Airborne operations

[Kagemusha]

I think that paratroopers are live and kicking.The thing is that they arent novadays deployed in large numbers.If you look at the last conflict at Afghanistan.You can see that there were little team sized units deployd all ower the operational area.These guys would drop from the sky,find key locations and pinpoint vital targets for airstrikes and cruisemissiles with devastating effects.Coalition used same tactics in second gulf war.The teams are so small that when their location is compromised.They retreat or scatter.The word paratrooper itself is misleading if we look at it from historical point of wiew.In WWII paratroopers were the only infatry that could use parashoots.Today its just a one special skill to infantry man than anyother.

[Brenus]

To be a paratrooper is to belong to an elite troop. You shared the same experience; you have to jump in the air. I did it, and it is still the most frightening experience I remember, more than 20 years after. The second jump especially, I don’t know why…

But, yes, the conventional paratrooper doesn’t exist any more, even if each army still pay a fortune to graduate soldiers in this kind of activities. It is a filter to select trooper. The same with other training, but none is so visceral than this test.

Helicopters gave the flexibility required. The last big airborne operation is Suez, for what I remember, when French, British and Israelis combined their effort to bring down Nasser, effort which was spoiled by the US and USSR, for time on the same tune.
In fact, no, in 1974, I think, the French 2 REP (Regiment Etranger Parachutiste, Foreign Legion) jumped on Kolwesi to stop a massacre from the so-called Gendarmes Katangais (reference to Maurice Tschombe, opponent to Mobutu and Patrice Lubumba when these two took power) in Zaire, nowadays Democratic Republic of Congo.
They succeeded because the rebel forces weren’t really disciplined and trained.

The problem with paratroopers is they have to carry ammunition, food, and every thing on their back, and that heavy, plus they have to fight. If reinforcement or material can’t arrive (Arhnem, Dien Bien Phu), they are lost. By definition, their equipment is light (even if USSR tried to parachute light tank SU) it can’t match an armoured division. If I remember well, an anti-tank missile has 3600m range, a 20mm canon 2000 with fragmentation ammunition. And a 120 or 200 mm even more. And to use a LAW, RPG or other anti-tank weapons demand a lot.
When a unit is dropped, on the right site (navigation is a problem), depending of the wind, the unit can be spread on a large surface. In war time, the enemy don’t wait you touch the ground. Geneva Conventions are clear. You don’t shoot a parachute when the crew is evacuating a plane in difficulty (going down). So confusion and chaos are the reality. That is why the Germans Paratroopers had difficulties in Crete.

The parachute is now use for deep infiltration behind the lines, for recon. Teem of three, most the time, chose the post, dig, hide, observe, and report (satellite).

However, to wear the Wings is still a privilege you pay with a hard training and your fear.