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Well besides the political aspect of Germany sourcing key military hardware from what is arguably their largest regional threat, there would also be possible lo

Well besides the political aspect of Germany sourcing key military hardware from what is arguably their largest regional threat, there would also be possible logistical and maintenance issues. Also switching to Russian Helicopters (The company) and trying to integrate those into the NATO force structure would likely require a great number of changes to be made to the aircraft, which might make them non-competitive on price alone.

vpribish 9y ago
not to detract in any way, but Germany was operating Soviet Mig-29s alongside NATO kit for years (maybe still?) after reunification. So if anyone could do it...
- mschuster91 9y ago
  With the MiG-29s you had the entire former NVA personnel, hardware and experience. Introducing Russian (or other non-NATO stuff) would require extensive trainings, quite possible new sets of tools, and who knows if any Russian stuff could be made to interoperate with NATO technology.
- geezerjay 9y ago
  Inheriting old Soviet equipment from East Germany is not remotely comparable to purchasing new non-NATO equipment to meet current requirements.
- d__k 9y ago
  It probably depends on the type of equipment they buy, that is, how complex it is and what are the maintenance costs. For example, Turkey recently declared that they will buy some kind of Russian advanced anti-aircraft system so they probably think that it will be cheaper in long term than buying it from a NATO member. Yet, even in this case they had quite strong tensions with NATO and it is not clear if Germany wants to have (and can afford) similar tensions with NATO, even if these Russian helicopters are technically better.