jhungary
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Couple of nights ago, I have read some comment over on the Far East section when some member claiming the use of Air Drop can be operational enough to capture an entire City (Well, what he said is actually, country, but well, i tone it down a bit)
Indeed, back in WW2, both Allied and Axis power uses Airborne Troop to perform Theatre-wise campaign which involve multi divisional level drop and engage and secure a forward objective using such force, but there are hardly any divisional drop after WW2, both jump within the US military made in Vietnam and Korean war belong to brigade/regimental sized jump which the Korean War Jump involved the 187 RCT (Airborne) and the Vietnam War Jump involved the 173 Brigade (Airborne) and the last Brigade jump on paper was during OIF in 2003 when a Battalion of 173 Brigade (Airborne) jump to secure an airfield NE Iraq but the last actual Brigade Size Jump happened during operation Just Cause, in 1989.
This article would try to investigate the Change in Airborne Warfare and how it affect the Tactical, Operational and Strategically need for warfighting, as well as Doctrine and Equipment changes due to the changes in the Nature of the Warfare.
History
The Concept of Airborne was born during the beginning of WW2, it was not, the American, which is publicly spearhead the Airborne Operation, but the first operation airborne force, albeit not of the same concept with the WW2 operation, were credited to Peruvian Air Force ceremonial team which basically act as an aerial display like the modern day Blue Angel.
The vision, tho, is another story, the vision of Sky Soldier have been a serious fantasy in Benjamin Franklin during the late 1700s, where he would imagine soldier coming from the sky would not be opposable for any combat operation. The concept is the same, but it would take nearly 200 years from that point did a first organisational Airborne unit fight in a battlefield. Then the first airborne unit was formed in Italy, during 1927, but without combat support.
The first nation that field a combat arms of Airborne troop is the German, back in 1936, followed by South American nations and also European Nation, US, a late comer, only started late 1940 or early 1941 (Depending on your POV) and the first establishment is the 82nd Airborne Division. Which would later on become the Only Airborne Division still serving Today, after the departure of the famed 101st Airborne Division by taking the Air Assault Route.
The first airborne battle is done in the summer of 1940 when Germany drop airborne troop in Denmark to seize a minor objective. The German army uses the airborne force as a tactical tool to capture forward Airfield during campaign in Netherland and France and finally, come the big Battle with US/UK launching Airborne force on Op Neptune, part of Operation Overlord
Since then, we see market garden, the last multi-divisional jump ever in combat, and the jump in Berlin, the last Divisional jump ever in combat.
During Korean war, Airborne Division were once again active during the war, but the technological advance relegate the action the Airborne see, the single largest action is the 187 ARCT dropping in FA and Ranger as well as Readiness brigade in Korea. Then almost all other jump were SF originated.
During Vietnam war, we saw the incoming Helicopter as a tool to replace traditional airborne role, where the fast access to battlefield means the need for a large scale airborne attack are no longer needed and during the Vietnam war, we only ever saw one non SF jump, that is for the 173rd Brigade inserting in Katum.
After Vietnam war, the world see a return in large Scale Airdrop, but not due to the necessity of combat, but simply because of the growth of Special Force Capability. With the Ranger established itself as a Regiment (75th Ranger Regiment) that basically grouped all 6 separated Battalion into one. The need for Tactical Drop in regimental level have saw the need once again. That directly and indirectly led to a Joint operation of Brigade scale with Ranger and 82nd Airborne during Just Clause. And subsequently a battalion level jump during OIF in 2003.
Table of Organisation and Equipment for Airborne Division.
in the current TO&E, the following Unit were airborne capable (otherwise known as Airborne Tabbed)
The famed 101st Airborne Division although retained the word Airborne in their division name, and the use of Airborne Tab, they are however, an Air Assault unit, and they are not wearing the Red Beret that goes with the Airborne Personnel. They wore the traditional Black Beret.
Modern Airborne division and or its subordinate unit are classified as Light Infantry. That means the building block - The Brigade Combat Team will be build upon 3 or 4 Infantry Battalion, 1 Cavalry Battalion and 1 Combat Engineer Battalion and 1 Special Troop, without any Standalone Armoured Support. Compare to a normal infantry Division that usually comes with 1 or 2 Armoured Battalion within each BCT.
Being Light Infantry, that means their primary way of support is aerial (Either by helicopter or airdrop) when deployed and their resupply interval is shorter, that mean logistically, the airborne unit would have to be supply more often than other unit operating in the same area.
Objective
Since coming from WW2, the objective have shifted a great deal since the inception of Airborne Unit. The original Objective for the Airborne unit was to deploy deep inside enemy line in support of a general assault, either a ground base (Ala Market Garden) or seaborne assault (ala D-Day), the role of Airborne Troop were to seize the Enemy retreat/supply line so the Area of general assault would be isolated.
The nature of light infantry, have limited the role of Airborne Troop, the nature of the troop mean that an Airborne force would not be destined to perform stand alone operation and have to drop where they can be supported, if the support is cut, goes with the operational capability.
Since migrate from WW2, the role of the airborne force have gone even smaller, since the technology advancement, the general ground warfare have been more focus on a single armoured strike, which would have the same effect of an Airborne Assault, but they can be operate without solid support. With the entering of Helicopter, the role of the Airborne force have shrink to even smaller, today, an Airborne Operation would almost always related to Special Operation, where a small force could be drop deep into enemy territories unnoticed and perform their open mission.
Limitation
Although the size of a Modern Airborne force is counted in Division, the operational capability appeared to be smaller. The reason behind this is because the way Airborne Operation conducted
1.) Secure Air Corridor
Being Airborne, they were drop from the sky, and obviously the force would have been in it weakest when they were in the sky, when an enemy shot down a transport, there goes the whole platoon. So there goes the reason they have to be secure during transit.
Now, it's quite easy if you are in a single ship and drop a team of Special Force, you can get in and out of an enemy territories unnoticed with a single transport plane, but it will not be the same if we are talking about a Brigade size drop, where you have about 100 of Transport, well, it kinda hard to miss a formation of 100 transport plane flying over your own territories...
So, in order to conduct a large (Well, larger, to be exact) scale Airborne Operation, you can allow your enemy to detect your force, but you have to saturate the local air defence and gain air superiority in and out of the area, so there will not be an enemy ground or air asset to challenge the drop.
The reason we can see a massive drop involving hundred, if not thousand of plane is that back then, the AA system is much of a dinosaur. The Radar system is still infancy or can the German Air Force can put up any sort of meaningful defence, still both Operation Neptune and Overlord have suffered serious casualty. Imagine what happened then and what could happen now?
2.) Aircraft Capacity
The load factor of each aircraft is also in itself, present a limitation that challenge the Airborne warfare. There are limited space for a single aircraft, and for that to work, you have to put a relatively small force in each aircraft.
Then you are hit by a conundrum, would you put more aircraft in so you can achieve more? Or you want to play it safe and put a smaller force, so it would be easier to protect, but can achieve not much?
Another problem associated with the size an aircraft can carry is supply, when you drop soldier from the sky, unless you are expecting them to fight back to your mainline, you would have to supply them somewhere, being drop from the air, then supply would have been also dropped by air. And a force can only work when supply kept on coming
3.) Weather Condition
Drop from the air, that mean they have to be depend on the weather condition. A slight Breeze would blew the Troop out of their Drop Zone, rain or thunderstorm would postpone the drop altogether and you can't jump off in foggy condition
And the one thing not anyone can do anything with. And this factor alone have been seriously impede the Airborne Operation.
Advantages
Speed
Nominally, the single biggest advantage for using Light Infantry is speed, they can be drop anywhere using a fix-wing aircraft (Chopper are slower) and the troop themselves can engage the enemy with speed. As they don't carry much into battle
With technological improvement, light tanks or scout vehicle are also available for airdrop, tho again in smaller number, they can be quite useful for the short operation window support for the Airborne Troop
Surprise
With speed, that come surprise, that is the direct result. Speedy deployment mean the enemy have less time to ready for an Airborne Assault. Compare it to other sort of assault, which the enemy can be and able to detect and response to the attack via force build up, it is not so clear for the airborne assault. Where the use of transport planes means literally the whole area can be the target instead of force reliance such as beaches and ports.
Range and Accessibility
Small force in a transport plane, couple with inflight refuelling give airborne a fast response with literally unlimited range. Considered the range of seaborne assault where basically limited from coast to coast, the accessibility cannot be match with the airborne assault.
Tactics
To conclude after weighting the Limitation and Advantage, the best way to use Airborne Troop is to engage in a priority objective, which utilise the surprise element of the airborne to take over a non-suspicious objective, and follow with Resupply mission, and the airborne troop either perform an hit and run tactics to attack and then dissolve back into friendly line, or expand the friendly line to support the airborne force
In an event of an spearhead attack using Airborne Force to secure an priority objective, the battle planner should also factor in condition such as enemy reaction time and resupply for the force. It can only be considerable for an airborne attack if proper amount of the combat service and supporting troop were at hand to perform an extension of the event or to facilitate the evacuate the force if the position did become untenable.
In conclusion, indeed the modern battlefield have not been kindly to the airborne force, this particular warfare are still in effect important in major combat operation. Although the time has gone when we will ever see a large scale airborne attack like in the WW2, the tactics and strategy would still require for combat support for a larger operation, where the need for speed and range would be a considering factor, then goes the airborne force.
Indeed, back in WW2, both Allied and Axis power uses Airborne Troop to perform Theatre-wise campaign which involve multi divisional level drop and engage and secure a forward objective using such force, but there are hardly any divisional drop after WW2, both jump within the US military made in Vietnam and Korean war belong to brigade/regimental sized jump which the Korean War Jump involved the 187 RCT (Airborne) and the Vietnam War Jump involved the 173 Brigade (Airborne) and the last Brigade jump on paper was during OIF in 2003 when a Battalion of 173 Brigade (Airborne) jump to secure an airfield NE Iraq but the last actual Brigade Size Jump happened during operation Just Cause, in 1989.
This article would try to investigate the Change in Airborne Warfare and how it affect the Tactical, Operational and Strategically need for warfighting, as well as Doctrine and Equipment changes due to the changes in the Nature of the Warfare.
History
The Concept of Airborne was born during the beginning of WW2, it was not, the American, which is publicly spearhead the Airborne Operation, but the first operation airborne force, albeit not of the same concept with the WW2 operation, were credited to Peruvian Air Force ceremonial team which basically act as an aerial display like the modern day Blue Angel.
The vision, tho, is another story, the vision of Sky Soldier have been a serious fantasy in Benjamin Franklin during the late 1700s, where he would imagine soldier coming from the sky would not be opposable for any combat operation. The concept is the same, but it would take nearly 200 years from that point did a first organisational Airborne unit fight in a battlefield. Then the first airborne unit was formed in Italy, during 1927, but without combat support.
The first nation that field a combat arms of Airborne troop is the German, back in 1936, followed by South American nations and also European Nation, US, a late comer, only started late 1940 or early 1941 (Depending on your POV) and the first establishment is the 82nd Airborne Division. Which would later on become the Only Airborne Division still serving Today, after the departure of the famed 101st Airborne Division by taking the Air Assault Route.
The first airborne battle is done in the summer of 1940 when Germany drop airborne troop in Denmark to seize a minor objective. The German army uses the airborne force as a tactical tool to capture forward Airfield during campaign in Netherland and France and finally, come the big Battle with US/UK launching Airborne force on Op Neptune, part of Operation Overlord
Since then, we see market garden, the last multi-divisional jump ever in combat, and the jump in Berlin, the last Divisional jump ever in combat.
During Korean war, Airborne Division were once again active during the war, but the technological advance relegate the action the Airborne see, the single largest action is the 187 ARCT dropping in FA and Ranger as well as Readiness brigade in Korea. Then almost all other jump were SF originated.
During Vietnam war, we saw the incoming Helicopter as a tool to replace traditional airborne role, where the fast access to battlefield means the need for a large scale airborne attack are no longer needed and during the Vietnam war, we only ever saw one non SF jump, that is for the 173rd Brigade inserting in Katum.
After Vietnam war, the world see a return in large Scale Airdrop, but not due to the necessity of combat, but simply because of the growth of Special Force Capability. With the Ranger established itself as a Regiment (75th Ranger Regiment) that basically grouped all 6 separated Battalion into one. The need for Tactical Drop in regimental level have saw the need once again. That directly and indirectly led to a Joint operation of Brigade scale with Ranger and 82nd Airborne during Just Clause. And subsequently a battalion level jump during OIF in 2003.
Table of Organisation and Equipment for Airborne Division.
in the current TO&E, the following Unit were airborne capable (otherwise known as Airborne Tabbed)
- 82nd Airborne Division
- 4 BCT, 25th Infantry Division
- 173 Airborne Brigade Combat Team
- 75th Ranger Regiment
- Special Force component.
The famed 101st Airborne Division although retained the word Airborne in their division name, and the use of Airborne Tab, they are however, an Air Assault unit, and they are not wearing the Red Beret that goes with the Airborne Personnel. They wore the traditional Black Beret.
Modern Airborne division and or its subordinate unit are classified as Light Infantry. That means the building block - The Brigade Combat Team will be build upon 3 or 4 Infantry Battalion, 1 Cavalry Battalion and 1 Combat Engineer Battalion and 1 Special Troop, without any Standalone Armoured Support. Compare to a normal infantry Division that usually comes with 1 or 2 Armoured Battalion within each BCT.
Being Light Infantry, that means their primary way of support is aerial (Either by helicopter or airdrop) when deployed and their resupply interval is shorter, that mean logistically, the airborne unit would have to be supply more often than other unit operating in the same area.
Objective
Since coming from WW2, the objective have shifted a great deal since the inception of Airborne Unit. The original Objective for the Airborne unit was to deploy deep inside enemy line in support of a general assault, either a ground base (Ala Market Garden) or seaborne assault (ala D-Day), the role of Airborne Troop were to seize the Enemy retreat/supply line so the Area of general assault would be isolated.
The nature of light infantry, have limited the role of Airborne Troop, the nature of the troop mean that an Airborne force would not be destined to perform stand alone operation and have to drop where they can be supported, if the support is cut, goes with the operational capability.
Since migrate from WW2, the role of the airborne force have gone even smaller, since the technology advancement, the general ground warfare have been more focus on a single armoured strike, which would have the same effect of an Airborne Assault, but they can be operate without solid support. With the entering of Helicopter, the role of the Airborne force have shrink to even smaller, today, an Airborne Operation would almost always related to Special Operation, where a small force could be drop deep into enemy territories unnoticed and perform their open mission.
Limitation
Although the size of a Modern Airborne force is counted in Division, the operational capability appeared to be smaller. The reason behind this is because the way Airborne Operation conducted
1.) Secure Air Corridor
Being Airborne, they were drop from the sky, and obviously the force would have been in it weakest when they were in the sky, when an enemy shot down a transport, there goes the whole platoon. So there goes the reason they have to be secure during transit.
Now, it's quite easy if you are in a single ship and drop a team of Special Force, you can get in and out of an enemy territories unnoticed with a single transport plane, but it will not be the same if we are talking about a Brigade size drop, where you have about 100 of Transport, well, it kinda hard to miss a formation of 100 transport plane flying over your own territories...
So, in order to conduct a large (Well, larger, to be exact) scale Airborne Operation, you can allow your enemy to detect your force, but you have to saturate the local air defence and gain air superiority in and out of the area, so there will not be an enemy ground or air asset to challenge the drop.
The reason we can see a massive drop involving hundred, if not thousand of plane is that back then, the AA system is much of a dinosaur. The Radar system is still infancy or can the German Air Force can put up any sort of meaningful defence, still both Operation Neptune and Overlord have suffered serious casualty. Imagine what happened then and what could happen now?
2.) Aircraft Capacity
The load factor of each aircraft is also in itself, present a limitation that challenge the Airborne warfare. There are limited space for a single aircraft, and for that to work, you have to put a relatively small force in each aircraft.
Then you are hit by a conundrum, would you put more aircraft in so you can achieve more? Or you want to play it safe and put a smaller force, so it would be easier to protect, but can achieve not much?
Another problem associated with the size an aircraft can carry is supply, when you drop soldier from the sky, unless you are expecting them to fight back to your mainline, you would have to supply them somewhere, being drop from the air, then supply would have been also dropped by air. And a force can only work when supply kept on coming
3.) Weather Condition
Drop from the air, that mean they have to be depend on the weather condition. A slight Breeze would blew the Troop out of their Drop Zone, rain or thunderstorm would postpone the drop altogether and you can't jump off in foggy condition
And the one thing not anyone can do anything with. And this factor alone have been seriously impede the Airborne Operation.
Advantages
Speed
Nominally, the single biggest advantage for using Light Infantry is speed, they can be drop anywhere using a fix-wing aircraft (Chopper are slower) and the troop themselves can engage the enemy with speed. As they don't carry much into battle
With technological improvement, light tanks or scout vehicle are also available for airdrop, tho again in smaller number, they can be quite useful for the short operation window support for the Airborne Troop
Surprise
With speed, that come surprise, that is the direct result. Speedy deployment mean the enemy have less time to ready for an Airborne Assault. Compare it to other sort of assault, which the enemy can be and able to detect and response to the attack via force build up, it is not so clear for the airborne assault. Where the use of transport planes means literally the whole area can be the target instead of force reliance such as beaches and ports.
Range and Accessibility
Small force in a transport plane, couple with inflight refuelling give airborne a fast response with literally unlimited range. Considered the range of seaborne assault where basically limited from coast to coast, the accessibility cannot be match with the airborne assault.
Tactics
To conclude after weighting the Limitation and Advantage, the best way to use Airborne Troop is to engage in a priority objective, which utilise the surprise element of the airborne to take over a non-suspicious objective, and follow with Resupply mission, and the airborne troop either perform an hit and run tactics to attack and then dissolve back into friendly line, or expand the friendly line to support the airborne force
In an event of an spearhead attack using Airborne Force to secure an priority objective, the battle planner should also factor in condition such as enemy reaction time and resupply for the force. It can only be considerable for an airborne attack if proper amount of the combat service and supporting troop were at hand to perform an extension of the event or to facilitate the evacuate the force if the position did become untenable.
In conclusion, indeed the modern battlefield have not been kindly to the airborne force, this particular warfare are still in effect important in major combat operation. Although the time has gone when we will ever see a large scale airborne attack like in the WW2, the tactics and strategy would still require for combat support for a larger operation, where the need for speed and range would be a considering factor, then goes the airborne force.
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