Paratroops Question

[kevin]

It pretty rare IRL for airborne troops to take casualties on landing that is. It happens I'm sure, but make it a 1 / 100 chance not the 1 in 15 I seem to always have.

[Pergite]

I had to try this one out myself and found it strange as well so I tested some different Abn ATGM systems and combinations aircraft.

I dropped two french Abn Atgm (Milan) sections in a open grassy field. One of them got destroyed, the other suffered one casualty.

Then I on the same map dropped two brittish para sections, with the same weaponsystem, but this time in the middle of thick jungle and in ondulating terrain. No casualties and they where all ready to fight the next turn.
Both dropped from C130:s in the same scenario.

Does country training factor in on this? Or what is it all about?

[Mobhack]

Pergite said:
I had to try this one out myself and found it strange as well so I tested some different Abn ATGM systems and combinations aircraft.

I dropped two french Abn Atgm (Milan) sections in a open grassy field. One of them got destroyed, the other suffered one casualty.

Then I on the same map dropped two brittish para sections, with the same weaponsystem, but this time in the middle of thick jungle and in ondulating terrain. No casualties and they where all ready to fight the next turn.
Both dropped from C130:s in the same scenario.

Does country training factor in on this? Or what is it all about?

It's about chance rolls - the Brits were lucky.

I'll have a look at the chance factors for real paratroopers, but vehicles are always bad news to throw out of a plane. (In real life they would take 20 minutes or so to unpack from the drop palette, then they would need to be fuelled and loaded from separate palletes of ammo and fuel landed separately). Parachuted vehicles would be dropped empty (including crew!).

- I was going to remove the ability of vehicles to be thrown off planes while dangling on big hankies (It was not a design decision to alow vehicles to drop, it was a side effect the playtesters found, and I was going to remove as an unintended bug, but they persuaded me to leave it in with the above caveat - that the higher casualties were vehicles which were destroyed or renderd unserviceable by the drop . Allegedly that balances the fact that surviving ones are ready to roll instantly, instead of an hour or 2 after the drop. I'm still not convinced by that logic myself, Iam of the opinion that vehicle dropping should be removed as unrealistic in the game time frame, but have left it in for those who want the faciltiy, though it's decidedly unrealistic !

It will go if I get round to doing transport planes that land and take off, like gliders which do not self-destruct, maybe. But that is a back-burner item for a future release. Vehicles ready to roll off a landed transport are more realistic IMHO. (One work-around for now may be to designate a herky bird as a glider in the OOB as a "landing-only" transport plane? - engine noise would be strange though!)


Cheers
Andy

[Marek_Tucan]

Mobhack said:
(One work-around for now may be to designate a herky bird as a glider in the OOB as a "landing-only" transport plane? - engine noise would be strange though!)


Cheers
Andy

I was just planning to do something alike (most likely into my traditional dump of wild ideas, UN OOB). After all if I wanted to make some "August 1968" scenario, Soviet paratroopers weren't parachuted on Prague airport, they landed in AN-12's with Aeroflot designations. Then the An-12 Glider Version would come in handy... However dumped off for some time the idea of scenario, so this version of planes is laid aside for a while.

[SCAJolly]

Mobhack said:

It's about chance rolls - the Brits were lucky.

I'll have a look at the chance factors for real paratroopers, but vehicles are always bad news to throw out of a plane. (In real life they would take 20 minutes or so to unpack from the drop palette, then they would need to be fuelled and loaded from separate palletes of ammo and fuel landed separately). Parachuted vehicles would be dropped empty (including crew!).

- I was going to remove the ability of vehicles to be thrown off planes while dangling on big hankies (It was not a design decision to alow vehicles to drop, it was a side effect the playtesters found, and I was going to remove as an unintended bug, but they persuaded me to leave it in with the above caveat - that the higher casualties were vehicles which were destroyed or renderd unserviceable by the drop . Allegedly that balances the fact that surviving ones are ready to roll instantly, instead of an hour or 2 after the drop. I'm still not convinced by that logic myself, Iam of the opinion that vehicle dropping should be removed as unrealistic in the game time frame, but have left it in for those who want the faciltiy, though it's decidedly unrealistic !

Oh bloody Mary, it would be great if you had to toss crews and vehicles separatly! It could to an extent further make up for the delay that would exist in real life, by that you have to get the crews to their vehicles! Then you could perhaps lower the amount of destroyed vehicles.

[PlasmaKrab]

SCAJolly said:Oh bloody Mary, it would be great if you had to toss crews and vehicles separatly! It could to an extent further make up for the delay that would exist in real life, by that you have to get the crews to their vehicles! Then you could perhaps lower the amount of destroyed vehicles.

What about ammo and fuel?

But, yeah, that could add up to the general annoyance called 'realism'
Especially if the crews jump a half km away from their vehicles, land suppress, pinned, out of contact, and have to walk all the way...
Under arty fire...

Mmh, maybe that would ask for some vehicles to be able to be landed 'ready to move'. Can't really air-droppable vehicles be dropped like that? BMDs for example?

Besides, 'surviving' transport planes could be fine, but I guess there'll have to be something from the level bombers so they can't get used again and again like helos.
Erm, I don't know how far you got into this idea yet Andy, but have how you considered getting round the idea of landing /take off run?
I don't know many airplanes that land in 50 meters...

[kevin]

The 82nd Airborne drops HMMWV's, (and Sheridans once upon a time) all the time. This is how they do it:

Vehicle Crews drop with the Infantry.
LGOPs (Little Groups Of Paratroopers) form up and take initial objectives.
After the DZ (Drop Zone) is secured, patrols are sent out while additional C-130s are called.
These C-130s contain vehicles secured to pallets
These C-130s drop to low altitude in the DZ, like a few feet off the ground.
A drag chute is deployed, which pulls the palatilized vehicle out of the Hercy Bird.
HMMWVs are secured to the pallet by 4 tie-chains which can be removed in minutes.
The HMMWV is ready for action (although with only 1/4 tank of fuel)
Fuel and other cargo is deployed in special cargo pallets by the same method.

I feel like this can be and should be simulated by SPMBT.

Kevin

[SCAJolly]

That's a very nice overview.
How about Soviet tactics, late Cold War? I know Norwegian military handbooks describe vehicles being dropped for use in airborne raids. As a matter of fact, I have only read about the use of airdropped vehicles in B.E.L. raids when the infantry is lifted by chopper (thus without parachuting themselves), but for all I know it could apploy to anything.

[AB]

From my stint in the 82nd, I remember that the 'Heavy Drops' (as the tow & scout jeeps, artillery, etc., were called) went out before the troops, since you didn't want those things dropping down on top of your LGOPs. I went on Opereration Bright Star (in Egypt) in 1985 with the advance party, and somehow ended up on the DZ prior to the Heavy Drop (don't ask). It was quite exciting - running around trying to dodge all of these immense bundles hurteling towards the ground. I can assure you you don't want those coming down after the troops.

Unpacking a jeep was very time consumming - lots rope & webbing to cut, and the crushed packing material that has to be pryed out from every nook and cranny underneight the vehicle. If things went very smoothly, it would take 15 minuets. On average, i'd say it took 30 minutes.

Dropping the vehicles for 10' is called LAPES - Low Altitude Parachute Extraction System. i only saw it once, at a VIP (CAPEX) show, because it ruined too many vehicle to do that often. The vehicles had several feet of energy absorbing material (like a heavy corrugated cardboard) beneight them to absorb the shock of landing. It was not easy to free the vehcile from all of this crushed material, certianly harder than undooing four quick release. Dropping a vehicle without this material would likely destroy it, almost as if it were dropped from 10' while traveling forward at 100mph. It is one of those things that looks good in shows, but not in real life.

If you think the US army would would never fake something in a show, think again. I once did a VIP (capex) where one company did the parachute jump, and were instructed to just lay down upon landing. A second company then sprang up a minute or two later, with all their gear unpacked. This took place behind some small rises, so the audiance was suitable impressed with the speed that airborne soldiers could prepare themselves after a jump.

Oh, and we young paratroopers refered to the 'big' women at the bars as 'heavy drops'.