Airborne Operation
An airborne operation or air landing is usually the transfer of airborne troops or other army troops from the air to the ground in a hostile area by parachute or with aircraft, usually helicopters . In addition to moving soldiers, heavy weapons , ammunition , vehicles and airborne tanks are also brought into air transport and dropped.
General
The job is usually to take key areas or attack enemy groups in their rear.
Air landings are carried out by specially trained soldiers who belong to the land or air forces.
The American Brigadier General William Mitchell (1879–1936) developed the idea during the First World War to drop a parachute division with 2,000 aircraft behind the front of the 5th German Army and to take the fortress of Metz . Declared as technically impracticable, he resigned from the United States Army Air Service after a trial against him in 1925 . However, both the Italian General Staff and the General Staff of the United States Armed Forces investigated the use of soldiers to be landed by parachute or airplane in the 1920s . However, this was carried out half-heartedly and had no consequences for the operational doctrine of the respective armies.
In what was then the Soviet Union , devices for air landings were developed as early as the early 1930s. The TB-3 was the only aircraft of the time that was able to drop 30 parachutists in one approach. However, all jumpers had to open their umbrella manually. Under the direction of Mikhail Nikolajewitsch Tukhachevsky , the 11th Rifle Division established the first motorized airborne formation. In 1932 this unit was increased to a brigade and more airborne troops were created. During the Kiev maneuver in 1935, 1200 parachutists and another 2500 soldiers with light guns and tanks were transferred to the combat area by landing with aircraft.
The United States, Great Britain, and France did not promote the development of airborne troops. France set up two air infantry companies in 1937 and abolished them in 1940.
The Wehrmacht began to build up parachute troops in autumn 1935 .
Simultaneously with the start of the western campaign on May 10, 1940 at dawn, a commando with several gliders landed on the green roof of Fort Eben-Emael (south of Maastricht , on the Maas ) and switched off the heavily armored cannons with shaped charges. The Belgians did not understand - even in retrospect - how the Germans had managed the demolitions; this contributed to the nimbus of terms like blitzkrieg and wonder weapon .
In 1941 there were five airborne corps in the Red Army , each with three brigades. There were only two major airborne undertakings from the Soviet side during World War II , in 1942 near Vyazma and in September 1943 when overcoming the Dnieper . In August 1945, an air landing was carried out as an opening strike against the Kwangtung Army in northern China.
After 1945, the French, Israelis, Americans and Russians carried out medium and large air landings:
- Use of French paratroopers in the Indochina War , in the Congo (Opération Léopard) and in the Algerian War (until 1962)
- major airborne operations in North Korea in 1950/1951 by US forces
- British and French soldiers jumped over Egypt during the Suez Crisis in 1956
- Israeli Armed Forces conducted major airborne operations in 1967 during the Six Day War and in 1973 during the Yom Kippur War .
- US invasion of Grenada (October – December 1983),
- During the Soviet-Afghan War , the Red Army carried out some airborne missions as part of the fight against larger formations of the Mujahideen ; most of the time, however, the paratroopers were tactically dropped by helicopters in the flank or in the rear and cooperated with the mechanized forces.
- Use of the 101st Airborne Division in the Iraq War (2003)
- One of the last airborne operations was on January 28, 2013 by French paratroopers the capture of the city of Timbuktu as part of Opération Serval . The jump was filmed, among other things, by a Harfang drone (see web links).
execution
Airborne operations are carried out by paratroopers and are supported by airborne engineer , airborne reconnaissance , airborne telecommunications and airborne support units. Ordinary infantry forces are also conditionally able to carry out air landing operations with helicopters as air landings after instruction and training. In addition to how to behave in the aircraft, it is especially important to be trained in how to behave after being dropped in enemy territory, as all the flanks and rear of the troops deployed are initially open.
Air landing is supported by its own air force . Paratroopers are dropped off by transport aircraft (also cargo gliders in World War II ) or helicopters above or near the area of operation. To prevent air landing operations with gliders, possible landing zones were blocked by the German side with so-called Rommel asparagus and mines during the Second World War .
history
The airborne battle for Crete (Operation Merkur) was an operational airborne company, in which the airborne troops were to independently occupy sections of the terrain and subsequently an entire combat area.
On the day of the invasion, May 20, 1941, 593 transport aircraft brought German airborne units to Crete. The German paratroopers who had jumped got caught in the fire prepared by the air and air defense; many have already been killed or wounded in flight. The landed units were initially unable to conquer any airfields for supplies and reinforcements (especially artillery and vehicles). In addition, there was no radio link to the German headquarters in Athens, as many radios were destroyed in the landings. At sunset on the first day of the fight, of the 10,000 German paratroopers who had jumped off, only 6,000 men were still capable of fighting.
The situation for the attackers stabilized only with the continued deployment of the air force and successful landings with reinforcements from mountain fighters on the contested airfields. The Allies, including New Zealanders and Australians, defended Crete for a week until they withdrew with about 17,000 men. Due to the high losses, Hitler prohibited the further use of this elite force for air landings on a large scale.
The later planned airborne operation to take Malta ( Operation Hercules ) was not carried out due to the supposed general development at that time in the theater of war in Africa. However, German counter-air landings were undertaken both when the Italian armed forces dodged and during the Triphibian allied landing operation in Sicily, as well as during the occupation of the island of Leros .
As part of D-Day with Operation Neptune , several operational airborne operations of the 82nd Airborne Division , the 101st Airborne Division and the British glider and parachute units were carried out.
The Allied Operation Varsity on March 24, 1945, with the aim of building a bridgehead over the Rhine near Wesel , was the largest airborne operation in war history , with two air force divisions deployed in 1840 . 4,978 British and 9,387 American soldiers jumped off. British casualties on the first day totaled 1,078 dead and injured.
Others
Paradummys are puppets that are supposed to deceive the enemy about the strength and dropping point of airborne units.
See also
literature
- FM 90-26 Airborne Operations. (December 1990)
- Airborne Operations: A German Appraisal. US Department of the Army: Center of Military History, ISBN 1-78039-298-2 .
- Arnold D. Harvey, Franz Uhle-Wettler: Crete and Arnhem: The Greatest Airborne Operations of the Second World War. Stocker Verlag, ISBN 3-7020-1051-3 .
- Karl Knoblauch: Towards the end: With the Parachute Panzerfüsilierbataillon 2 "Hermann Göring" in East Prussia 1944/45. Flechsig Verlag, 2007, ISBN 978-3-88189-720-4 .
- Charles Whiting: Bounce the Rhine - The Greatest Airborne Operation In History. GUILD Publishing, 1985.
Web links
- Frontline Rhodesia Documentary Part 1
- Frontline Rhodesia Documentary Part 2
- Air landing for the capture of Timbuktu by French forces on January 28, 2013 (Operation Serval)
Individual evidence
- ^ G. Forty: Battle of Crete ISBN 0-7110-2758-7 , p. 9.