This probably would make an excellent thesis for someone over poor planning.
I believe in this case....someone wrote the requirement that they ‘immedately’ needed a cargo plane that could handle a runway of only 2k feet of runway, carry 30,000 lbs of cargo, and have a range of at least 700 nm.
They went out and then discovered that if you wanted delivery within months of a contract signed....there’s only one or two choices, which led them to the Italian company.
I doubt if any testing took place....they probably did a couple of flights and came to agree that this was the only possible candidate for the job.
The logistical line? Well....they just never set up the method of getting Italian parts to Afghanistan.
I’m kinda surprised that they didn’t just offer them around Africa (free). There are five or six countries there which operate them, and for spare parts....they were each worth a million.
It was the DLA’a version of cash for clunkers.