Quote Originally Posted by Fenring View Post
Paratroops were considered cost-ineffective? I recall reading once that Hitler discontinued the use of paratroops after a particulary bad experience with them due to misuse (in Malta, I think) but that some speculate that they could have been of great use on the eastern front, especially in the early months.

Crete is where the Fallschirmjager were grounded. Some of Germany's finest troops were cut down by relatively weak defenders because in many cases they could not reach their weapons, which were dropped separately. Even though they eventually prevailed - which is a story in itself - Hitler was appalled.

Conversely, it took the Allies a bit longer to realize the diminishing effectiveness paratroopers had on the battlefield as the war became increasingly mobile. D-Day did not go well at all. Troops were scattered all over the place and their tactical effectiveness was limited. However, being the Allies elite troops and having fought extremely well vindicated their use to Allied leadership.

It took Monty's masterwork, Market Garden, to truly put an end to Allied paratroop operations. It demonstrated how incredibly vulnerable paratroops were to a mobile response. The early German successes with paratroops were won in a time when war was a much slower affair against nations that did not have mobile reserves. If forced, the Fallschirmjager could hold out for a relatively long time against an enemy with very few armoured resources.

That unmitigated disaster put an end to Allied plans to jump behind the Siegfried line and into Germany. Even today, although the US and other nations maintain paratroops, it is widely acknowledged that - aside from Special Forces ops - their tactical effectiveness is highly limited and that large scale jumps all but off the table.

Jump school is more of a way to filter out all but the most highly motivated soldiers to create elite divisions. Witness the use of the 101st and 82nd Airborne in the toughest areas of Afghanistan. This was true in the latter part of WW2 as well, with both German and Allied paratroops going on to become some of the best light infantry available to their commanders.