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From: jpulliam@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (Jacqueline Pulliam)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: Airborne operations
Message-ID: <1990Jul5.020524.14311@cbnews.att.com>
Date: 5 Jul 90 02:05:24 GMT
References: <1990Jul3.031911.6890@cbnews.att.com>
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From: jpulliam@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (Jacqueline Pulliam)
>From: hpb@hpb.cis.pitt.edu (Harry Bloomberg)
>
>   This particular episode described the invasion of Germany and the
>crossing of the Rhine River.  The footage that really caught my
>attention depicted the dropping of paratroopers, both by towed glider
>and directly out of aircraft.
>
>   Some questions:
>
>   1) What are the trade-offs one must concider when deciding how to
>deliver paratroopers to the target area?  When do you want
>to use gliders and when do you want your paratroopers to jump directly
>out of aircraft?

Gliders are no longer used in the U.S. Army (or any other army to my
knowledge), and one would have to be an historian to know the specific
set of considerations used by WWII planners when deciding whether to
use gliders versus paratroopers.  I'm no historian, but I can shed a
little light on the topic, based on _Paratrooper_, by Gerard M. Devlin
(New York:  St Martin's, 1979).  MG William Lee (the "father of
American airborne troops", the guy who first bought off on the concept
of gliders) was attracted to gliders because of their ability to carry
heavier loads (arty guns, jeeps, etc) and reinforcement troops and
supplies while being cheap enough to be expended as one-shot delivery 
systems (unlike motorized aircraft).  They were designed for landings 
on unimproved clearings (many even landed successfully in swamps 
during the Normandy invasion!), places no pilot in his right mind
would try to land a plane (at least, not if he wanted to get it off 
the ground again).  Paratroopers are used for forced entry operations,
or "vertical envelopments."  Gliders, even less safe than parachutes 
in this role, were relegated to the resupply and reinforcement tasks 
just mentioned.  Doesn't answer your question, but I hope it helps.

>   2) Does the US still use gliders?  If we no longer use them, when did
>we abondon them?  In my years in the defense industry, and as an avid
>reader of Aviation Week, I can't remember hearing about paratrooper
>gliders, so I suspect they're no longer in service. 

I don't know when we abandoned them, but by the end of WWII, we had
built 13,000 of the buggers!  It's possible some were kept until and
used during Korea.  They were definitely out of active army service by
Vietnam.  

>   3) Are gliders currently used by anyone else?

Don't know.  Not to my knowledge.

>   4) How many men could be carried by a glider, how large were they,
>what was the range, how well did they work, etc? 

The gliders used in WWII were just a bit smaller than the C-47s (and
later, C-46s) that towed them:  the motorless Waco CG-4A glider had a
wingspanw3 of 84 feet and an overall length of 49 feet.  Load capacity
was 3,750 pounds, meaning it could carry two pilots and 13
combat-equipped soldiers.  The glider had a hinged nose (opened like a
C-5As nose does) to allow loading of small vehicles, arty pieces and
other oversized equipment.  According to Devlin, a typical mixed load
was six men and a jeep.  I couldn't find a glide ratio for the CG-4A,
but it must have been pretty poor, given its dimensions, shape and
load.  Effectively, its range was the range of the C-47/C-46 towing it
plus 10-30 miles (depending on altitude at release, air conditions and
unknown glide ratio).  It (and the glider regiment troops that used
it) were apparantly very effective at the job they were assigned
during WWII.

Sorry I can't be more definitive on some of the questions.  Hope this
helps!  

John Pulliam