forces.[8]
This said, let us assume that a crisis has erupted that requires the rapid insertion of U.S. forces. The President and the National Command Authorities have decided to commit ground units to the scene, and time is of the essence. An aircraft carrier battle group is headed towards the confrontation. Marine units are moving into the area, with an MPSRON/MEB team moving up to reinforce them. It may take days for the ships transporting the Marines and the carrier group to arrive on the scene. Several of the Air Force’s composite combat wings are standing by, waiting for a place to land and operate in the crisis area. Unfortunately, no such base yet exists. This is a situation where hours count, and the need to show action to the world is critical. What is needed is an airborne strike to take the airfield and port facilities that will allow the rest of the U.S. forces to arrive and stabilize the situation.
A call to the XVIII Airborne Headquarters at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, is all it takes to get the ball rolling. Within minutes of receiving its own call from XVIII Airborne Corps, the 82nd Airborne Division issues orders to the alert brigade which is standing by. When I say standing by, I mean that everyone in the alert brigade is on base or at home, only a phone call or beeper page away from being recalled. Only eighteen hours from a “cold” (i.e., no- notice) start, they can put the first combat element of the division (a reinforced airborne parachute infantry battalion) into the air. With a bit more notice, even larger units like an entire brigade or the whole division can be airlifted at once into a combat zone.
This is what occurred in October of 1994, when all three of the 82nd’s brigades were in the air simultaneously during Operation Uphold Democracy. The plan had been to have the 82nd take the whole nation of Haiti away from strongman General Raoul Cedras in a single stroke from the sky. The lead elements of the airborne assault were only minutes from the “point of no return” when the final negotiations for the resignation and exile of General Cedras were completed by a team that included former President Jimmy Carter, Senator Sam Nunn, and General Colin Powell. This resulted in a mass recall and redeployment of aircraft and personnel to support the peacekeeping mission that followed.
Once the basic airborne force is assembled, the next issue is transportation. Will the entry be into
However the task force enters the operating area, transportation will be the responsibility of the U.S. Air Force’s fleet of airlift aircraft, drawn from the Air Mobility Command’s C-130s, C-141s, C-5s, and C-17s. As a general rule, the C-130s are used when the flying distance to the crisis zone is within two thousand miles. This was the case in 1989 when the U.S. invaded Panama during Operation Just Cause. These C-130s would likely consist of a mix of active duty, Air National Guard, and USAF Reserve aircraft, including those of the 23rd Wing based at nearby Pope AFB, North Carolina. Anything longer than a short hop around the hemisphere requires a fleet of four-engine jet transports. This is the specialty of AMC, which has forged a strong relationship with the units of XVIII Airborne Corps, particularly the 82nd Airborne. AMC maintains a ready pool of the big airlifters suitable for the lifting of an airborne battalion task force on eighteen hours’ notice from Pope AFB, North Carolina.
Now, let us suppose that the 82nd has put together an airborne task force (something between a reinforced battalion or brigade). The airlift assets are on the way to Pope AFB, and you are waiting to get going. Even before the first paratroopers load onto the transport aircraft, there will be a huge amount of planning and preparation going on. Assuming that a parachute assault is required, the airborne task force commander is going to need a place to land. That place is called a drop zone (DZ). There are many issues involved in the selection of a proper DZ, all of which require a bit of subjective judgment and analysis by the task force staff. You need to look for a piece of clear land, at least a mile long. The required size for a DZ is dictated mostly by the kind of aircraft dropping the paratroops. Obviously, a C-130 dropping thirty to forty troopers can use a shorter DZ than a C-141, which carries over a hundred. The DZ should also be clear of trees, brush, and large rocks. In addition, the DZ has to be defensible, because it will become the entry point for follow-on reinforcements, equipment, and supplies. Much as the Marines fight to take and hold a beachhead, the paratroopers need to work hard to establish what they call an “airhead.”
The more popular kinds of DZs include airfields and international airports. These are useful for airborne forces because they are perfectly clear, easy to find, and can provide an excellent fly-in entry point for supplies and reinforcements. The downside of trying to take such a facility, though, is that the bad guys in the crisis area already know this, and will likely defend such installations quite vigorously. This is what happened when the German 7th Fallschirmjager Division attacked Maleme Airfield during the invasion of Crete in 1941. The British defenders put up stiff resistance, and almost won the battle. Only a near-suicidal commitment of reinforcement Fallschirmjagers and transport aircraft allowed the Germans to prevail. The Crete invasion tore the guts out of the German Fallschirmjager force, and taught everyone else in the business some valuable lessons. One other little problem: Runways are lousy places to land paratroopers because the hard surfaces cause landing injuries. A lot of the paratroopers who jumped into Grenada in 1983 wound up breaking legs and spraining backs and ankles on the hard surface of the runway at Port Salinas. Whatever the DZ, though, the paratroopers have a basic philosophy of dropping on top of their objectives whenever it is possible. This was a lesson that was learned the hard way during airborne operations in Europe back in World War II. For this reason, paratroopers know to take what they want quickly, and get relieved fast.
Once you have picked out a DZ, the next problem is making sure that it is a safe place to drop onto. This means getting eyes onto the ground nearby. Fortunately, the Army has a number of personnel, from special forces and Ranger units to the 82nd’s own pathfinders, who can scout a DZ and make sure it is a good place to land. Should a DZ prove suitable, then there is the problem of making sure that the transport planes with their loads of personnel, equipment, and supplies can actually find it. Most airborne operations these days take place under the cover of darkness, and in weather conditions that would be considered insane by some professional soldiers. During Operation Royal Dragon (a large joint international training exercise at Fort Bragg) in 1996, all of the initial drops took place in heavy fog and rain. Despite this, injuries were few and not one fatality was suffered by the over five thousand British and American paratroopers who took part. One of the reasons for this success is the array of navigation and homing equipment carried by the pathfinders to mark the DZs for the transport crews. The coming of GPS-based navigation aids may make ground-based beacons a thing of the past. For the next few years, though, the pathfinders will still need to be on the ground waiting to guide the paratroopers into the DZ.
Back at Fort Bragg, the troopers of the first fly-out unit are sequestered into a special holding area prior to being bused over to Pope AFB. Here the troopers spend their time preparing equipment, and themselves mentally, for what is ahead. When the time to load up comes, they board buses which take them over to what is called “Green Ramp” at Pope AFB. This is a holding area at one end of the field which is equipped with special benches for the troopers to sit on with all of their equipment and parachutes loaded. The Green Ramp facility is not terribly green, and is decidedly decrepit, with concrete floors and a few soft-drink machines and water fountains. However, for the troopers of the 82nd, it frequently is the last piece of America that they see before a deployment.
When the load order finally comes, the troopers are lined up into what are called “chalks” (lines of paratroops assigned to each aircraft). They start checking each other’s gear (something they will do continuously until they jump), and then waddle out to their transports. Frequently, an average trooper will be carrying up to 150 lb/68.2 kg, of gear and watching them is like watching elephants march. They are loaded aboard in such a way that several platoons or companies are spread among several aircraft in a formation. Thus, the loss of any single aircraft will not wipe out a particular unit, or keep an objective from being taken. It also makes forming up after the drop easier, since different units can be placed down the length of the DZ more easily. Once loaded, the transports are quickly launched, so that others can be loaded and staged. Green Ramp holds perhaps a company or two at a time, and moving the troopers through quickly is vital to keeping the airborne assault on schedule.
Once they are airborne, it can take up to eighteen hours for the task force to get to their targets if the flight to the target area is located somewhere like Southwest Asia. Flights to Central America might take a few hours, as was the case during the Panama operation in 1989. For the troopers, it is a decidedly unpleasant experience. The
