MacGregor does not see significant tactical need for a mass combat jump of infantry forces. He says even basic air defense renders an airborne attack suicidal.<\/p>\n
\u201cAirborne requires fixed-wing airlift. These forces cannot \u2018get in under the radar\u2019 against a major theater power\u2019s defenses,\u201d the unapologetically blunt West Point graduate said. \u201cAs seen repeatedly in Eastern Ukraine, anything flying low and slow, especially in the large numbers that are needed to move a militarily-useful conventional ground force, is toast in a real war.\u201d<\/p>\n
But leaders say the training and resources invested are worth it from a capability and deterrence standpoint, even before accounting for intangibles.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday the application of a large-scale airborne assault is low probability, but it\u2019s high consequence if we\u2019re not absolutely prepared to do it and do it right,\u201d said Brig. Gen. Brian Winski, deputy commanding general of the 82nd Airborne Division.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I’ll grant the naysayers that there haven’t been any mass-tactical drop of paratroopers on the scale of World War II in recent history, however the paratroopers have been used in every conflict (with the exception of Desert Storm) on a smaller scale. To take the tool of a Division-sized air-deliverable unit out of planners’ toolbox leaves big gaps. It’s better to have them trained and ready that to need them and have none.<\/p>\n
If the Army wants to save money, they should stop training people who have no intention of ever jumping with a TO&E airborne unit. I’ll bet there are three-times as many 5-jump-chumps as there are people on jump status. When was the last time you saw a second lieutenant who wasn’t wearing jump wings? They’re few and far between. In my career, I had one leg platoon leader – but he was still Ranger qualified. <\/p>\n
Yeah, if the Army wants to cut waste, don’t cut from the actual force, cut from the badge hunters who need a new shiny thing on their uniform. Cut out things that don’t actually make the US Army a lethal force that is feared by bad guys around the world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Army Times has a rather long discussion concerning the future of Army Airborne. Apparently there’s … The future of Army Airborne<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":64644,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[232],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-64643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-army-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64643","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=64643"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64643\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/64644"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=64643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=64643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=64643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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