Never said it was, all I said was that airbourne operations did occur and the belief it was just a matter of riding the trucks into town wasn't neccesarily accurate
Personally it's why I found it interesting that they did it.
understanding modern airboure operations
- Thread starter old faithful
- Start date
Personally it's why I found it interesting that they did it.
Actually they are two different moments. The initial entry of French troops into Mali under Operation Serval were French paras who drove in on trucks. Which is what I referred to. Much later in the operation when they were seizing the city of Timbuktu inside Mali a company other French paras was flown into country from France and air dropped onto the airfield. Where they meet a battalion or so of French and Malian soldiers who had used armoured cars, trucks, Landcruisers, etc to get there.
Well you wouldn’t be a paratrooper if you didn’t use a parachute. Just like you’re not a fire twirler if you don’t spin a burning stick around in the air. But is it necessary? Can most of the world get along without fire twirlers and paratroopers? Most definitely.
And certainly in the retaking of Timbuktu if the French airlifters had been grounded by weather or a lack of fuel or whatever the city would have been taken just as quickly and effectively without the paratroopers. Perhaps with a bit less media interest, but that is all.
So the limitation currently is the ability to effectively drop something that heavy without smashing it to little pieces?
As far as efficiencies to air travel, I'm not sure there's a market. As is the An-225 spends most of it's time sitting on the ground, because it's too expensive, and there's too little cargo that requires something that large. And this is in a situation where the An-124 (which it's based on) is a huge success.
- Thread Starter Thread Starter
- #44
Still reading misunderstanding of airbourne operations.
Abe, 35 and 36 Sqns used to operate a total of 24 C130,s there were often 12-16 at Richmond sitting on the tar Mack, even if only one was being used.
The para parades for major ercises and operational re hursal jumps ( I did several re hursal jumps for ops, sadly none were needed) were held in àr craft hangers, as were DZ briefs, with detailed recon reports from F111 pave tack footage on a big screen. Measures including deception plans on route to Richmond were employed.
Road Runner, last time I was given a heads up on C17 # 5 from same source, was at least 18 months before it was public, who says it will be 2014?
Guess we will wait and see.
Abe 15 hours to conduct a rally, sounds like piss poor planning with no re hursal.
Maintaining a capability at bn level is easy. Bn would only need to conduct one bn drop per year, companies would only need about 4-5 jumps a year each, we jumpe way more than the Brits or yanks, and many were unnessasary.
The bn could still fit into a beersheeba brigade and maintain the capability, but obiously, not deemed nessasary, so not going to happen. The para bashing here is actually funny to me. Next we will loose some other capability, "not needed"and another adopted, then it will be, ahh don't need it anyway, this is better. Example still defending 5.56 when we have reverted to 7.62 MG at section level, and added a marksman with...7.62. Back to the future.
Again, what prompted me was a quote from a serving "O" here, who said something along the lines of para,s being sitting ducks as they Decend....
Abe, 35 and 36 Sqns used to operate a total of 24 C130,s there were often 12-16 at Richmond sitting on the tar Mack, even if only one was being used.
The para parades for major ercises and operational re hursal jumps ( I did several re hursal jumps for ops, sadly none were needed) were held in àr craft hangers, as were DZ briefs, with detailed recon reports from F111 pave tack footage on a big screen. Measures including deception plans on route to Richmond were employed.
Road Runner, last time I was given a heads up on C17 # 5 from same source, was at least 18 months before it was public, who says it will be 2014?
Guess we will wait and see.
Abe 15 hours to conduct a rally, sounds like piss poor planning with no re hursal.
Maintaining a capability at bn level is easy. Bn would only need to conduct one bn drop per year, companies would only need about 4-5 jumps a year each, we jumpe way more than the Brits or yanks, and many were unnessasary.
The bn could still fit into a beersheeba brigade and maintain the capability, but obiously, not deemed nessasary, so not going to happen. The para bashing here is actually funny to me. Next we will loose some other capability, "not needed"and another adopted, then it will be, ahh don't need it anyway, this is better. Example still defending 5.56 when we have reverted to 7.62 MG at section level, and added a marksman with...7.62. Back to the future.
Again, what prompted me was a quote from a serving "O" here, who said something along the lines of para,s being sitting ducks as they Decend....
the road runner
Active Member
Its just what i read on the link i posted.
Only 9 more C-17 are to be made , unless more orders come in.
Hope we do get a couple more C-17
Yep time will tell
No, maintaining a parachute battalion is not easy, and no fitting one in a Beersheba brigade is not possible. Hence why the capability died. If you put the parachute battalion in one of the brigades, it will only be available for operations one year in three, due to the force generation cycle. Since in the Australian context conventional parachute ops are only really relevant for the insertion phase, they must be kept at high readiness, so a parachute capability that is only available one year in three is no capability at all. To maintain a parachute capability within the brigades you would have to have one parachute battalion in each, which clearly isn't going to happen.
You could make it work if you took it outside the Beerheba brigades, a la 2 RAR, but even then that would only provide a high readiness combat team at a time, at a very high cost to Army. Even 2 RAR, which will be the Army main effort after current ops die away, will only provide a single high readiness combat team at a time (the ARE).
I don't remember seeing any para bashing, just people who live in the real world. Trying to discuss future capabilities based on golden memories of the '90s isn't particularly helpful to anyone. Talking about back to the future isn't particularly helpful either. The move to a 7.62mm LSW and a marksman rifle at section level was the result of a demonstrated deficiency that was highlighted in recent and current operations. Funnily enough, there has been no demonstrated need for a parachute capability in the recent past, nor is it predicted to be needed in the immediate future. Hence why losing the parachute capability to resource other capabilities that do have a demonstrated need is perfectly reasonable.
- Thread Starter Thread Starter
- #47
I understand what you're saying raven.
The demonstrated need for 7.62 is not recent though. It was pointed out within 12 months of the introduction of theF89. 1 mag. 58 was issued per section in 3RAR in the 90,s and discussion of re issue of an SLR with suit sight was put aside because of the lack of night vision at the time.
No demonstrated need.....F111, AWD,RBS70, new cams, upgraded M113,s, yet we do need all of these things in case the fleet faces an anti ship missile or air attack,in case we had to strike a long range target from the air, in case we had to shoot down attack helo,s etc, in case we had to rapidly deploy troops to say PNG, fiji etc. How could you land hercs at say Lae if it was defended. Spe ops in a hurry.
Put a bn group in an LHD and rapidly sail to the north coast of PNG at 12- 15 knots.
When 1 RAR were on Tobruk during the Rambuka coup, were were sitting at Richmond. There were other times as well, but you are just saying no no no, I'm dreaming etc.....there is merit in maintaining the role, we are big enough and wealthy enough to expand our defence force, and IMO, all 3 services need to be expande. Soon we will 3 to 4 times US troops in The NT than Australian troops, that's embarresing
The demonstrated need for 7.62 is not recent though. It was pointed out within 12 months of the introduction of theF89. 1 mag. 58 was issued per section in 3RAR in the 90,s and discussion of re issue of an SLR with suit sight was put aside because of the lack of night vision at the time.
No demonstrated need.....F111, AWD,RBS70, new cams, upgraded M113,s, yet we do need all of these things in case the fleet faces an anti ship missile or air attack,in case we had to strike a long range target from the air, in case we had to shoot down attack helo,s etc, in case we had to rapidly deploy troops to say PNG, fiji etc. How could you land hercs at say Lae if it was defended. Spe ops in a hurry.
Put a bn group in an LHD and rapidly sail to the north coast of PNG at 12- 15 knots.
When 1 RAR were on Tobruk during the Rambuka coup, were were sitting at Richmond. There were other times as well, but you are just saying no no no, I'm dreaming etc.....there is merit in maintaining the role, we are big enough and wealthy enough to expand our defence force, and IMO, all 3 services need to be expande. Soon we will 3 to 4 times US troops in The NT than Australian troops, that's embarresing
If you want to talk about a world that doesn't exist, by all means crack on.
Just don't get upset when people that live in the real world don't share your enthusiasm.
- Thread Starter Thread Starter
- #49
What real world do you mean?
I accept that the para capability is gone, I just don't agree with the decision to scrap it.
The move to all 5.56 was contested at the time of introduction, on the grounds that 5.56 lacked stopping power at range. We were told to suck it up and get used to it, its the way of the future, and contacts at ranges over 300m are extremely rare. A couple of years later, we had 1 F89 and 1 GPMG (per section) to address it.
That's real world.
Demonstrated needs. Because it was never used,equals we don't need it, is a stupid argument.
Its gone, and the Australian army is worse off, flexibilty wise because of it.
That's my opinion, and I don't need you telling me, in a sarcastic way, that I'm a dreamer living in the past, because my opinion differs from yours.
I accept that the para capability is gone, I just don't agree with the decision to scrap it.
The move to all 5.56 was contested at the time of introduction, on the grounds that 5.56 lacked stopping power at range. We were told to suck it up and get used to it, its the way of the future, and contacts at ranges over 300m are extremely rare. A couple of years later, we had 1 F89 and 1 GPMG (per section) to address it.
That's real world.
Demonstrated needs. Because it was never used,equals we don't need it, is a stupid argument.
Its gone, and the Australian army is worse off, flexibilty wise because of it.
That's my opinion, and I don't need you telling me, in a sarcastic way, that I'm a dreamer living in the past, because my opinion differs from yours.
Sorry dude, but I disagree entirely. The para battalion was a drain on the resources of Army like nothing else that exists within it and provided IMHO no genuine useable capability that the re-rolled 3RAR doesn't now.
Flexible? Er, having 1/7th of your entire regular force tied up on a less than useful demonstrated role unable to contribute more than a company to it's own role at any one time at a significant cost to ADF on top of the drain on Army (totally reliant upon scarce RAAF transport assets) doesn't scream flexible to me.
Having an entire extra battalion available for operations as we do now and one able to relieve some of that burden from the other battalions seems the more flexible option to me...
If Army were big enough, if it had enough resources to go around, then perhaps the capability could be included for the unlikely event that it would be needed, but personally given the capability gaps that remain in Army even with the disbandment of the parachute brigade capability, I'd much rather see any of a dozen things done for Army before another Parachute Battalion was raised.
- Thread Starter Thread Starter
- #51
No worries.
Don't get the huge drain....air hours and demand on the C130 fleet was not huge.
Company capability? 3 deployed as a battalian group'more than once.....once a year.
Putting a brigade( 1 3rd of our regular force) into lightly protected LHD,s with about 50% of our rotary assets on board, sounds pretty risky and hardly in line of "defence" of Australia, more like a contribution to a Co elition.
Don't get me wrong, I'm excited about the LHD,s, for errr humanitarian reasons (lol) 2 RAR are going to have some cool trips.
Maybe another regular company could be added to'1 Cdo, that would cover the gap. TAG east being the gap.....wait! Why bother with TAG east? Tag west covered it pretty well up until the olympics, and I guess there is no demonstrated need, no hostage rescues, the states all have their own police, and SAS are able to cover the rest.
Answer, lose TAG east.
Don't get the huge drain....air hours and demand on the C130 fleet was not huge.
Company capability? 3 deployed as a battalian group'more than once.....once a year.
Putting a brigade( 1 3rd of our regular force) into lightly protected LHD,s with about 50% of our rotary assets on board, sounds pretty risky and hardly in line of "defence" of Australia, more like a contribution to a Co elition.
Don't get me wrong, I'm excited about the LHD,s, for errr humanitarian reasons (lol) 2 RAR are going to have some cool trips.
Maybe another regular company could be added to'1 Cdo, that would cover the gap. TAG east being the gap.....wait! Why bother with TAG east? Tag west covered it pretty well up until the olympics, and I guess there is no demonstrated need, no hostage rescues, the states all have their own police, and SAS are able to cover the rest.
Answer, lose TAG east.
I remember reading that having to maintain TAG West was a drain on the SAS that distracted and detracted from their primary role. All down to perspective I suppose.
There was a time, like most of the post war period where everything was Light Infantry centric with armour being seen as a distraction and waste of resources, I suppose anything thing that is expensive and not seen to be used can fall into that trap.
Were the money available would it be viable to have one btn in each brigade para qualified, without degrading other capabilities?
You are misrepresenting my argument. Just because something hasn't been used, doesn't mean there is not a demonstrated need for it. For example, Australia has never fired an air to air missile in anger ever, as far as I'm aware. Yet there is an obvious demonstrated need for that capability, as it is central to the way that Air Force fights. Not so with the parachute capability. It is not central to the way the Army intends to fight, and can be adequately covered by other means. Hence why in a real resource constrained world it has disappeared to resource other requirements that do have a demonstrated need, as they are central to the way Army intends to fight.
If you want to debate that Army should have a parachute capability then fine - tell us what you would change to make it so. You are not doing that, you are simply saying we should have a parachute battalion and not taking any other considerations into account.
And what was 3 RAR doing the rest if the year? Doing a battalion ex a few times a year does not mean you have a real battalion level capability. When 3 RAR was maintaining the parachute capability, the only high readiness element was the airborne combat team - a single company capability. The rest if the battalion would take just as long to come to readiness as the rest of the non-high readiness army. Since the parachute capability would only be used in the insertion phase, if it's not at high readiness then it's not a capability at all.
You can't fit a brigade onto the LHDs, you can fit a single reinforced battlegroup. Just. I would argue very strongly that any enemy that has sufficient combat lower to seriously threaten the LHDs would have sufficient combat power to make flying C-17s and C-130s over contested airspace to be all but unthinkable.
- Thread Starter Thread Starter
- #55
Pretty sure that 2 LHD,s plus Choules would move a brigade plus.
But one will be deployed while the other is in re fit, or build up, in an emergency, both could be pressed in to active service.
The beauty of course is that the LHD can sustain the group for a prolonged duration, whilst the para group will need to be short and sharp, limited by logistics.
POE operations, SPE or a raid to disrupt or distract enemy would be their main role.
POE, once secured, the group then reverts to light infantry.
As'for bn capability, one company was on 24 hrs notice, the rest on 7 days.
I have seen the whole Bn re called, and rehursal jumps,orders given in 3 days. Of course, the Bn was way under strength, just like the rest of the army at the time,including the ODF, and nothing came of it.
But one will be deployed while the other is in re fit, or build up, in an emergency, both could be pressed in to active service.
The beauty of course is that the LHD can sustain the group for a prolonged duration, whilst the para group will need to be short and sharp, limited by logistics.
POE operations, SPE or a raid to disrupt or distract enemy would be their main role.
POE, once secured, the group then reverts to light infantry.
As'for bn capability, one company was on 24 hrs notice, the rest on 7 days.
I have seen the whole Bn re called, and rehursal jumps,orders given in 3 days. Of course, the Bn was way under strength, just like the rest of the army at the time,including the ODF, and nothing came of it.
- Thread Starter Thread Starter
- #56
Given the states all have counter terrorist capability, to various levels, including the AFP, does Army need to maintain 2 TAG,s?
Could free up another Comando coy.
Maintain an independant para qualified company at brigade level? 3 indapendant companies under each Brigade HQ comd?
Or just use commando,s to fill the role. Problem I have with leaving it with 2Cdo, is it a bit like using Wedgetail for maratime patrol, over kill.
Could free up another Comando coy.
Maintain an independant para qualified company at brigade level? 3 indapendant companies under each Brigade HQ comd?
Or just use commando,s to fill the role. Problem I have with leaving it with 2Cdo, is it a bit like using Wedgetail for maratime patrol, over kill.
Nope. The full ARG, which is a reinforced battlegroup, needs all three vessels to deploy it.
The two TAGs have very different roles with very little overlap. They don't just duplicate each other's capability. The impact of domestic counter terrorism on SOCOMD had been significantly reduced in recent years.
There are no soldiers for an independent para qualified company at battalion level. Under Plan BEERSHEBA, the infantry is shrinking. If the Army was to grow in size, the extra soldiers would go to growing capabilities such as combat engineers, field artillery and second and third line logistic support, which are significantly under strength, and not to growing the infantry.
Maintaining one existing company in each brigade as para qualled would be very hard to achieve, as you would have to triple the number of para qualified enablers to actually have a capability. Not to mention the other FIC implications that would go with it.
As I'm sure you understand, people have actually say down and worked all this out, and have found it to be unworkable. It's hardly like someone just woke up one morning and decided that paras weren't necessary.
Nope. Around 2,500 men all three together. And even if you could shoe horn in a 3,000-4,000 man brigade there would be no aviation and no medical or logsitics support beyond the limited capacity in the brigade cis-bee [CSSB].
Yes. Neither State police agencies nor the AFP have the resources or Tactical Teams required to cover us fully for envisaged CT operations.
Only the TAG's and ADF do.
Jessica Rowe and bone used in the same sentence - just not in the context I was thinking about...
3RAR - definately a step up on your regular infantry - I spent a year living the other side of the Holsworthy 'MSR' - and they definately needed a step up to be on the same level as the regular humans. Must have something to do with hitting the ground like a pile driver too many times. Makes me wonder if dwarfs are just ex -paras? Bunch of angry ants - that's for sure...