Why does the C-130 military transport plane use propellers instead of jet engines?

Question

Why does the C-130 military transport plane use propellers instead of jet engines?

In: Engineering

Answer 1

I looked through the comments and didn’t see this angle explained yet. C-130s are relied upon to conduct airlands (landing to drop off equipment and troops/vics) on dirt field landing strips (FLS). Props are able to safely land and take off on significantly dirtier runways as there’s no jet engine for foreign objects and debris (FOD) to get sucked into.