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zoux posted:Does that have anything to do with parachuting or is it that they are set up as a fast response unit? The vast majority of the time they would deploy rapidly, it wouldn’t involve parachuting. Part of it is that they’re so light that you don’t need to ship a gajillion vehicles over with them, so they can be ready to go quickly. Of course, this sometimes means you land a bunch of foot soldiers at an airstrip and the first thing they’re asking for is for someone to drive them to where they’re needed, since 3 miles per hour isn’t the fastest movement speed.
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Aug 2, 2018 16:42
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What's the difference between the 82nd and the 101st
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Aug 2, 2018 16:45
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zoux posted:What's the difference between the 82nd and the 101st 19?
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Aug 2, 2018 16:47
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Extremely not even skin deep answer: focus on airborne ops (82d) vs air assault ops (101st)
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Aug 2, 2018 16:50
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zoux posted:Does that have anything to do with parachuting or is it that they are set up as a fast response unit? Not really, they just keep a brigade on a 72 hour deployment notice. The main enabler there is just that they have the training etc on rapid airlift, the actual paradropping is kind of irrelevant.
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Aug 2, 2018 16:58
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mlmp08 posted:Extremely not even skin deep answer: focus on airborne ops (82d) vs air assault ops (101st) 100 internet points if you can anticipate my next question
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Aug 2, 2018 17:04
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Airborne is jumping out of airplanes. Air assault is either roping or, more often, stepping out of helicopters. Same with air dropping vs helicopter lifting equipment.
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Aug 2, 2018 17:05
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How much of an influence did the invasion of Crete have on Allied airborne operations? The pop narrative I've heard is the Germans looked at the aftermath and said "never again" while the Allies looked and said "that idea's got legs", but that seems a bit too pat.
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Aug 2, 2018 17:09
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Comrade Gorbash posted:The French made a bunch of large-ish combat drops in Indochina. I haven't been able to find a good account of them, though, just that they happened. During the siege of Dien Bien Phu the airstrip was destroyed on day 1 so all French reinforcements had to paradrop in. Prior to that the French had used paratroopers to surprise Vietminh strongpoints and wait for ground relief to varying degrees of success.
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Aug 2, 2018 17:10
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GotLag posted:How much of an influence did the invasion of Crete have on Allied airborne operations? The pop narrative I've heard is the Germans looked at the aftermath and said "never again" while the Allies looked and said "that idea's got legs", but that seems a bit too pat. I suspect there's a bit of 'if we do it properly' in there. Hence gliders, not dropping weapons separately from the paratroopers, etc.
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Aug 2, 2018 17:11
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mlmp08 posted:Of course, this sometimes means you land a bunch of foot soldiers at an airstrip and the first thing they’re asking for is for someone to drive them to where they’re needed, since 3 miles per hour isn’t the fastest movement speed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzkQbUHONtY Fun fact: BMD crews train to jump inside their vehicle, but it wasn't always so. The crews would jump separately from their rides, but it was soon clear that it didn't take much for the two to drift kilometers apart, after which the crew would need to locate both each other and then their vehicle (if it was still there).
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Aug 2, 2018 17:12
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Nenonen posted:Ffs even in WW2 paratroopers would take bicycles with them not to mention heavier stuff brought in gliders, nowadays you can paradrop anything Better hope that nobody cuts the parachute straps like that grunt did to a bunch of hummvees
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Aug 2, 2018 17:53
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Shimrra Jamaane posted:During the siege of Dien Bien Phu the airstrip was destroyed on day 1 so all French reinforcements had to paradrop in. Prior to that the French had used paratroopers to surprise Vietminh strongpoints and wait for ground relief to varying degrees of success.
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Aug 2, 2018 17:58
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Comrade Gorbash posted:Do you know any sources that have more narrative accounts? Most of what I've found really is just at this level - "we dropped X troops here on this date, they took Y losses in the subsequent fighting" with no real discussion of how the operation was planned or carried out. one of my favorite anecdotes from windrow's the last valley is when the airfield at dien bien phu was being shelled so regularly that resupply planes couldn't even land, so they airdropped as many supplies as possible. one of the things they dropped was a huge bundle of concertina wire which started bouncing around and hit/killed a vietnamese paratrooper. poor bastard, what a way to die that book is a pretty good narrative account of how dien bien phu played out on the ground but it's way more grueling trench warfare and bombardment than daring aerial attacks
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Aug 2, 2018 18:04
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France actually dropped some dudes as a blocking force in Timbuktu relatively recently: https://youtu.be/osiyuZry6VQ I don't know how large that force was or whether they were regular paratroopers or special forces.
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Aug 2, 2018 18:12
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MikeCrotch posted:Better hope that nobody cuts the parachute straps like that grunt did to a bunch of hummvees  Go on.
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Aug 2, 2018 18:12
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https://youtu.be/dR3QMStl7s0 https://www.armytimes.com/news/your-army/2017/07/05/soldier-charged-in-failed-humvee-air-drop/ Edit: Have the forums stopped parsing and in-lining youtube links?
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Aug 2, 2018 18:18
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I imagine one of the main reasons that paratroopers died out except in special case scenarios, or as rapid response troops, is purely economically and logistically based. Sure you can supply a couple of hundred airplanes to drop paratrooper divisions, but its difficult to rationalize that cost in the context of our ostensibly peacetime military. When its the United States and the UK trying to invade a whole continent, that input can change your output, so to speak. Industrialized warfare is a hell of a drug
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Aug 2, 2018 18:21
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mlmp08 posted:The vast majority of the time they would deploy rapidly, it wouldn’t involve parachuting. Current procedure is for paratroopers to call for an Uber while they are in the air so they can be ready to move out as soon as they land.
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Aug 2, 2018 18:29
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There are multiple reasons to the paratrooper situation. Market Garden showed how painfully difficult it is to predict flight weather, and if you want to plan that sort of combined arms operation then you do need to be able to plan everything well ahead. Overlord was perhaps easier in this regard, because if it was too stormy to land from air then it was likely also too stormy to land from the sea (D-day was meant to be June 5). With modern air defenses and jet fighters it has also become really difficult to come up with a situation where using paratroopers en masse doesn't end in a massacre. Basically rapid unopposed deployments, counter-insurgencies and superpowers vs push-overs. And then helicopters make things easier. Parachuting is risky even on clear terrain and in windless conditions, and once you jump you will stay there unless you take control of a runway and have a total air supremacy. On choppers you can get everyone precisely where you want them, even a rooftop is enough, and they can also be lifted out of there if the operation is cancelled. The limitation is range. For great powers they still have a use as a force in being: having that capability can be more useful than being able to use it actively. Since 1940 all operational planning must have taken into account the enemy's capability for airborne operations.
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Aug 2, 2018 19:07
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Airborne operations also typically required them to be provisioned to be able to fight for X number of days without any real resupply until the ground forces reach them. The problem then becomes when they're down there for 2X days and it turns out that the supplies that they have only are good enough for X/2 days. And a general lack of heavier weapons (Tanks, big guns, etc).
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Aug 2, 2018 19:15
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Taerkar posted:Airborne operations also typically required them to be provisioned to be able to fight for X number of days without any real resupply until the ground forces reach them. The problem then becomes when they're down there for 2X days and it turns out that the supplies that they have only are good enough for X/2 days. The lesson from WW2 was that is X is greater than... ~0.7 then you are going to end up with a lot of dead paratroopers.
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Aug 2, 2018 19:33
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Taerkar posted:Airborne operations also typically required them to be provisioned to be able to fight for X number of days without any real resupply until the ground forces reach them. The problem then becomes when they're down there for 2X days and it turns out that the supplies that they have only are good enough for X/2 days.
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Aug 2, 2018 20:12
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Halloween Jack posted:Well, why hasn't somebody just combined airborne with mobile artillery??? You mean like what the Sheridan and Stingray were supposed to be?
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Aug 2, 2018 20:13
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Halloween Jack posted:Well, why hasn't somebody just combined airborne with mobile artillery??? They have, but the bottleneck is resupply by air. Artillery needs a constant supply of shells to feed, and they need trucks to carry them, and they need fuel to power them... Air bombardment would be a lot easier.
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Aug 2, 2018 20:31
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Nenonen posted:They have, but the bottleneck is resupply by air. Artillery needs a constant supply of shells to feed, and they need trucks to carry them, and they need fuel to power them... Air bombardment would be a lot easier. “The aristocrats” except “The MAGTF”
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Aug 2, 2018 20:33
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They could just air drop the shells. Hell, just air drop the shells on the enemy. Oh wait I just invented bombs.
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Aug 2, 2018 20:33
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For airborne operations and especially special ops, the Assault on Eben Emael is also worth checking out. Less known but influential. 22,000 graduates of US Army Airborne School annually. Roughly 2000-3000 of those are SoF who go to follow on schools. Cutting cords won’t work on human chutes like it was done with the Humvee. Different people pack reserves and mains. One will work even if other fails. Statistically nigh impossible in peace time to kill with them.
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Aug 2, 2018 20:39
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Think they were more referring to cutting the straps on the BMD with the crew inside. Not that deliberate sabotage has to be involved for parachute training to end in grievous injury, as you well know.
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Aug 2, 2018 20:42
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Davin Valkri posted:You mean like what the Sheridan and Stingray were supposed to be?
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Aug 2, 2018 20:43
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hailthefish posted:
Harsh but fair.
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Aug 2, 2018 20:44
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Can anyone recommend me a good history audiobook? I wanted to listen to The Nazi Seizure of Power but they don’t have it on Audible, so I need to come up with something else. I just finished the Siege of Mecca which I’d recommend to everyone here. It’s about the occupation of the Grand Mosque by early radical Sunni extremists convinced that the Mahdi had appeared and they could bring about Judgement day.
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Aug 2, 2018 20:46
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I enjoyed Dan Jones's Templars.
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Aug 2, 2018 20:51
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zoux posted:They could just air drop the shells. Hell, just air drop the shells on the enemy. Oh wait I just invented bombs. Bombers with a half-load of bombs, and a half-load of paras. The bombs fall faster than the paras, they land having achieved maximum surprise and efficacy
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Aug 2, 2018 21:12
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Isn't "never parachute into an area you just bombed" some sort of saying? My former neighbour was the son of a nazi parachutist. There isn't much of a story to go with that, but the guy sure did hate the Russians. Edit: and the British
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Aug 2, 2018 21:34
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ilmucche posted:but the guy sure did hate the Russians. But then who doesn't, including the Russians or the Brits?
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Aug 2, 2018 21:44
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Paratroops are probably more survivable these days since light infantry in general is better equipped. You can drop decent sized mortars that pack a pretty good punch and ATGMs are now pretty gnarly, so it's a lot better than in WWII where the solution to "how do i get antitank capability" was poo poo like "stick an AT gun in a glider and pray like gently caress"
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Aug 2, 2018 21:55
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ilmucche posted:Isn't "never parachute into an area you just bombed" some sort of saying? Such fancy advice applies to noble sky knight pilots, not expendable grunts.
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Aug 2, 2018 21:57
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 Fangz posted:Oh wow that is a really interesting page. Unfortunately I can't. It's become reasonably clear that Evacuated is for a soldier who is sent to the rear for reasons other than wounding, e.g. illness, accidents and so on. The numbers always seem to be quite high so perhaps there are additional reasons. It wouldn't surprise me if was just about anything medical that took the soldier away from the unit for any length of time - so being away overnight to see the dentist would see them in both the increase and decrease columns. Invalided I can't recall being applied to other ranks - maybe it's a polite way of evacuating officers. Trans.T.M.B. will be "transferred to Trench Mortar Battery" Trans. Labour Corps. is self-explanatory. A quick google hasn't returned anything on Oi(unfit), but I'm sure it will be out there somewhere. No courts martial or desertions this month! 13th KRRC War Diary, 1st August 1918 posted:This evening the Btn moved into the front line, and relieved the 10th Royal Fusiliers in the LEFT SECTOR, RIGHT BRIGADE of the Divisional Front. 13th KRRC War Diary, 2nd August 1918 posted:The front line Coys. are supplied with Tommy Cookers for making tea, meat is sent up to them already cooked. The two support Coys do all their cooking in the support line.
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Aug 2, 2018 22:00
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I have a question for the thread: A while back we had a few guys, including me, post letters written by grandparents. I posted a handful of excerpts from my grandfather's personal letters written post war in Europe. If I wanted to find more information specific to my grandfather, (unit information, various postings and movements, promotions etc.) throughout the war where would I even start to look for that? It dawned on me that outside of the letters themselves, which are the only real records I know of currently in my family's possession concerning what he was doing at that time, I don't really have any idea how he ended up there and today for some reason I decided I'd like to start researching it. If finding this kind of information is possible can someone point me in the right direction?
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Aug 2, 2018 22:09
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