AHC: Have paratroopers be integrated into the Air Force

If Marines are part of the Navy, why does this not apply to paratroopers with the Air Force? After all, Marines were usually transported to their campaign / theatre by Navy ships and Paratroopers by Air assets. From memory, the Luftwaffe had the fallschirmjaeger, but I can't think of another Air Force that incorporated paratroopers into their organisational structure.

What changes after 1945 would need to take place within Western militaries for this to occur?
 
Tradition and practicality. Marines historically started out as ship security and were rarely expected to fight alongside army units and thus kept their navy association, that and they still usually fight independently with their own support. Paratroopers usual explicit task however is to support army operations and fight alongside them and not with the airforce, integrating them as an airforce unit makes little sense. Germany is as you say the oddball and it wasn't really a success in any imaginable sense and most other nations saw that.

So this one does not really makes sense. Air forces typically don't want to do the job and spend resources on the job and the army does not want another branch moving in on its turf.
 
In 1965 the RAAF formed the Airfield Defence Guards (ADGies) and in Vietnam they provided the majority of the door gunners for 9 Sqn RAAF UH1 helicopters. It probably isn't much of a stretch that ADGies get inserted into LZ as initial security (as opposed to moving out to objectives like the Army troops) for the RAAF helicopters and from there not much of a stretch that they get parachuted in. Then its merely a matter of incremental scope creep over 50 years.
 
If Marines are part of the Navy, why does this not apply to paratroopers with the Air Force? After all, Marines were usually transported to their campaign / theatre by Navy ships and Paratroopers by Air assets. From memory, the Luftwaffe had the fallschirmjaeger, but I can't think of another Air Force that incorporated paratroopers into their organisational structure.

What changes after 1945 would need to take place within Western militaries for this to occur?

The PLA Air Force controlled the airborne corps since its inception in 1950 and the airborne troops remains a separate military branch in Soviet/ Russian military forces since 1946.
 
In 1965 the RAAF formed the Airfield Defence Guards (ADGies) and in Vietnam they provided the majority of the door gunners for 9 Sqn RAAF UH1 helicopters. It probably isn't much of a stretch that ADGies get inserted into LZ as initial security (as opposed to moving out to objectives like the Army troops) for the RAAF helicopters and from there not much of a stretch that they get parachuted in. Then its merely a matter of incremental scope creep over 50 years.

Technically, the USAF does has paratroopers today, if we count the combat controllers and PJs.
 
In 1965 the RAAF formed the Airfield Defence Guards (ADGies) and in Vietnam they provided the majority of the door gunners for 9 Sqn RAAF UH1 helicopters. It probably isn't much of a stretch that ADGies get inserted into LZ as initial security (as opposed to moving out to objectives like the Army troops) for the RAAF helicopters and from there not much of a stretch that they get parachuted in. Then its merely a matter of incremental scope creep over 50 years.

Part of me was thinking about a more offensive role for the ADGs and, forming an equivalent to the RAF Regiment's II Squadron. A parachute trained squadron capable of parachute insertion and securing forward airfields. A capability that might be attractive during Konfrontasi and Vietnam.

The PLA Air Force controlled the airborne corps since its inception in 1950 and the airborne troops remains a separate military branch in Soviet/ Russian military forces since 1946.

Strangely enough I was thinking about the VDV in my original post and, I didn't know about the PLAAF controlling the airborne corps.

The more you know.
 
In 1917 during WW1 BG Mitchell proposed to drop the 1st inf Div by parachute from hp400 bombers. His plan was approved for execution in 1919 however the war ended before it could have been done (his experiments ended with the drop of a machine gun section in 1920). Let's speculate that WW1 last into 1920, and in 1919 and 1920 the allies are able to successfully conduct the proposed airborne operations (not unlikely since if combined with a tank offensive, it would have reintroduced maneuver warfare into a mostly static western front). These success could have been used by the nascent US air service as a justification for a separate Air Force based on an Airborne doctrine rather than\or complementary to a strategic bomber justification. This would have ensured that Airborne forces remain part of the US Air Force, rather than the Army.
 

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If Marines are part of the Navy, why does this not apply to paratroopers with the Air Force? After all, Marines were usually transported to their campaign / theatre by Navy ships and Paratroopers by Air assets. From memory, the Luftwaffe had the fallschirmjaeger, but I can't think of another Air Force that incorporated paratroopers into their organisational structure.

What changes after 1945 would need to take place within Western militaries for this to occur?
The problem to achieve that with the US was that the USAAF was part of the army. So the paras were formed from US army divisions and when the USAF was separated out post-war the standard was already set that paras were Army divisions. You'd need an independent USAF pre-WW2 who copies the Luftwaffe model to make that happen. IMHO though that is actually the worse way to go about it, as the paras will spend most of their time working with the Army on the ground than in the air with the Air Force.

The Marines are a subset of the US Navy in the command structure, but they have largely integrated their own air assets into their force structure and operate independently from the Navy except in a limited set of circumstances, namely transport and fire support from naval vessels in the event of a contested landing or if operating near the shore. If anything Paras should probably operate more like that with their own integrated air support and transport, not really being related to the Air Force at all other than getting air superiority support. Frankly an army should have it's own independent air support separate from an air force that goes beyond just helicopters, much like how navies has their own air force. An air force should mainly focus on it's independent strategic role and achieving air superiority rather than even army support missions.

The Luftwaffe model was more a function of Goering's power play to control all that flies, even the infantry transported by his planes. That is why there hasn't been any air force that has copied that model, they didn't have nearly the same political power struggles that the Nazi state had, with a politician having control over a branch of the military and building it up to the point that the air force had it's own tank divisions. That's right, multiple tank divisions, not to mention several armies worth of infantry.
 
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In 1917 during WW1 BG Mitchell proposed to drop the 1st inf Div by parachute from hp400 bombers. His plan was approved for execution in 1919 however the war ended before it could have been done (his experiments ended with the drop of a machine gun section in 1920). Let's speculate that WW1 last into 1920, and in 1919 and 1920 the allies are able to successfully conduct the proposed airborne operations (not unlikely since if combined with a tank offensive, it would have reintroduced maneuver warfare into a mostly static western front). These success could have been used by the nascent US air service as a justification for a separate Air Force based on an Airborne doctrine rather than\or complementary to a strategic bomber justification. This would have ensured that Airborne forces remain part of the US Air Force, rather than the Army.

Would have been a complete disaster making market garden look good in comparison.

Remember you have no effective command and control elements at this point which you need for a division. At D-day where radios were available 101st and 82nd had no contact with 50% of their forces and a few german battalions in a theater very sparesly populated by the enemy inflicted very severe losses on said unorganized forces. Here you have a very densly populated theater with no opportunity for such a force to rally and get organized.

If anything such a proposal will probably discredit the paratrooper idea and make people give up on the entire idea before it has a chance to mature.
 
The UK has the RAF Regiment, which includes parachute trained troops.

"The Royal Air Force Regiment (RAF Regiment) is part of the Royal Air Force and functions as a specialist corps founded by Royal Warrant in 1942. The Corps carries out soldiering tasks relating to the delivery of air power. Examples of such tasks are Non Combatant Evacuation Operations (NEO), recovery of downed aircrew (Joint Personnel Recovery - JPR), and in depth defence of airfields by way of aggressively patrolling a large area of operations outside airfields in hostile environments. In addition the RAF Regiment provides Joint Terminal Attack Controllers (JTACs) to the British Army and Royal Marines, and provides a platoon size commitment to the Special Forces Support Group."
 
The USN has parachute trained forces as well. Obviously the SEALs but also NGLO (Naval Gunfire Liaison Officers) who also act as FACs for Navy air in support of the Marines. Hospital corpsmen who are assigned Marine Recon also are parachute (and dive) trained. The point of this is that forces who are parachute trained do not equate to paratrooper/airborne formations.
 
The UK has the RAF Regiment, which includes parachute trained troops.

"The Royal Air Force Regiment (RAF Regiment) is part of the Royal Air Force and functions as a specialist corps founded by Royal Warrant in 1942. The Corps carries out soldiering tasks relating to the delivery of air power. Examples of such tasks are Non Combatant Evacuation Operations (NEO), recovery of downed aircrew (Joint Personnel Recovery - JPR), and in depth defence of airfields by way of aggressively patrolling a large area of operations outside airfields in hostile environments. In addition the RAF Regiment provides Joint Terminal Attack Controllers (JTACs) to the British Army and Royal Marines, and provides a platoon size commitment to the Special Forces Support Group."


https://www.arrse.co.uk/wiki/RAF_Regiment

*cough*
 
The UK has the RAF Regiment, which includes parachute trained troops.

When you need someone to brass their own body armour up, shoot their oppo in the stomach while playing cowboys with loaded pistols and commission a painting of how they bravely defended an airfield from an attack by 16 lightly armed insurgents with a defence force of just 10,000 men supported by mortars, artillery, attack helicopters and fast air, accept no substitute...
 
When you need someone to brass their own body armour up, shoot their oppo in the stomach while playing cowboys with loaded pistols and commission a painting of how they bravely defended an airfield from an attack by 16 lightly armed insurgents with a defence force of just 10,000 men supported by mortars, artillery, attack helicopters and fast air, accept no substitute...

But not before having 8 harriers being destroyed in the process
 
But not before having 8 harriers being destroyed in the process

Luckily they hadn't spent the previous couple of years boasting to every media outlet that wandered too close to the EFI about how they were the thin green line and brave lone defenders of the airfield and all the billions of pounds worth of aircraft based there before the Taliban wandered onto the airfield and destroyed billions (possibly a bit of an exaggeration) of pounds worth of aircraft...
 
I think everyone admitted that the German Falschirmjagers and Luftwaffe ground forces were really bad ideas. It's hard to see any argument in favor of air force ground combat forces. If nothing else, the Army would complain that these 'air grenadiers' were getting preference for tactical air support. :)
 
Would have been a complete disaster making market garden look good in comparison.

Remember you have no effective command and control elements at this point which you need for a division. At D-day where radios were available 101st and 82nd had no contact with 50% of their forces and a few german battalions in a theater very sparesly populated by the enemy inflicted very severe losses on said unorganized forces. Here you have a very densly populated theater with no opportunity for such a force to rally and get organized.

If anything such a proposal will probably discredit the paratrooper idea and make people give up on the entire idea before it has a chance to mature.
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I don't disagree about the lack of command and control, or the fact that it had a high probability of failure. The plan was to drop them 4 miles from the front, just behind the German artillery formations (this would have been in full view of the allies along the front, specially thru observation balloons) which will then initiate their offensive along the front. The idea was not to attack from the rear but rather to dig in and prevent the retreat and reorganization of german forces. Casualties would have been horrendous, but a gain of four miles (or even half that with the loss the entire group of paratroopers) in an offensive would be seen as an spectacular success in an war where an offensive was deemed successful if it moved the front 100 yards. Considering that the HP400 was estimated to carry 8 people (paratroopers) at most they would have been able to drop 800 soldiers in the operation, not an entire division at most a bn (but i digress). As sad as it was, the loss of an entire bn in an "successful" offensive was considered acceptable at the time (entire brigades were lost to gain a lot less).

Another reason that increases their probability of success, would have been that this was the first use of paratroopers during a war, with effect similar to those caused by the first tank offensive in ww1 and the first airborne use in WW2. The fact that there was no heavy AA defense behind the front and many others factors. In market Garden the drops were successful and concentrated with most of the units hitting the correct drop zones. They were not expected to maneuver out of the DZ and seize objectives, the plan was to dig in on the drop zone and prevent reinforcement from moving forward and the enemy from retreating.

However, my post had nothing to do with whether the operation had succeeded or not, it had to do with answering the OP question about putting paratroopers under the Air Force. So, I Stand by the answer that if the operation had been carried out and if the operation had been successful (two big If's but not ASB) there is a justification for the air service to use them as the reason for service independence thus keeping the paratroopers under the Air Force in US service
 
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