Is the airborne concept outdated?

Personally I look at the Military Police as the "OTHER" Cavalry Regiment!!!

First off there Bob, slow your roll. The proper noun Afghanistan never left my mouth. I was actually in Iraq when this went down, were you? I had people I worked directly with that were actually there. Second, That whole AO was owned by the 82nd and the 173rd WAS under the 82nd, as in they were patched to them, along with the 503rd, 10th Group (for this operation), and a dozen other little players in support rolls. Third, The Rangers were were not there on this part of this mission.

I am not trying to regurgitate a report from a unit website, I am telling you the way it went down as it was told to me by someone that was standing there watching the jump from a secured airfield. Not sure where you got your Special Forces information decoder ring to gather info about a couple A- Teams from the 10th taking an entire airfield. Oh they were there, they walked right in and set up some bunks (Right next to my buddies who had been there training police officers for months.) they were waiting for the rest of the guys to jump in. Not sure that counts as "capturing it". (It would be like me "capturing" a chicken sandwich.) The jump zone was secured and had been for months by multi-national unit and was held before that by the Kurd's for several years so Saddam could not use it to drop mustard gas on the north. The jump was not even classified as a combat jump until someone higher up thought it would be cool to have a mustard stain.

Maj Richard "Ernie" Rowlette Thank you, Sir. I still think that there is a need for Airborne and with the way things are going in Russia/Ukraine people may recognize that is what they are there for.

Besides Jump Wings are cool!

I'm a believer of Army traditions and the history of the paratrooper, however as long as I have been a 11B light infantryman I don't see the need for the airborne drops except for supplies. I'm not trying to put them down because I have great admiration for the paratrooper, I just think the insertion of the paratrooper has gone away from that concept. I haven't witnessed an Airborne drop into the combat zone ever since I have been in the Army. Although I only have been deployed to Iraq once.....

SPC Anthony Martin I agree in this day and age there is no need for Airborne Troops, hell, we can't even tell who the enemy is or what their name is (Taliban, ISIL,ISIS, insurgent). There may be a need in the future. Russia is flexing it.s muscles again and is looking to land grab (Georgia, Ukraine). China's economy just tanked. All signs that Airborne is still a very real force multiplier.

LTC Halvorson, Before I get too far into the paper, could you tell me if this is a rehash of Dr. DeVore's 2004 paper - "The Airborne Illusion: Institutions and the Evolution of Postwar Airborne Forces"? Though I understand that the author has a doctorate in political science, is this a well reasoned and thought out piece of writing or is it a political hack job like his 2004 paper? The reason that I state political hack job is that the titles and the conclusions offered indicate this. These two papers and others like it also have a counterpart with papers written about the usefulness and cost effectiveness of Marine or Naval Infantry.

I have been reading papers, articles and books on this particular subject since 1976, and I see no or very little change on either side. I may be a bit bias in my opinion, but it bothers me that individuals like this both inside and outside the military establishment appear to have more of a voice than their opposite counterparts.

It's a lot of the same. His argument starts that it is an outdated concept and that the only reason it's still around is that the airborne had institutional momentum and that specifically in america, it's still around because they have changed the mission they are supposed to perform. The brits are down to a battalion because they didn't have the support necessary to "old-boy" cub it into the military, and the soviets/russia still have them in mass despite their horrible track record because it was created as a separate military arm...thus giving it massive amounts of staying power. Not sure how political hackiness is involved. Seems well researched, if not one sided.

This is the problem with the conventional mind set of many commanders today. Too much risk and too many assets dedicated to an infiltration technique they don't understand. Airborne operations in modern warfare should be focused on company or smaller elements except for Joint Forced Entry operations that usually occur at the start of a conflict. The good 'ol boy club of that still believes in the heroic and romantic notion of the division combat jump needs to die off and make way for the modern airborne concept.

Thanks for the link!!

While I believe there is truth to some of Dr. Devore thesis, like most historians he tends to over focus on a small subset of operations (WWII, US, UK, and German operations to prove his point. This view is a little narrow, and doesn't include any follow on of analysis of the 300+ combat/operations jumps that have been conducted since September 1945 (http://kdcnova.com/CJR_2013_Files/Combat_Jump_Record_03.07.2013.pdf), most of which were not conducted by the US/UK/USSR/Germany.

There is a place for the capability, but like any capability it needs to be employed in the correct circumstance. I believe we did that at the early stages of OEF/OIF, and obviously the French have done that to good effect in the Africa recently. As a combat operations area becomes more mature (think helicopters and their refueling locations) the opportunities to insert by parachute vice other means of envelopment naturally lessen. (Though, I might argue that there were likely instances in Afghanistan over the last few years where the US might have achieved better tactical surprise by using airborne forces staged from outside the battle area, than was achieved by conducting air assault from established bases in country.)

Ditto on the comments from the COL on this page, there is likely not a requirement to keep nearly as many CS/CSS units on full jump status.

Look at the article I posted. It lays all of this out. Even with a force 21 concept, in a conventional war, it is folly to 1) attempt to fly slow moving planes over enemy held territory, and 2) once on the ground...the likelyhood of success is minimal.

Likelihood of success is minimal? According to who?