Airborne Combat Engineer

Are airborne operations obsolete?

Despite continuing to train for massed parachute jumps deep behind enemy lines, these days the 82nd Airborne usually moves into combat in helicopters or trucks. Analyst Barry Watts from the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment calls the parachute mission "a leftover consequence of the glories of the 82nd and 101st [airborne divisions] in 1944," the year paratroopers dropped en masse into Nazi-occupied France.

David Axe, Defense Tech

Sorry, Mr. Watts, but the 82nd doesn't do all that expensive training just for historical purposes.

There are still potential situations under which an airdrop is the best, and fastest, solution.

As far as ACE knows, the 82nd is still the only Division which commits to having a brigade-sized force in the air, on its way to anywhere in the world, on 18 hours notice.

82nd Airborne's on call status compromised?

For decades, the Army has kept a brigade of the 82nd Airborne Division on round-the-clock alert, poised to respond to a crisis anywhere in 18 to 72 hours.

Today, the so-called ready brigade is no longer so ready. Its soldiers are not fully trained, much of its equipment is elsewhere, and for the past two weeks the unit has been far from the cargo aircraft it would need in an emergency.

Instead of waiting on standby, the First Brigade of the 82nd Airborne is deep in the swampy backwoods of this vast Army training installation, preparing to go to Iraq. Army officials concede that the unit is not capable of getting at least an initial force of several hundred to a war zone within 18 hours, a standard once considered inviolate.

[DSC, NY Times]

Surely the 82nd Commander would dispute this [since he'd be derelict of duty if it were true -- 18 hour response is in the unit's mission statement], but it leads one to wonder.

If it's true, it wouldn't be the first time (see continuation.)

It is ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL that the US have a force which can drop in on troublemakers anywhere in the world on 18 hours notice. While this capability hasn't been used lately, we never know when it will be the ONLY way to deal with a developing situation in a timely manner.

82nd relieves 10th Mountain Div. in the 'Stan

An 82nd Airborne Division brigade last week took responsibility for five provinces in Afghanistan from the 10th Mountain Division.

The 4th Brigade Combat Team, known as Task Force Fury, on Feb. 21 replaced a brigade of the division from Fort Drum, N.Y.

The 10th Mountain Division’s Task Force Spartan turned over responsibility for Paktika, Paktya, Logar, Ghazni and Khost provinces.

The Fort Drum soldiers, who are staying four months longer than planned, will keep responsibility for the northeastern provinces of Regional Command-East. They will continue to administer Nangarhar, Kunar, Laghman and Nuristan provinces from their headquarters in Jalalabad.

Col. Martin Schweitzer is commander of the 82nd’s Task Force Fury. He said the 82nd’s primary goal is to help strengthen the Afghan forces and Afghan government, according to a military news release.

The paratroopers will involve Afghan security agencies in their daily operations.

Maj. Gen. David M. Rodriguez , commander of the 82nd Airborne Division, is in charge of U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

[Fayetteville Observer]

Enemy respect for the Airborne

"...these guys are special, they aren't Marines, These are crack troops, you cant get close to them, they are everywhere, why is it different here?...they really have us by the balls...they are merciless…can you get us out of here?"

[Blackfive]

ACE has the utmost respect for the Marines, but knows the Airborne is equally as fierce.

BRAC underfunded

The Republican-controlled 109th Congress in 2005 passed a sweeping, multibillion-dollar program of base closures and realignments. That Congress left town in December without passing the 2007 spending bill to pay for military construction. The Democratic-controlled 110th Congress passed a spending bill that falls $3.1 billion short of the Defense Department’s stated requirements for BRAC in 2007.

Under the wide-ranging 2005 BRAC mandate, Fort Bragg would gain two large headquarters and take over Pope Air Force Base, the 7th Special Forces Group would move to Florida and the 23rd Fighter Group would move to Georgia.

Those long-term projects include a $248 million headquarters complex to house the two high-level commands that are supposed to be relocated to Fort Bragg from Atlanta within four years. Plans call for the project to be funded in two phases, in 2009 and 2010. Forces Command and U.S. Army Reserve Command are supposed to move out of Fort McPherson in Atlanta by Sept. 15, 2011.

[HC, Fayetteville Observer]

Advanced tactical parachutes demonstrated

Airborne Systems Group demonstrated new parachute delivery systems during the company's "Airborne Days" demonstration event.

Among the highlights were the Advanced Tactical Parachute System (ATPS) slated to replace the US Army's aging T-10 series non-steerable troop parachutes in use since the 1950's.

ATPS is designed for improved safety, by reducing the rate of descent by 25 percent from 22 feet per second with the T-10 to an average rate of descent of 18 feet per second for a 385lbs Total Jumper Weight.

Airborne is offering a new family of GPS guided autonomous parachute delivery systems known as Joint Precision Aerial Delivery System (JPADS).

[Defense Update]

                  

WWII vet speaks of Airborne flights

Before he was 25 years old, Mac Byrd had airdropped paratroopers into combat in Holland, helped supply Patton’s fast-moving army and airlifted concentration-camp survivors during World War II.

The 83-year-old Harnett County native piloted C-47 and C-46 cargo airplanes during the war. On his left shoulder, he wore an Airborne Troop Carrier patch.

So when he visits the Airborne & Special Operations Museum in Fayetteville, Byrd looks at combat parachute jumps from an aviator’s perspective.

[Henry Cunningham, Fayetteville Observer, 04 JAN 2007]

Ho, Ho, Ho from above!

Merry Christmas to you and yours from all of us [SIC] here at A-C-E. Enjoy, appreciate, and be safe.

More images of Christmas in the field in different eras from the Center of Military History.

Times coverage of 1950 "Operation Swarmer"

Time Magazine, 1 MAY 1050

This week, 32,000 U.S. troops will begin dropping in parachutes or landing in troop-carrier planes on the green hills around Fort Bragg and Camp Mackall, N.C. Jet fighters will whisk overhead, giving them air cover. Cargo planes will fly in with all their supplies, for "Operation Swarmer" is designed to prove that a combat area, e.g., an island base for strategic bombers, can be taken and held by airborne troops entirely supplied by air.

Operation Swarmer will also demonstrate something more important: the nation's unpreparedness. The simulated attack on a peaceful section of North Carolina will involve just about all the Sunday punch the U.S. can mobilize in the first critical hours after a cold war becomes hot.

Time Magazine, 1 MAY 1950

The observation that homeland security was inadequate was probably valid.

But, as an 20 MAR 2006 A-C-E post notes, many improvements were made based on what was learned.

British Airborne in Iraq

YouTube video collage of British 3rd Airborne in Iraq. [found at Strategy Page]

No drop shots, but worth watching non-the-less.