Against an army sailing through the clouds neither walls, mountains, nor seas could afford security.
– From Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia by Samuel Johnson
Inspired by a recent discussion at Naval Gazing.
“When Failure Thrives”
Airborne operations have not, historically, proven very successful. The current size of airborne forces in Russia (VDV) and the United States is purely the result of institutional inertia and parochialism. Read this and weep.
To briefly recapitulate the linked article: The most successful airborne assaults, launched by the Germans in 1940 (e.g. Eben Emael) in hindsight relied on the total novelty of parachute infantry. Even by later in WW2, airborne operations became less likely to succeed and more costly when successful than the Happy Time of the early war. At any rate, advances in air defenses and increases in the numbers of light armored vehicles (which lightly armed paratroopers have difficulty fighting) in rear areas made a repetition of operations like Neptune (Normandy jump) suicidal after WW2. Airborne operations, being useless against serious militaries, were increasingly confined to “interventions” against weak or non-state forces.
The 82nd Airborne owes more of its existence to the Nazis than NASA does.