sancho
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C-17's are one of the best aircrafts for the role they play. Very easy to maintain and very reliable they offer a nice boost for India's heavy lift capabilities. Air Forces are not just defined by attack aircrafts but by their ability to project their power over a specific region. Without a adequate and reliable heavy lift aircraft no airforce can assist a ground thrust by the army or even ferry in resources when needed. These are expensive but very badly needed, we need to diversify our procurement, cannot rely on Russia for everything.
I know that they offer some advantages over the Russian counterparts and I wanted some of them besides the older IL 76 for diversification too. But they still must be worth the costs and I don't see that.
It simply would be a very strange decision if we buy them for such high costs, but reject the A330 MRTT, although they offer clearly more advantages over the IL 78, than the C17, over the IL 76/476.
Even if you look at stratigic airlift alone, IAF could easily buy an IL heavy transporter + an A400M and maybe even an AN 124 too. That all for the cost of one C17! Would this combo offer less strategic lift capacity than a C17, doubtful right?