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posted 29 June 2021 16:13                       

-the patriot-

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posted 01 July 2021 03:54                    

Essentially, what I'm proposing is a battalion sized force who's role is to provide a force that can reach any of our UN missions rapidly in the event of a serious escalation in a UN mission. While the political aspect of creating this force would be difficult for a wide spectrum of reasons(If you called it Airborne or Commando, the same peacenik hippies that were screaming about Canadian peacekeepers having claymore mines in East Timor would claim that this force is a group of government sanctioned baby killers.), I think that not having a independent rapid reaction force, but still sending our forces to far off lands operationally is a disaster waiting to happen.

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posted 03 July 2021 13:32                    

There's bound to be a variety of opinions on this. What do people think?

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posted 03 July 2021 23:31                       

Realistic humanitarian support (domestic and/or international) versus power projection (assuming one light infantry battle group (at best) constitutes power projection).

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posted 10 July 2021 00:15                       

For all the arguments which attempt to support the sustainment of an airborne capability, none seem to be able to provide concrete examples of their use in combat in the past 40+ years. The "airborne mystique" remains firmly embedded in Normandy and Arnhem. The mobility these forces provided in WWII has been replaced by airmobility. Since Vietnam, the use of helicopters to rapidly deploy ground forces when air superiority can be maintained has been entrenched. I would much rather see an emphasis on hel-ops up to bn level than an increased airborne capability.
That being said, no-one seems to have considered or developed theories on potential uses of airborne troops in more peaceful situations. Perhaps it is the difficulty of envisioning the stereotypical tough guy paratrooper in less tense situations.
I would suggest that maintenance of a basic jump capabaility may well gain palatability as, for example, the capability to drop a security force and airfield repair team preparatory to deploying the Disaster Emergency Response Team (DART) on either domestic or international aid operations. But, we should also consider that this could as readily be done with civilian sport parachuting technologies (2 days trg, slow descent steerable chutes, etc.) to reduce costs and simplify getting and maintaining the best personnel on the ground without undue dependence on completing a lengthy course focussed on physical conditioning.

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posted 10 July 2021 00:18                       

-The short answer would have to be no. -Should we aim to have one in the future, probably. But this should be far down on the shopping list even if we miraculously got a 10 fold increase in DND budget and manpower. -The purpose of airborne troops is strategic. (Tactical operations will invariably be better fulfilled by either heliborne or ground based troops.) -There are then 2 types of strategic airborne operations. First, clandestine type operations such as sabotage, assasination, abduction, rescue etc. This would fall to CSIS or specailized groups such as SAR or JTF and involve small groups (if not individuals) and, accordingly, a single small aircraft. Second the short term military operation. Securing bridges, beachheads, airfields, etc. or as a flanking type manouver to sever enemy supply/retreat/communication. If the situation makes such operations potentially useful then they also will dictate that the operation be large. Battalion if not brigade or division strength. Now aside from the obvious problem for the Canadian forces to commit such a large portion of our extremely low troop strength to such an operation (a certain WWII bridge comes to mind). There is also the problem of getting several large, slow aircraft deep behind enemy lines. Since the mass drops of yester-year AA technology has become extremely effective, portable and inexpensive. The American's managed a significant insertion during the gulf war only after first reducing this threat AND establishing ABSOLUTE air superiority. Against any opposition strong enough to make a large airborne operation a strategically good idea, our airforce just doesn't have the #s to achieve the same thing. The obvious response to what I've written so far is "What about multinational forces?" Well what about them. Other nations with airborne units have as many or more of them than we have in all our infantry. If we add a battalion or even brigade to an operation with several divisions from other nations is that enough to make a differnce? Of course not. I'm sure our allies would prefer we used the meager funds, manpower and training time to send a larger number of troops with another specialization.

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posted 10 July 2021 00:20                       

While reviewing the posts on the subject of "do we need a para capability" I am somewhat disturbed by the lack of awareness towards the tactical employment of airborne forces in battalion strength.
Most of the posts seem to only envision "mass airborne drops" such as that of Operation Market Garden, Crete, etc. However airborne forces have been used at the battalion level very successfully in the last 40 years.
The British have a firm grasp on the viability of what role airborne forces can play as evidenced by the information found at <http://www.army.mod.uk/army/organise/infan/para/roles.htm>
While the decision to disband the Canadian Airborne Regiment was primarily a political one, the present situation of keeping Canada's airborne forces in the jump company of a light infantry battalion form is a failure to employ the resources properly.
Here are some examples of successful battalion level airborne operations since the Second World War, taken from the 1st Tactical Studies Group (Airborne) website at <http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/Quarters/2116/> Date: 1964 Units: USAF C-130 squadron, Belgian Paratrooper Bn Operation: Dragon Rouge Troopers: 320 Belgians, 1 American Country: Belgian Congo Dropzone: Stanleyville Airport Aircraft: C-130 Hercules Equipment/supplies air-delivered: Gun jeeps, Crew-served machine guns Type Air delivery: Day Mass low-level tactical personnel static-line jump
Operation DRAGON ROUGE, "RED DRAGON" in English, was one of the most dramatic military missions undertaken during the Cold War. It involved a flight of more than 4,000 miles by USAF C-130s carrying Paratroopers of the crack Belgian 1st ParaCommando to rescue hostages who had been held for more than three months in the Congolese city of Stanleyville.
Africa was an unstable place in the 1960s, even more so than it is today. The former Belgian Colony of Congo, now known as Zaire, was granted independence in 1960, and almost immediately became the site of chaos. When the crisis ended in early 1964, a new one broke out as Congolese rebels calling themselves "Simba" rebelled against the government. The Congolese government turned to the United States for help. In response, the U.S. Strike Command sent JTF LEO, a task force made up of a detachment of C-130s, communications personnel and an 82nd Airborne security team, to Leopoldville.
By early August, 1964 the Congolese, with the help of the LEO force and a group of white mercenaries led by Major Mike Hoare, was making headway against the Simbas. In retaliation, the Simbas began taking hostages of the whites in areas under their control. They took them to Stanleyville and placed them under guard in the Victoria Hotel.
While the world watched anxiously, in Washington and Brussels the United States and Belgium were hard at work trying to come up with a rescue plan. Several ideas were considered and discarded, while attempts at negotiating with the Simbas failed - no one could be found to negotiate with!
In mid-November the C-130Es and crews of the Tactical Air Command rotational squadron from Pope AFB, NC were called back to their temporary duty base at Evreux-Fauville AB, France from missions throughout Europe. The crews were told simply to go to their barracks and get some rest, because something big was brewing. On Tuesday evening, November 17, the crews were told to report to the operations room on the Margarite where the airplanes were deployed. The crews were told to rig seats and take-off. Just before take-off, each navigator was given a Manila envelope and instructed not to open it until their airplane had reached 2,000 feet and there were no mechanical problems to make them turn back. When the crews opened the envelopes, they learned they were going to Klinebrogel, a Belgian military airfield outside Brussels. When they got to Klinebrogel, each airplane loaded with Paratroopers wearing red berets, then took off again after being handed another envelope. This time it told them to head south for Moron AB, on the Spanish Mediterranean. At Moron the navigators went into Base Operations where they were given maps and instructions for the next leg of their flight, to Ascension Island in the South Atlantic, where they arrived 18 hours after leaving France.
By this time everyone knew they were on their way to Africa, but first there was a time of "hurry up and wait" on secluded Ascension, where the rescue force was out of sight of the prying eyes of the world. While they waited, the American airmen and Belgian paras got to know each other, and began working out procedures to drop the Belgians.
On Sunday before Thanksgiving the force left Ascension and flew across the Atlantic and much of Africa to Kamina, an airfield in the southern Congo. There the crews and Paratroopers waited again. By this time all hopes of negotiation had vanished, and that evening the American and Belgian commanders were told to launch Operation DRAGON ROUGE.
In the early hours of November 23, 1964, 5 x C-130s took off from Kamina, each with 64 Belgian Red Berets in full combat gear seated on the red nylon troop seats in its cargo compartment. Behind the assault force came seven more Herks, with Chalk 12 configured as a hospital ship. The C-130s flew north at high altitude, then dropped down to treetop altitudes to follow the Congo River as they neared the city of Stanleyville.
As the sun was breaking over the horizon out of the African Veldt, a CIA A-26 INVADER flown by a Cuban mercenary pilot made a strafing pass over the Stanleyville Sabenas airport. Right behind the A-26 the first C-130 roared low over the runway. As the airplane came over the field, Paratroopers led by Col Charles Laurent spilled from the doors on either side of the airplane. Within seconds, 310 Paratroopers were in the air, then landing on the strip of grass alongside the runway. The five jump planes came around for another pass to drop the jumpmasters and bundles of equipment. As the airplanes came off the drop zone, they began taking fire from a .50-caliber Heavy Machine Gun. After dropping the troops, Chalks Two through Five left the area for Leopoldville, where they were to refuel and stand-by. Chalk One, carrying the C-130 mission commander, Colonel Burgess Gradwell, and flown by Captain Huey Long of the 777th TCS, orbited over the airfield until they were hit by several heavy shells that knocked out hydraulics. Long pointed the battle-damaged airplane toward Leopoldville.
Forty-five minutes after he jumped, Col. Laurent reported that the airfield was secure. Five other C-130s roared in for assault landings from their orbit point near Stanleyville. Each airplane discharged troops and vehicles to join the Paratroopers on the ground, then took off again and headed to Stanleyville. Meanwhile, Chalk Six, flown by Captain Mack Secord's crew, approached Stanleyville. They had lost a life raft after takeoff from Kamina and had to return for the spare airplane. Secord was told to land, and wait with Chalk Twelve, the hospital plane, until the Belgians returned to the airport with the hostages.
After leaving the airport, the Belgian rescue team made haste to reach the Victoria Hotel before the Simbas carried out their threats to kill the hostages if a rescue was attempted. Several blocks from the hotel a Paratrooper rounded a corner just in time to prevent the Simbas from firing a second volley of shots into the assembled hostages, who had evidently been walking toward the airport. Some of the hostages later said they thought the Simba officers intended to turn them over to the Belgians unharmed, but some of the Simbas, who had been drinking and smoking Hemp all night the night before, decided to take matters in their own hands. They shot their own officers, then turned their guns on the hostages. They had fired one volley, picking women and children as their targets, and were preparing to fire another when the Red Berets showed up on the scene. At the sight of the Belgians, the Simbas lost their courage and ran! The Belgian Paratroopers had stormed the city and freed the hostages. Casualties included 3 Soldiers dead and 7 wounded, as well as 27 dead among the hostages, but 2000 hostages were saved
After more than an hour on the ground at Stanleyville, Mack Secord's crew finally saw the first hostages coming toward them. As they were the most badly injured, they had been driven to the airport. Seeing the engines running and thinking the C-130 was about to take-off, the frightened whites rushed aboard the airplane through the open rear ramp. Secord's loadmasters, there were two aboard, tried to get them over to the other airplane where a doctor waited to tend their wounds. After finally getting the most seriously injured people to leave, Secord's crew closed up their airplane and began taxing for the runway. As they passed a clump of elephant grass, a pair of Simbas ran out. One ran alongside the airplane trying to get inside the door while the other sprayed the underside of the wing with a submachinegun. No one inside the airplane knew what had happened; the whole thing was witnessed by the crew of Chalk 12. Secord took off and headed for Leopoldville. When he got there, he had to be bodily lifted from the airplane and taken to the hospital where he was treated for a brain concussion he had received the night before when he bumped his head getting into the airplane.
For the rest of the day, C-130s and other transports shuttled between Stanleyville and Leopoldville. More than 2,000 people were airlifted out of the city. That night a Belgian mechanic working on a DC-4 was killed by sniper fire. Several times during the day the field was mortared, and every airplane was hit by ground fire during their landings and takeoffs. One was hit in a wing fuel tank. The airplane crew chief whittled a plug from a broom handle and wrapped it with a rag and used it to plug the leak.
The airlift continued the next day. Late in the day the Belgians were pulled out of the city and flown to Leopoldville. Early the next morning a smaller scale mission designated as DRAGON NOIR/BLACK DRAGON, freed hostages held at Paulis, a town 225 miles northwest of Stanleyville. The hostages at Paulis had also been harmed by the Simbas. An American missionary had been beaten to death during torture.
After DRAGON NOIR, the rescue force retired to Kamina to await further orders. While they were waiting, an African thunderstorm prompted one C-130 crewmember, none of whom had had a bath in days, to grab soap and go out into the rain for an impromptu shower. The rest of the force followed his lead as the airmen and Paratroopers ran around naked in the rain! A few days later, in response to political pressure from the Third World, President Lyndon Johnson ordered the force ouf of Africa.
For their role in DRAGON ROUGE, the C-130 crewmembers recieved the 1964 MacKay Trophy for the most meritorious flight of the year by USAF aircraft. All of the crewmembers were decorated with the Air Medal, while Captain Mack Secord received the Distinguished Flying Cross.
Date: 22 February 2021 Unit: 1st Bn/506th Airborne Operation: Junction City Troopers: 845 Country: Vietnam Dropzone: Katum Equipment/supplies air-delivered: Gun MULEs (M274s), 105mm artillery pieces, 81mm, 4.2 inch mortars, 1/4 ton jeeps, 3/4 ton trucks Type Air delivery: Day Mass low-level tactical personnel static-line jump
On February 22d, 1967, Paratroopers of the 2d Battalion, 503d Infantry, 173d Airborne Brigade, parachuted into a wide clearing in the jungle of War Zone "C" as part of Operation Junction City. Their mission was to form a blocking force near the crossroads hamlet of Katum, South Vietnam, to support a large-scale cordon and search by U.S. forces. The 780-man Airborne task force was delivered in two sorties of aircraft from Bien Hoa Airbase. The personnel drop of 13 x C-130 Hercules aircraft arrived over Drop Zone Charlie at 9:00 a.m. General Jack Deane, Commander of the 173d Airborne Brigade, Lieutenant Colonel Robert Sigholtz, Commander of the 2-503d Task Force, and Sergeant Major Harold Proffitt led the jump from the first aircraft. A total of 778 troopers hit the silk in two passes over the small drop zone, settled to the earth, and began assembling without any enemy opposition. Thirty minutes later, 10 heavy drop C-130s arrived and dropped 6 x M101 105mm howitzers, 4 x 4.2 inch mortars, 6 x 81mm mortars, 4 x 3/4-ton trucks, 5 x jeeps, 6 x M274 "Mule" vehicles, one trailer, and 3900 rounds of artillery and mortar ammunition. By 10:00 a.m., all 845 men and equipment were deployed into blocking positions and the command post and artillery firebase were established. As units from the U.S. 1st and 25th Infantry Divisions, the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, and the 173d Airborne Brigade began closing the horseshoe around suspected Vietcong (VC) and North Vietnamese Army (NVA) positions, Operation Junction City became a series of small unit firefights for the Paratroopers. On February 28th, the "Sky Soldiers" of the 173d overran the Vietcong Central Information Office, a key enemy propaganda facility. As the multi-divisional attack continued through mid-May, major battles raged around the horseshoe with three Vietcong regiments and one regiment of NVA regulars. Operation Junction City succeeded in driving major enemy forces from War Zone "C" across the border into sanctuaries in Cambodia. The operation was terminated on May 14, 1967.
In 1978 the 2e Regiment Etranger Parachutistes jumped into Kolwezi, Zaire in order to rescue a civilian population in grave danger. The mission was a success, as the civilians were evacuated and the regiment suffered 5 dead and 25 wounded.
For anyone who thinks that Canada does not need an airborne capability due to the "ineffectiveness" of a single airborne battalion, do some additional research, and then re-examine your original thoughts. I'm sure that you're opinion will be swayed.

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posted 10 July 2021 00:21                       

Yes, Canada does require a para cabaility. For, example a company of Canadian soldier on a UN tour are taken hostages by about 200 rebels during a chapter 7 peace enforcement mission. Normally, Canada would negotiate a settlement, but unfortunately the rebels are fanatics that merely want to demonstrate to the Westtern world that they are not afraid of NATO or the UN, etc... Unfortunately, Canada disbanded its only rapid reaaction para battalion and no other country could help, becuase they were busy rescuing their own soldiers or they refused to help, becuae Canada hasn't been pulling its weight. 3 days later 120 Canadian soldiers are executed and the slaughter is seen on CNN around the world. If Canada, had a para capability of approximately 500-700 soldiers the majority of would have been saved. I am suggesting that Canada need an airborne brigade for airborne drops like WWII, no. Canada needs a dedicated para battalion for company and battalion missions, but not to be used like the SAS, but merely as highly motivated paras (ie better infantry soldiers who like parachute); the JTFII should cover SAS style operations. HMM, maybe the JTFII should be renamed the Canadian SAS and their roles expanded in addition to a Canadian Parachute Regiment.

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