Posted on 07/27/2013 10:48:25 AM PDT by cunning_fish
Notice how the Russian VDV Airborne Paras jump without d-bags dangling outside the aircraft such that they can jump IN FRONT OF IL-76 JET ENGINES! By using drogue chutes they exit the plane clean and can have timers delay openings for HIGH ALTITUDE mass tactical jumps without trying to teach everyone belabored civilian skydiving stable body position skills. This means more Paras can jump from more doors and land closer together near their BMD light tank/APC to get into action far faster than U.S. Airborne equipment and techniques. And the VDV can jump with their IL-76 jets not having to slow down much: 300 mph--twice as fast as we jump static line in the West. Maybe if we treated the Russians as our allies instead of being jerks to them, they'd teach us how to be high-speed, too?
(Excerpt) Read more at youtube.com ...
Reminds me of Red Dawn I. “WOLVERINES!”
Didn’t help them in Afghanistan.
Oh... C’mon, Gator. They did pretty fine in A-stan. Probably much better than current occupation force:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSip2c3oC6U
If they were defeated it was not a military but political defeat, pretty much the same as it was for US forces in Nam.
And I find it pretty ironic that a communist regime in Afghanistan outlived communism in Russia by some 3 years. It only succumbed to Taliban in 1993 about time post-Soviet Russia has first went bankrupt and couldn’t support any secular element there anymore.
Ahhhhh....the great dream. A vehicle small enough, and light enough, to fit in AF jet transport aircraft so it can move to the theater of operations at 500mph. It’s also large enough to house a crew of four and 10 Infantry Soldiers. It has enough armor to stop any know weapons from penetrating the armor anywhere on the vehicle. It can go 80mph cross-country. It has a cannon that can defeat all enemy vehicles. It can also fire artillery rounds. It has a built-in air defense system including radar detection. It can swim. It has total night and day detection and targeting systems in every direction. It is small enough to be a hard target to hit. It is maintenance free. It requires no fuel. It’s ground pressure is so low it can cross bogs and sand while high enough to provide great traction. I think the thing that comes closest to this is an E-Tool.
I would want my enemy to land in a bunch, so that my artillery concentrate on them.
Of course I would love to have my enemy attempt to penetrate air defenses with IL-76 targets, too.
In Jump School they used to tell us of a never verified story/legend/myth, of the Soviet paratroopers being dropped without parachutes, into snow banks during the war with the Finns.
Mass airborne drops were cutting edge in World War 2. There only use today is to scare small countries with little military capability. Being able to drop 20,000 troops inside a small countries borders can create havoc, but against the a larger country like China, Russia, or the US.....not so cutting edge. More like sending many highly motivated troops to there death.
It sounds like the valued airfields, bridges and brain centers of support troops in the soft and pampered rear will never be under threat from sky troops with our modern American defenses, that still leaves most of the world to use the asset, and even our sophisticated defenses can be overcome, or disappear during a sustained major war where bench depth starts playing a role and starts exposing shallow preparedness.
It isn’t about dropping 20,000 troops just to wreak havoc or take a capitol, it is about capturing and destroying specific targets, getting in a spear head hours before the cavalry arrives, it is premature to remove Airborne capabilities from America’s capabilities.
It has been 10 years since the last mass Airborne combat jump for America, it has been a few months for the French since they dropped 250 Airborne in Mali.
LOL. Too funny (and true!).
I don’t know that anyone beyond historians are truly experts on Airborne operations and I was Airborne.
Modern day Airborne operations among the major powers are too risky for widespread use - placing that many elite soldiers on a cargo aircraft that is vulnerable to being shot down violates common sense if the opponent is formidable.
Airborne operations against small nations with little organization or anti-air capability can still be effective, but they always come with risks. Placing that many soldiers on any airframe over hostile territory is often an unneeded risks that is as much about putting a star on their jump wings as it is about gaining some tactical advantage.
With that being said, I am a firm believer that Airborne soldiers fight more fiercely across the board than leg units. Something about throwing yourself out of a plane indicates a willingness to do whatever it takes!
Still proud to be Airborne!
Or a US Marine.
There's no particular role for mass groups of parachute-dropped troops in modern warfare.
There's a romantic infatuation with "paratroopers" who are indeed generally elite due to their selectiveness and training,. but have always done the vast majority of their fighting arriving on the ground.
For the most part mass airborne assaults weren't all that effective in WWII and took astounding casualties. You just end up too scattered and too outgunned. It only works against very weak or no opposition (for example, the Ranger drop at the beginning of OEF). There was one drop in Iraq against almost no opposition in northern Iraq just so a brigade could get its jump badges.
My first jump after rotating out of Viet Nam back to the 82nd Airborne was out of a C-141 Starlifter.
Needless to say, with the last jump I made out a helicopter, and that was a year previously, I was a little bit concern when I discovered we would be jumping out of a jet plane.
My only instructions were “Don’t jump, just walk out the door”. The reason if you got out past the wind shield you would have a new experience (above and beyond jumping out of a jet.) Fortunately that was my one and only time. From then until I was discharged all my qualifying jumps were from a helicopter.
(It has been close to 50 years so my memory may be a little hazy)
Time sure flies doesn’t it? Hard to believe the “Troubles” in VN was that long ago. “AIRBORNE!” Thanks for your service. It’s appreciated a lot more now than it was in the late 60’s/early 70’s. We were often told to dress in civies when leaving the ship or base.
I’ve seen one! Don’t remember the computer game I was playing, though.
Why can’t anyone do a decent youtube video without setting it to crappy music?!?!
The C-141 was the Cadillac of jumps, it was effort free because it sucks you out so leaning forward was pretty much it.
LOL, always so predictable.
You probably trained while they were still using C/119’s, they were alot of fun. I liked the C/130’s and Chinooks But a Huey drop was cool too.
No “Phony Sequester” to interfere with their training and no gaying to disrupt their units cohesion.
I simply stated the truth, in that it is only really effective against small nations, like Mali or Panama. I believe I have even read where the US Army is considering shrinking the 82nd Airborne into just one Brigade as traditional airborne and the rest into Air mobile, like the 101st. Now, whether or not that really happens, remains to be seen. The 82nd has a long tradition in the Army, and the Army, like the other armed forces hates to change tradition.
As for Russia's capabilities....they have a long history of hiding their weakness and over blowing their strengths. That said, I don't doubt that their fighters would be very formidable in a fight. What this video doesn't really take into account is the large radar signature of those planes and the accuracy of artillery and missiles. Small countries have limited radar and missile defenses. Large countries like the US, China and Russia could shoot down those planes before and during a drop let alone obliterate the landing zone with artillery strikes.
You did it again, from describing the Airborne as being 20,000 men to just parachute into the borders of little countries to create havoc, to now ignoring their use in Iraq. We have never dropped 20,000 men and couldn't do that today.
Your original point seemed to be to want to end American Airborne capability because the option has been removed in the modern world, a Brigade is better than nothing, but I don't see the reason to eliminate our only Airborne Division, especially since it is so multi-purpose anyway.
I made my first jump from a C-141 into Panama, in February, 1977. It was great, those ships are almost like commercial airliners. Also, we were old that the Finns painted exposed rocks White so the Russkies would drop their guys there. It sounded pretty much like BS to me.
I said 20,000 because the only Airborne Division the US Army has now is the 82nd, which has about 20,000 soldiers in it. Granted, there are a few other units with Airborne Regiments attacted to it (the 25th for one) but essentially America has only about 20,000 Airborne soldiers.
Of course operations can use less soldiers, but that just fits in with my point that it is really only effective against small countries. I would like for you to give me the use of airborne drops of soldiers in Iraq or Afghanistan. As far as I know, only Special Forces did any, but if there was some done by other groups, it was small.
As for elliminating...I didn’t say that. The 82nd could become like the 101st, Air Assault.
Thank you
Yes, it was a very long time ago
I am proud that I earned my jump wings at 17, and my CIB at 18 but I don’t think I would like to do what it took to earn those honors ever again.
I never got over being afraid of making jumps, but I forced myself to do it. I was a happy camper when my enlistment was up. ;)
LOL, we have never had an Airborne operation of 20,000 in all of our history, so thanks for the permission to use fewer than that.
Your fallback position of keeping a Brigade, after you first indicated that Airborne was not credible today, would bring us down the level of other nations with only an Airborne Brigade, countries like Malaysia, Pakistan, Turkey, Britain, France, Italy, Germany, India.
Russia and China maintain a Division each.
I have always been an interviewer of people, always trying to pick up a feel of them as a group, and in my years of talking to paratroopers I came to the personal idea that about half of them are afraid of heights.
Don’t know about the others, but true in my case.
You seem to have a bee in your agenda bonnet but it sure isn't convincing.
I think we'll keep the 82nd for a while.
By 1968 I was out of the Army.
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