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Arquinsiel posted:Both the 82nd and 101st still exist as active formations, though just what "Airborne" means these days has changed dramatically. Otherwise a great effortpost You probably know this, but the 101st is now an Air Assault division, with an emphasis on helicopter insertions and extractions. It actually lost its last certified paratrooper units in last January. http://archive.armytimes.com/article/20140109/NEWS/301090008/End-an-era-101st-Paratroopers-lose-jump-status-heritage-patch-remain
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Jan 23, 2015 07:56
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</nitpick>
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Arquinsiel posted:Both the 82nd and 101st still exist as active formations, though just what "Airborne" means these days has changed dramatically. Otherwise a great effortpost 101st isn't "airborne" anymore, since they're an air-assault/heliborne unit now, but they keep the "Airborne" title for historical reasons. But 82nd is still very much airborne-qualified and made combat drops during the 2003 invasion of Iraq. JcDent posted:And yeah, judging by everything, VDV occupies a place in Russian heart like not unit (maybe except for Marine Corps) does in American hearts. I'm curious if the British are particularly proud of any unit, branch or service. The Paras (although they're not airborne-qualified anymore, except for the battalion attached to the Special Force Support Group) and the Royal Marine Commandos are probably the closest. Them and the SAS. Bacarruda fucked around with this message at 08:08 on Jan 23, 2015 |
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Jan 23, 2015 07:56
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^^^^ Them three exactly. Poor SBS, always just outside the medals  Kaal posted:You probably know this, but the 101st is now an Air Assault division, with an emphasis on helicopter insertions and extractions. It actually lost its last certified paratrooper units in last January.
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Jan 23, 2015 08:08
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What were the casualty rates like for WWII paratroopers compared to other footsoldiers? Would someone who volunteered for a paratroop unit be at a much higher or lower risk of death than someone drafted into infantry?
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Jan 23, 2015 08:13
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JcDent posted:"8. You must grasp the full purpose of every enterprise, so that if your leader is killed you can fulfill it." HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 08:39 on Jan 23, 2015 |
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Jan 23, 2015 08:34
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Bacarruda posted:The Paras (although they're not airborne-qualified anymore What happened here? The cold war thread would have me thinking it's typical British procurement and they just never bought them something new to jump out of
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Jan 23, 2015 11:06
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FAUXTON posted:Tracers are fairly I thought tracers were now designed to only shine backwards (toward the firer), so the enemy couldn't identify your position by your own tracers?
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Jan 23, 2015 11:11
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and have been for pretty much ever. They started throwing in coloring metals pretty quick because you didn't want to inadvertently guide your fire according to enemy tracers (unless you were firing at the source of those tracers 
) so you have stuff like red and green and purple and orange these days for various uses.
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Bacarruda posted:
Nah, you're thinking of the 173rd. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/173rd_Airborne_Brigade_Combat_Team#Operation_Iraqi_Freedom_I 82nd did parachute into Panama and some other Latin American brush war in the 1980s though.
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Jan 23, 2015 11:27
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Molentik posted:The subs did pretty well, and while technically not Navy, the Dutch merchant navy played a pretty important part in supplying the Allies in the war, with over 850 ships being pressed into service at the start of the war. About half of them were sunk during the war, but transports arent sexy so it's not well known sadly. Thanks, this is pretty informative and what I was looking for.
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Jan 23, 2015 12:31
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Slim Jim Pickens posted:What do you think about the one where the American town is time-warped into 30YW Germany and teaches them about democracy and freedom? That book was so bad it created a paradox erasing itself and its author out of existence, so I have no idea what you're talking about.  Raenir Salazar posted:He's not terrible, lets be objective here, he's a flawed writer that until the most recent books his characters essentially serve as walking camera's for his alternate timeline; which to be fair is essentially the reason for reading alternate history in the first place. We had a What If we wanted to read about, and he delivers. To be fair, I liked his books about Union-soldiers transported to another world full of carnivorous aliens, cultivating the occasionally arriving humans as meat source. The series got repetitive too, but there was at least some progress overall with the brave American soldiers building a new civilization while killing a shitload of aliens. Since I'm not really a fan of alternative history, I avoided Turtledove's other books like the plague, so I can't speak for them.
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Jan 23, 2015 13:08
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The Lone Badger posted:I thought tracers were now designed to only shine backwards (toward the firer), so the enemy couldn't identify your position by your own tracers? Nope.
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Jan 23, 2015 13:19
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Throatwarbler posted:Nah, you're thinking of the 173rd. Uh, I mis-remembered. The 82nd didn't drop in Iraq (they were supposed to drop into Baghdad to take the airport, but the mission got scrubbed). iirc, elements of the 82nd did jump into Afghanistan. Rabhadh posted:What happened here? The cold war thread would have me thinking it's typical British procurement and they just never bought them something new to jump out of MoD budget cuts. The 2nd and 3rd Battalions, the Parachute Regiment are part of 16 Air Assault Brigade. As a unit, they aren't parachute-qualified anymore, but they are trained to be helimobile in the Chinooks of the Joint Helicopter Force. The RAF still has C-130s and C-17s, both of which are more than capable of dropping troops. e: to clarify, there are still some Paras who jump regularly and can be used as a rapid-reaction force, but most Paras aren't getting parachute qualified/re-qualified. The Lone Badger posted:I thought tracers were now designed to only shine backwards (toward the firer), so the enemy couldn't identify your position by your own tracers? There are tracers that can only be seen when wearing night-vision goggles. They're mostly used for helicopter door guns. Bacarruda fucked around with this message at 14:17 on Jan 23, 2015 |
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Jan 23, 2015 13:50
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JcDent posted:Oh, and on Americans: doesn't "airborne" mean "helos all around" these days? No. Airborne units* and the Airborne training program are all parachute based. *101st excepted, since they retain the historical title but are now in helos as an Air Assault division - as someone else posted.
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Jan 23, 2015 14:16
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HEY GAL posted:Auftragstaktik, or *ahem* Führen mit Auftrag, has been a thing since the Franco-Prussian war, and some people argue even earlier. Holy poo poo, that article gets bad fast.
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Jan 23, 2015 14:18
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JcDent posted:
The VDV, just like the Marines, consists entirely of self-aggrandizing assholes, so it's basically exactly like the Marines, except instead of telling everyone they were in the VDV, they get their own holiday and swim in fountains.
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Jan 23, 2015 14:20
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It's just difficult to see why in a modern air environment permissive enough to deploy paratroopers you would actually want to do so..
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Jan 23, 2015 14:48
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Alchenar posted:It's just difficult to see why in a modern air environment permissive enough to deploy paratroopers you would actually want to do so.. I think in Afghanistan in 2001 they were used to seize an airport that additional troops could be ferried into? Useful for invading weak countries that don't have convenient land borders or coastlines.
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Jan 23, 2015 14:55
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The argument would be that any potential target of an airdrop can just as easily be seized by troops borne on helicopters, with the added benefit that if it all goes wrong at least some of the them can un-deploy via the same method.
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Jan 23, 2015 15:15
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Ensign Expendable posted:The VDV, just like the Marines, consists entirely of self-aggrandizing assholes, so it's basically exactly like the Marines, except instead of telling everyone they were in the VDV, they get their own holiday and swim in fountains. Still didn't stop me from buying their telnyashka.
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Jan 23, 2015 15:38
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So did Japanese mini subs ever do anything useful? Did other militaries ever use mini subs for combat purposes?
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Jan 23, 2015 15:44
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Alchenar posted:It's just difficult to see why in a modern air environment permissive enough to deploy paratroopers you would actually want to do so.. We're still doing air drops in future wargames all the time. The maneuver guys are like HOOAH AIRBORNE RAH and everyone else just kind of rolls their eyes. In a recent wargame they got pissed because we do not have, nor plan to have, an air droppable counter-RAM capability. I do like the mental image of some Chinese SAM operator watching his scope as a couple dozen C-17s, loaded with paratroopers, lumber into his airspace at 2000 ft and 180 kts. After he's done ejaculating the scene would be quite something.
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Jan 23, 2015 15:48
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John Frost made four combat jumps during WW2 - Bruneval raid, Tunisia (their target turned out to be empty), Sicily and Arnhem. Maybe some SAS types jumped more, and unlucky fighter jocks.
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Jan 23, 2015 15:53
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I remember reading some general explaining how paras were not of much military use but were an excellent motivator. A column of ground forces moved much more quickly if there were a bunch of paras at the objective that needed to be saved from destruction. It may have been the French in Algeria.
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Jan 23, 2015 15:54
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The French not too long ago airdropped a battalion IIRC in Mali as well, which seemed useful because helos weren't thick on the ground, ranges were huge, and they could deploy straight out of France. I can imagine airdropping some dudes in shootmanitarian situations like Mount Sinjar works too.
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Jan 23, 2015 15:59
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quote:Late on in the Second World War, as the Allies were fighting their way across northern Europe, a battalion of Gurkhas was asked to provide some volunteers for a mission behind enemy lines. Always thought this was a funny joke.
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Jan 23, 2015 16:08
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Koesj posted:The French not too long ago airdropped a battalion IIRC in Mali as well, which seemed useful because helos weren't thick on the ground, ranges were huge, and they could deploy straight out of France. Are they also doing resupply, casualty evacuation, and close air support over these huge ranges too? Because there was another French parachute operation in the past where they didn't quite think this stuff through and then it turns out the enemy they dropped into the middle of *did* have artillery after all!
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Jan 23, 2015 16:11
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SquadronROE posted:So did Japanese mini subs ever do anything useful? Did other militaries ever use mini subs for combat purposes? The Italians http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decima_Flottiglia_MAS
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Jan 23, 2015 16:13
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When I lived in Italy, the Venetian Nautical Museum had a Maiale (Pig) in the front hallway, I was always fascinated by them.
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Jan 23, 2015 16:31
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Throatwarbler posted:Are they also doing resupply, casualty evacuation, and close air support over these huge ranges too? Because there was another French parachute operation in the past where they didn't quite think this stuff through and then it turns out the enemy they dropped into the middle of *did* have artillery after all! They did. Linkup with the ground column was after a couple of days, and they had constant CAS and helo support throughout, just not enough helo support to get all those ground troops there as fast and cohesive as compared to airdropping them. They also secured an airstrip at H1 and flew in lots of stuff afterwards. I know you were being facetious, but AQIM isn't exactly uncle Ho's all-conquering team, and long range vertical envelopment can be very useful in 'string of pearls' situations like in lots of African places. The Bush War, while AFAIK not involving any parachuting *troops*, saw all kinds of air-deliverd mom and pop solutions being used, and subsequent PMC ops in Angola were sometimes wholly dependent on pallets of stuff being kicked out of Dakotas. e: Looks like 4 helos and a DC3 was a standard COIN reinforcement op for Rhodesian forces as well. Koesj fucked around with this message at 16:36 on Jan 23, 2015 |
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Jan 23, 2015 16:32
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SquadronROE posted:So did Japanese mini subs ever do anything useful? Did other militaries ever use mini subs for combat purposes? German midget subs and E-boats were the only Kriegsmarine assets to successfully attack the Normandy landings.
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Jan 23, 2015 16:34
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100 Years Ago I've been ferreting out some German views of the war available in translation; meet Herbert Sulzbach and his near neighbour, the German Sapper. Sulzbach's in the artillery and was recently promoted to Gefreiter (which the translation, ahem, translates as Lance-Bombardier); it's left as an exercise to the reader to work out what the anonymous German Sapper's rank and role is. (Although, for an engineer, he does seem to spend a surprising amount of time shooting at things.) There's also enough time to check in with Louis Barthas, who's found a highly unusual sleeping place, and note that the Germans are planning a raid against the British fishing fleet off the Dogger Bank. Apparently the trawlers have been looking at them funny. Or something. And John Chilembwe's on the move in Nyasaland. Also, the adverts in today's paper are spectacularly boring, so I've clipped the chess problems instead. Anyone dare to have a go at them?  (It's a decent rest of the paper, though, if rather food-obsessed; bad meat, dried fruit, and "Migratory Buffets & Kitchens"!) Trin Tragula fucked around with this message at 17:12 on Jan 23, 2015 |
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Jan 23, 2015 16:38
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It seems to me that if you can drop a company sized or larger unit of paratroopers at an objective then you can probably just land them in helicopters/osprey/what-have-you at less risk. Although, I guess that wouldn't hold true if you can drop large groups of people more stealthily than is readily apparent (I expect that capability would be considered strategically sensitive and not widely discussed).
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Jan 23, 2015 16:43
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Murgos posted:It seems to me that if you can drop a company sized or larger unit of paratroopers at an objective then you can probably just land them in helicopters/osprey/what-have-you at less risk. Although, I guess that wouldn't hold true if you can drop large groups of people more stealthily than is readily apparent (I expect that capability would be considered strategically sensitive and not widely discussed). This is probably a stupid question, but has anyone ever tried to land a sizable force of troops jumping from high altitude and without static line? Is the combat weight just far too high for that sort of force when the chute finally opens?
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Jan 23, 2015 16:49
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Trin Tragula posted:100 Years Ago I really like how you're showing that WWI wasn't just a European conflict, both in terms of covering the experience of troops pulled from the colonies and sent to fight in France and in terms of how the war's affecting the parts of the world under colonial occupation when their imperial rulers all decided to try to blow one another up. (Also, Sheffield drives me up the loving wall, holy poo poo.)
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Jan 23, 2015 16:49
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So it's been made clear to me based on the responses of all you wonderful people that the "airborne" as I know it is largely a relic of the past. I'm gonna have to go back to the drawing board again, and I think it'd be prudent to go to the fiction advice thread on Creative Convention for "what if" questions. Thanks for the info, though. I appreciate it.
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Jan 23, 2015 17:01
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Benny the Snake posted:So it's been made clear to me based on the responses of all you wonderful people that the "airborne" as I know it is largely a relic of the past. I'm gonna have to go back to the drawing board again, and I think it'd be prudent to go to the fiction advice thread on Creative Convention for "what if" questions. Thanks for the info, though. I appreciate it. What the heck? Write what you want. Besides, are they airborne, or an equivalent to airborne?
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Jan 23, 2015 17:25
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Yeah man be creative, use real world for inspiration but don't let it rail road you in matters of fiction. I mean, what if there was some sort of super tech that makes anything but high orbital drops just not possible to do?
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Jan 23, 2015 17:31
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Benny the Snake posted:Yeah, I'm writing a military sci-fi story and I'm a bit enamoured with the airborne. Something about jumping out of a goddamn plane into combat speaks volumes about the kind of balls these men have/had. Generally they drop into a theater and secure things like airbases, for the wave of non parachute equipped mudbugs, and after that they are just "Elite" Infantry. Think of them as a "Beachhead" force minus the beach and you get the idea. Special forces groups/rangers and the like are more likely to do multiple jumps.
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Jan 23, 2015 17:34
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SeanBeansShako posted:Yeah man be creative, use real world for inspiration but don't let it rail road you in matters of fiction. I mean, what if there was some sort of super tech that makes anything but high orbital drops just not possible to do? My initial idea for something like that would be an air defense system that can easily target atmospheric craft or slowly drifting parachutes, forcing airborne to exclusively perform HALO-style drops from orbit at high speed to slip through the flak and missiles.
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Jan 23, 2015 17:37
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They were shooting down U2s with SAMs in the 1960s, how much higher are your dropships supposed to be flying? The "parachuting into a place where people on the ground are shooting at you" ship has kind of sailed at this point.
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Jan 23, 2015 17:54
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