In a combat jump do the paras jump 1st or does their equipment go in airdrop canisters 1st? In a small team both from same plane?
I believe the cargo goes 1st with color coded chutes to easily
locate.
I’m only guessing, but I think it would only take one instance of being hit on the head by equipment as you tried to get out of your harness before you’d start sending the equipment out first.
You jump with your equipment. Your rucksack is secured closely to your body. When you are about 100-200 feet above the ground, you release the equipment. At this point, it is no longer secured close to your body, but it does not drop free. It is still tethered to you on a line, hanging 15ft below you. This allows you to land properly without hurting yourself.
Is parachuting still used for anything other than inserting small numbers of special forces on stealth missions, or would any large assault today be done by airborne troops landed by helicopter (or nowadays, the V-22 Osprey)?
The chutes certainly won’t be “color coded … to easily locate,” since if it is easy for you to locate it is easy for the enemy to locate.
Lumpy: Only the Marines use the Osprey, the army uses Black Hawks and Chinooks for aerial insertions in most cases. In the army helicopter operations are called “air assault” versus “airborne” for fixed wing parachute ops. The army hasn’t done a real airborne combat jump since at least 2001. The last combat jump by regular forces was in 1989 in Panama. See here for an overview of US airborne operations.
A jump onto a hostile DZ, WW2 style, is unlikely to go ahead against anyone with anything resembling a modern air defence system. Even handheld SAMs make it too risky.
I see what you did there.
I’m not going to start up a debate about what constitutes a “real” airborne combat jump, but I will remind those who are unaware that the 173rd Airborne Brigade, along with elements from 10th Special Forces, artillery and support units, and a surgical team (969 total Soldiers) performed a combat jump into Iraq on March 26, 2003 as part of Operation Northern Delay.
Guess they learned from WW2 - back then, paratroopers jumped with their pack already loose and tethered to their legs. The shock of sudden deceleration upon opening the parachute often broke the leash, and since back then they opened their 'chutes right after exiting the plane at high altitude it meant buh-bye, gear, I hardly knew ye. Who needs ammo anyway ? 
Are you sure about that?
I don’t know much about ww2 mil jumping but am an experienced mil jumper from not too many years ago.
On jumps of that sort you jump from LOW altitude, the lowest possible and jumping with your kit loose would most likely result in your line becoming entangled either with you, your canopy or both.
I never really experienced any shock of deceleration when jumping static line, either from C130s or assorted helicopters so I couldn’t really envision your kit rope snapping.
Maybe ropes in the war were cheaper but you could strangle an elephant with present day ones.
Also ref another poster upthread , we were trained to drop our bergans on the rope as soon as we were in clear air, not at any specific height.
Kobal2 may be referring to a chapter in the book “Band of Brothers”. For some insane reason, the day of the actual jump they issued leg bags to all the US paratroopers, even though they had never been used in any training jumps. Many of the troopers put most or all of their gear (including their weapons) inside the bag, only to have it tear loose when they made the actual jump. That’s what happened to Dick Winters, who wound up on the ground with nothing but his knife.
Paratrooper’s equipement evolved quite bit during and since WWII. Almost anything you seen in a WWII movie is probably no longer true.
American jumpers never left their stuff behind, but the British jumped with their weapons in cases delivered by colored parachutes. (Yikes!) In the Normandy jump, US soldiers got the British leg bag, which they then overloaded only to find the fool thing falling through space when it broke away from the jumper in flight. (Oops!)
Gliders of course brought in heavier gear. Darn shame we no longer have gliders.
Nowadays, I am not aware of any army that jumps without their weapons on their person.
How long ago was this? Maybe after enough people were tangled up in tree and wire landings, they decided it would be best to wait until about 100-200 AGL to release the gear? Not to mention mid-air entanglements! It’s bad enough when someone slips under you and steals your air. It would be much worse if they sharked you and got wrapped up in your lowering line.
Historian John Keegan said that there were four great airborne drops in the war in the West, and one Soviet: Crete, D-Day, Market-Garden, Varsity, and the Vyaz’ma Operation.
Crete: success, at so high a cost German paratroopers never again attempted major operations
D-Day (Neptune): success at a high cost, but the forces were so scattered that they were of little use against specific strategic objectives; great individual bravery, but few results high command could actually “use.”
Market-Garden: failure, with heavy casualties
Operation Varsity (Rhine crossing): Wikipedia says the following:
Vyaz’ma Operation (Soviet): A corps-sized drop, described as “not successful,” a chilling summary if you’re used to Soviet descriptions of battle.
Keegan’s point was that major parachute operations were almost uniformly disappointing and often involved shattering loss of elite units. The major powers turned away from them during the war, and jumped at the chance to replace parachute assault with helicopters as soon as they were available.
I’m very curious. If not part of “Prepare to Land”, your 4th point of performance, then which point of performance included lowering your equipment back when you were trained?
True the official record classifies it as a combat jump now (but not at the time it was made), but my experience as an infantry medic who knew plenty of airborne soldiers is that no one who wasn’t actually on that drop would claim it as a combat jump.
The Army is definitely putting a far greater emphasis on helicopter operations these days, to the point where I wouldn’t be surprised if they phased out airborne units completely in the next decade or so.
I don’t understand the training format that you’re referring to but in the Brit Army Actions on exiting the aircraft were count (Never did this ever )on hearing the crack of the canopy look up, check canopy (for tears, incomplete deployment, twists etc.) if o.k. up there then all round observation, if you’re closing in on someone else or vice versa then steer away.
Once you’re in clear sky you drop your Bergan/container immediatly.
Then its feet and knees together, elbows in, chin on chest,pull down on your L.Ws and pick your P.L.F.
Apart from the fact that you’re only in the air for a very short time(Due to the low level you’re being dropped at) the weight IME tended to stabilise you.
If you left it too late it was likel;y that you’d panic a little as you experienced “Ground Rush” and become all fingers and thumbs and fail to operate your quick release hooks similteniously with the result that your equipment would hang up on you and you’d land with it.
(Which actually happened to me, I got away with it but I don’t recommend it))
We used to call the entire process of jumping F.R.P., Fear (At action stations),Relief (once your out and your canopy is deployed) and Panic when you started getting Ground Rush.
If you’ve actually done Military Parachuting you will understand what I’ve said, if you’ve just read about it on the Net then to be honest its pointless discussing it.
In the movies the people simulating Mil Jumps usually jump at greater heights then actual operational jump heights because its safer and gives you more time to handle a crisis like twists, collisions or even having your feet caught up in the L.Ws.
At No.One Parachute Training School Brize Norton the motto was Knowledge dispels Fear, but everyone amended it to fear dispels knowledge.
He means ‘The Five Points Of Performance’ which is part of the American parachuting training. It’s not a terminology used here, where the British system (and PLF technique) is somewhat different.
This kind of sounds like a guaranteed method of breaking your leg- ie., you hit the ground and one foot lands on your rucksack.
ETA: Not that I know anything about military parachuting. I’ve done one civilian tandem jump.
It’s pretty unlikely. You nearly always have some motion relative to the ground and will touch ground well away from it.
When you land you don’t go straight down because wind conditions aside, you as a preparation to landing, pull down on your Lift Webs which gives you forward,backward or even diagonal movement.
So your Bergan lands and you land somewhere near it.