Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!att!cbnews!military From: eos!woody@eos.arc.nasa.gov (Wayne Wood) Newsgroups: sci.military Subject: Re: Airborne Operations Message-ID: <1990Jul8.053535.8271@cbnews.att.com> Date: 8 Jul 90 05:35:35 GMT References: <1990Jul5.020552.14422@cbnews.att.com> <1990Jul6.032827.27916@cbnews.att.com> Sender: military@cbnews.att.com (William B. Thacker) Organization: NASA Ames Research Center, Calif. Lines: 47 Approved: military@att.att.com From: eos!woody@eos.arc.nasa.gov (Wayne Wood) In article <1990Jul6.032827.27916@cbnews.att.com> bateskm@clutx.clarkson.edu (Gargoyle,207VanNote,2652180,2683942) writes: > m would become _very_ difficult. I feel more secure in the air than on > the ground. hear, hear! but on the ground we can always find nice holes to crawl into! > much lower than openly thought. Yeah, there are casualties and equip- > ment malfunctions, but the current safety rate is something over 99%. > That one percent of casualties is almost entirely broken bones from poor > landings (feet apart, knee landings, missed points of contact). this is only true of *training* operations. read "A Bridge Too Far" and see waht happened to the Brits at Arnhem. The 173rd also made a drop in VietNam. see if you can find anything on that operation. dropping out of a perfectly good aircraft that's going to land anyway is *statistically* safer than driving a car. but, there's lies, damn lies, and statistics. in combat operations i used to hear a figure of merit of about 70% casualties. Remember, you have to count casualties from the time of insertion until the troopers are relieved. *THAT* is an airborne operation, not just the delivery. > Helicopter assault operations are taught by the Air Assault school. > There are advantages (direct placement of troops, speedier insertions, > and ability to go places where parachutes couldn't) but the mass inser- > tion of thousands of troops is not possible, either. We rappel (abseil > in the rest of the world) out from treetop level and continue with our > air assault mission. Air assault is not paratroop operations. > Gargoyle Airborne Air Assault trooper > US Army and disadvantages, everybody and his dog from the base camp to the insertion point know you're there. in HALO you can't see or hear the bird. on a hop-n-pop the aircraft is going NOE and *shouldn't* been seen on radar until the drop. the longer time on station or in transit allows the aircraft to use deceptive approaches to mislead observers. do you still wear *baby-blue berets* ? /*** woody **************************************************************** *** ...tongue tied and twisted, just an earth bound misfit, I... *** *** -- David Gilmour, Pink Floyd *** ****** woody@eos.arc.nasa.gov *** my opinions, like my mind, are my own ******/