I watched The Rocketeer again a few days ago, and I got me wondering if a jetpack would actually be a useful item in WW2, or even in today’s military?
A fictional jetpack that could run tens of minutes with no real world fuel/ejection mass limitations? It would be absolutely revolutionary, like air mobile cavalry without the limitations of needing helicopters. A significant portion of the fight is maneuvering fast to where the enemy doesn’t want you to be. You see this at the operational level through all of warfare as horse-mounted troops could always dominate ground-mounted troops, but this would bring it even to the tactical level where individual troop movements and squads would have practically unlimited mobility on the battlefield. It would probably be an advantage on par with one side having tanks and the other not.
For niche purposes, probably. The people in the movie likely would have originally imagined huge numbers of flying infantry, as part of the standard “everyone fights the last war” phenomenon; that’s how they’d have been used in WWI, for mass assault. But with the proliferation of machine guns and anti-air weapons, that’d have been suicide.
In WWII and the modern era they’d be more a superior version of paratroopers, who can go up as well as down. Less well armed/equipped than a standard soldier by necessity - the rocket pack has to displace something, after all. But somebody who can do things like zip onto or over buildings in urban combat or be dropped from aircraft basically anywhere.
This is just my gut instinct, but in the era of WWIi, which was pre-helicopter, I can’t see how it wouldn’t be an advantage over an enemy who did not have jet packs. Assuming they worked reliably and as promised.
For one thing, tanks traditionally have less armor at the top. Today, this is exploited by top-down guided missiles like the FGM-148 Javelin - Wikipedia or drones dropping IEDs in Ukraine. In WW2, without modern guidance systems, the ability to fly above a tank and shoot down onto it would’ve been quite helpful, even if that meant exposing a soldier to AA fire, especially if that tank wasn’t guarded by infantry. Some of the bigger anti-air systems might’ve had a harder time tracking a tiny, fast-moving person-sized target flying so low (but not always; some could be aimed down too).
And for the Japanese, it probably would’ve made kamikaze attacks even more deadly. A swarm of exploding people launched from a plane would’ve been an early take on Multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle - Wikipedia…
PS There are also modern versions being tested: https://youtube.com/shorts/jCynApD4so8?si=OCew5j_sNDC4aunz
Maybe it’ll be an Olympic sport someday… Dubai had a jetpack race just a couple years ago: https://youtu.be/oRol5tiXNdY?si=MFuHd0egiGlVKyqf
I remember a old Sci-Fi story about the Soviets developing an Anti-Gravity backpack and how it didn’t work out quite the way they thought it would…(can’t for the life of me remember it’s name). Also, this cartoon from my favorite Web-comic comes to mind…
Press On.
Glad to see I’m not the only one for whom that was the first thought.
The biggest problem with jetpacks is that there is no cover in the air. It would be like skeet shooting for the enemy.
That’s why I suggested it would be good for urban combat; the buildings provide cover. I would expect it to be used more as a “jump pack” than for continuous flight in order to stay low and avoid being “skeet”, as the comic above calls it.
It would absolutely be useful in WWII, and the lack of protection could be compensated for.
Artillery could pound a section of the line, keeping the enemy’s heads down while your troops flew over the line. They could then attack the enemy from the rear, opening a hole where you could pour your tanks and troops through.
Another thing they could do would be to be much better paratroopers. The problem in WWII was that paratroopers couldn’t control their landing spots very well and would be scattered all over, losing cohesion.
Allowing control could land units together in the correct position.
That would be more in line with motorsports.
Modern drones would easily replace Jetpack soldiers today.
The drone pilot sees and reacts just like a person strapped in a jetpack.
A drone pilot could have superior field of vision. Multiple Cameras facing in every direction.
Jetpacks could be useful to transport infantry a short distance and land them on the ground.
The unconsidered problem with jet packs is the height issue, even more than getting shot.
Shoot and only wound an infantry, he drops to the ground, and could be picked up and sent to the evac (MEDIC!). Live to fight another day.
Shoot and only wound a jetpacktrooper so that he can’t control his pack, and he falls to the ground with a resounding splat. Somebody has to clean up the mess.
And that doesn’t include pure mechanical failure. WWII vintage stuff broke all the time. Your engine cuts out and you fall straight to the ground with a resounding splat.*
Given that, I thought the Rocketeer was an awesome movie!
*This also applies to Iron Man, but you know comic book physics. Stark never turns to a red mush when he hits the ground at speed in the suit.
Right- imagine the first scenes of Saving Private Ryan. Instead of the Rangers having to lead the way onto and off the beach and finally flanking the German fortifications, they could have taken off out of the landing craft and just landed beyond the beach, and from there, flanked the fortifications.
Would the machine guns and anti-air weapons really work that well against humans though? Even for a skilled soldier, I would think that shooting enemy troops flying at jetpack speed in the air would be surprisingly tough to do, marksmanship-wise. And would MANPADS like Stingers be able to lock on to and hit a jetpack soldier as something it’s programmed to lock on to or recognize?
They’d be super useful, even today, in rapidly deploying soldiers across short distances. Jump to the top of a building or a cliff, behind enemy positions, or just above the ground to rapidly cross open terrain.
You wouldn’t fight while flying though. Jetpack troopers would be more like dragoons. Hop into position, take some potshots and fire some rockets, and hop into another position.
But the German fliegende Raketenrucksacktruppen (
I made that up) will fly out over the water and drop bombs into the landing craft, killing everyone on board.
If both sides had jetpacks, it would be more interesting. Would they dogfight? Have midair MMA contests?
It’d be interesting to see the kinds of formations and squad tactics that would arise from something like that. Presumably there’d be a lot of trial and error – fireworks – before some standard set of tactics evolves, and with them, modified air defenses.
The first month would look quite different from the second year, I’d imagine.
This is really key, and a bunch of folks are jumping over it.
A jetpack powered by magic Treknobabble would be a really useful, and perhaps revolutionary addition to leg infantry.
A jetpack that could be built using 2026-era real world power sources is nigh to useless.