French to order additional 21 NH90 TTH

[macnz]

French media reporting that the multiplication of French operations and greater need for air mobility has prematurely fatigued their helicopter fleet - particularly the Pumas. Therefore there is a request from Light Aviation of the Army (ALT) for an additional 21 NH90 TTH Cayman. A 'contract' will be prepared to be announced by General Sachedina, Major head of state Army ( CLS) under the review of military planning law (LPM).Some of these helicopters will be dedicated to special forces. The French Army has so far been delivered 14 of the 68 Cayman on order.

Note: this was translated from french so not sure whether the term 'contract' means a commercial contract in relation to their LPM.
Looks like the French have faith in the NH90. 

[otr1]

No, the French just have very good sales staff.

This from someone in the biz who's currently downrange....

Some hard facts:

On the NH-90. The Italian, French and German deployments of NH-90 did not go well at all. The Italians limited the operational exposure of the type and required only a very low sortie rate. They were not at any point part of the CJSOTF orbat, nor truely available for ISAF tasking. The Bundeswehr were extremely disappointed with the performance and availability of the NH-90, have slashed their order and are trying to offload the cost of many more via a 'joint Nato helicopter force' arrangement. Good luck finding people who will talk about it, but for both the Germans and Italians the biggest issues were lack of defensive armament and structural durability. The Italians fitted M-134s to their deployed aircraft and as a result found ingress/egress of troops was severely hindered. In addition, the aircrewman was required to sit in a low-crashworthy seat, with no ballistic protection. Troop carrying seats also had to be removed in order to accommodate the crewman on each side, and the ammunition for the M-134. If they were to carry any troops at all, they had to leave the centre seats in place, which meant that, due to a design-flaw inherent in the NH-90, no sling load could be carried. As with Black Hawk, hot and high performance limitations were quickly reached.

The French have deployed NH-90s to Africa on administrative tasking. They have no defensive armament. If you've ever worked with French soldiers you will understand why.

In all cases, the 'deployment' of NH-90 had more to do with PR and testing than additional capability.