

And yet you got the Seville plant from CASa finding a home with EADS, you got a good chunk of developing and testing work for the EF and you got a Spanish assembly line. I doubt F-18 would have given you that.

With the same amount of money? Sure they could, and probably today they could be capable of SEAD missions.

Yep, the smallest partner with the smallest economy of the four, but the requeriments were quite simple, multirole plane, about ten years ago, not happenned.

So what is the long-term plan here? To replace Hornets and Harriers with X number of F-35s a decade from now?

What was the rationale for selecting unproven NH90 over UH-60M in the first place? In addition to all the problems with NH90, the decision looks especially ridiculous in light of subsequent MH-60R selection.

Is sad to say but we don´t have a long term plan, Navy is quite interested in the SVTOL F-35, and the Air Force at least in some circles is pissed in how the Ef-2000 program has been developed, and the F-35 obviously was the main option as EF-18 replacement, but with the politicians you never know, they will join any eurocrap program if they could get a picture.

And we got the Nh90 mainly because eurocopter put an assembly plant in Albacete for the Tiger deal, and the goverment gave them without any trial, or selection a deal for Ec-135´s for the armed forces, Guardia Civil, Policia Nacional, DGT, and after that, the Nh90…just arrived….but at least the navy is getting some refurbished sh-60´s instead of that thing

What are the penalties for cancelling the T3B Typhoons?

They guy from DoD said that most probably all the partners are going to refuse to get the 3B.