2013/01/16

A British Parachuting Capability?

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Referring to
The Journal of Military Operations
Col (Ret) David Benest  

He does refute some arguments against airborne troops, but he did not address the elephant in the room: Western air drop operations are no true combined arms efforts unless you count infantry + air support as such. (Their indirect fire capability is little more than a fig leaf.)

Combined arms can be defined differently. I consider a mix of infantry (including anti-tank defences), Armour, dependable support fires (arty or mortars) and combat engineers as combined arms, and strongly suspect electronic warfare should be added.

Well, what do Western paratroops forces have after an air drop?
(1) Infantry (with anti-tank defences depending on the shaped charge principle)
(2) Few mortars and/or howitzers (with precarious ammunition supply)
(3) Minimal combat engineer capabilities
(4) Minimal electronic warfare capabilities
(5) No armour (Wiesel is a weapons carrier and should NOT count as "armour".)

Western-style airborne troops may be overwhelming against some Third World thugs, but they're underwhelming against a capable opponent unless attached to better-equipped ground forces and employed as mere infantry reinforcements.

This inability is self-inflicted. We could equip Western airborne troops with armoured vehicles (mobility, protection, payload), better EW capabilities,  better indirect fire capabilities.

Russian airborne troops in a staged (stupid) combined arms attack attack
We don't.
Russian-style airborne AFVs are repelling to Western decisionmakers because they're merely protected against light HE munitions and 7.62 mm threats. Most of what would need to be given to airborne troops to make them more capable would be badly degraded by weight restraints. This includes indirect fire weapons, whose appetite for vast volumes and tonnages of ammunition is a supreme challenge for any logistically restrained force.

Furthermore, some countries (such as Germany) have redefined airborne troops into budget forces (a cheap 12th German army division during the Cold War) or into regular infantry (Germany has very little infantry forces other than mechanised infantry, airborne and mountain troops now).

Western airborne effectively is some kind of relatively cheap infantry force or a kind of motorised rifle division when deployed with surface transports. It is unlikely to come under unusual budgetary threat as long as it plays this role. 
The real question about Western airborne troops should thus not be whether we want them or not, but whether we want enable them into an airborne combined arms force that would actually pose an effective airborne threat to opponents better than Third World punching balls.

I guess this question depends a lot on whether we believe in being capable (and having big enough balls) to send a sizeable force on an airborne mission against capable opponents. Capable opponents might have some say regarding how much of said force arrives at all.



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6 comments:

  1. Another objection raises itself:
    - If resupply is to be onto the gun line directly, how long does he intend to keep these weapons active? Firing and moving will be a absolutely mandatory task and not all gun positions will be amicable to resupply in this fashion. They will need to be resupplied in this fashion, because the units on the ground will not have sufficient motor capacity to move ammunition under their own power, unless we motorise or mechanize the airborne forces.

    An interesting question the author put forward: Why have gliders become extinct? They are not significantly more vulnerable than the transport aircraft, and are certainly not more vulnerable than the parachutists themselves once they jump. Drone technology allows for the potential of unmanned large cargo delivery in this fashion. If the air situation permits the deployment of parachutists at all, it would presumably also permit the deployment of gliders.

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    1. "Why have gliders become extinct?"

      They already had their comeback in HAHO and steered cargo chutes.

      One example
      http://www.cassidian.com/en_US/web/guest/cassidian-s-ram-air-cargo-parachute-system-paralander-receives-operational-certification

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    2. Most excellent, I had not heard of this.

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  2. You don't seem to take into account that airborne troops in inter-state warfare are also important as ultra-quick theatre reserves, to be dropped into friendly terrain to save the day during a local crisis.

    Huge drops are much more likely with this scenario than in a scenario including a drop into hostile terrain.
    SAMs - even area SAMs - are thus likely a lesser concern than CAPs.

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  3. If S-300 or S-400 series weapons are pushed up, they can reach considerably into our tactical/operational depth and shit on mass air drops. They would then be vulnerable to artillery fires, but it is a risk nonetheless.

    I had not taken into account the role ABN units can play as "card in the sleeve" theater reserves, no. Since such a role is defensive, they need more organic antiaircraft and antitank firepower - that said, they need that anyways.

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  4. RE: Gliders - this might be of interest. http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/cc/torrisi.html

    Regards,

    Swimming Trunks

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