Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!cbnews!military From: jpulliam@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (Jacqueline Pulliam) Newsgroups: sci.military Subject: Re: Airborne Operations Message-ID: <1990Jul9.023828.9827@cbnews.att.com> Date: 9 Jul 90 02:38:28 GMT References: <1990Jul5.020552.14422@cbnews.att.com> <1990Jul6.032827.27916@cbnews.att.com> <1990Jul8.053535.8271@cbnews.att.com> Sender: military@cbnews.att.com (William B. Thacker) Organization: Indiana University, Bloomington IN. Lines: 82 Approved: military@att.att.com From: jpulliam@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (Jacqueline Pulliam) >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: >> >> 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. Counting casualties that way can be misleading, too (although I agree that 1% casualties is only a training figure, not to be expected in a combat jump). In fact, there is no good way of comparing insertion methods, because everything "depends on the situation". If the insertion route (airborne or air assault) happens to be over a newly-placed ADA unit, or a unit with a large number of Grails, you may not get any aircraft _to_ the DZ/LZ. Then there's the question of a hot DZ/LZ, where anything can happen (and much depends on the guts and tenacity of the troops dropping in). You simply can't put figures on it. As General Stiner implied (said?) after Just Cause, you can't ask for many fewer casualties than we experienced then. But even that operation is not a good standard of comparison, because the drop was compromised (or so it appears). >> 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. > >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. > First, "ability to go places parachutes can't" with air assault troops is a false advantage. Airborne troops can be dropped practically anywhere. Casualties may be very high dropping onto very mountainous terrain or in heavy winds, but it can still be done. Anywhere a helicopter can get, a fixed-wing plane can get (okay, not _anywhere_, but let's don't get ridiculous :-); and anywhere a fixed-wing a/c can get, troops can be dropped. Into water? Sure! Trees? Ouch, but yes. Second, the disadvantage Woody gives isn't necessarily true, either. Unless the drop is HALO or HAHO (high altitude drop, high or low altitude opening of the chutes), which only a small number of U.S. paratroopers are qualified to do, the bird is going to make just as much noise as the helicopter. Both C-130's/C-141's and helicopters are able to stay below the radar screen on the ride in, but both make lots of noise doing it. By the way, Woody, C-130's don't fly NOE; they fly "terrain flight". Helicopters fly NOE. Not a big difference for this conversation, but one which many chopper pilots would be adamant about pointing out. The biggest disadvantage of helicopters is their limited range. You can not drive a chopper from North Carolina to Panama, drop off troops, and turn around to refuel in a friendly nation. Simply don't have the range (I know, in flight refueling exists for some rotary wings; but now you're talking about a special ops mission, not the mass insertion of troops). The other major disadvantage is mentioned above: helicopters can not be efficiently used to insert large numbers (whole brigades or multiple task forces) of troops. The bottom line is that airborne units offer strategic flexibility; air assault troops and helicopters offer tactical flexibility. The two can not easily be mixed or matched.