D-day paratroopers?

kernals12

Banned
For the D-Day landings, why did we have soldiers land in slow unarmed boats then have them try to get off the beaches amidst a hail of bullets? Why couldn't we have them parachute in, which seems to me a lot less risky? I'm sure there's a good reason for it, and I'd like to know.
 
I can dig up some numbers tonight. Otherwise I can say with confidence the losses of the airborne forces were comparable to the landing forces.

Beyond that the maximum number of aircraft were committed to the airborne operation. No more could be carried.
 

kernals12

Banned
I can dig up some numbers tonight. Otherwise I can say with confidence the losses of the airborne forces were comparable to the landing forces.

Beyond that the maximum number of aircraft were committed to the airborne operation. No more could be carried.

Logistics and Training.

It takes far, far more time to train paratroopers. They are specialists, after all.

Okay, got it, thanks.
 

nbcman

Donor
For the D-Day landings, why did we have soldiers land in slow unarmed boats then have them try to get off the beaches amidst a hail of bullets? Why couldn't we have them parachute in, which seems to me a lot less risky? I'm sure there's a good reason for it, and I'd like to know.
It is far easier to land more equipment as well as heavier equipment via landing craft than by aircraft. For example, a C-47 could carry 27 lightly armed troops (no tanks, no significant heavy weapons) in one trip which would take a minimum of 5 hours in a round trip (2.5 hours out and back). A single Landing Craft Infantry can carry 210 troops.

EDIT: For reference, Overlord planners had to provide for the landing of 20,111 vehicles and 176,475 ground troops on D - Day (date of invasion) and D-plus-1 (the day after D-Day). To land the number of ground troops planned, it would take over 6500 C-47 round trips.
 
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Archibald

Banned
There were a lot of paratroopers landing on D-day, except they landed all over the place, scattered by the wind. See Band of brothers first episode.
 
For the D-Day landings, why did we have soldiers land in slow unarmed boats then have them try to get off the beaches amidst a hail of bullets? Why couldn't we have them parachute in, which seems to me a lot less risky? I'm sure there's a good reason for it, and I'd like to know.

1. Paratroopers were landed. Rather a lot of them. See Pegasus Bridge, and many others.
2. Paratroopers drop from the air. They are subject to scattering by wind.
3. Planes sometimes get navigation wrong, and drop in the wrong place.
4. Paratroopers can't take heavy equipment with them. They are light infantry without armour, artillery, or pretty much anything above what a guy can carry.
5. Paratroopers will take around 10-25% casualties on landing (depending on wind and terrain) even before the enemy start doing anything. Broken ankles, that sort of stuff.
6. Once they land, they have to walk to wherever they need to get to. No vehicles.
7. They will land scattered. The worse the wind conditions and the higher the drop, the greater the scattering. They will also land in the middle of the enemy. That's potentially a problem.
8. You don't want to think about the mess that a couple of enemy fighters getting into the drop would cause.
9. It takes a long time to teach people how to jump out of an aircraft and survive the experience.
10. Once you step out of a plane, there's no way of getting back if you discover things have gone pear-shaped. Worst case on a beach, you can pull troops off. Worst case on a drop, there's nothing to be done.
11. Paratroopers need a plane to jump out of. The number of paratroopers is limited by the number of planes. Landing boats are quick and easy to build. Planes, not so much.
 
IIRC, 'Band of Brothers' aside, enough paratroopers went in to make a real nuisance of themselves. That was the best that could be expected, and losses were scary. Still, it meant the Germans had to divert vital resources to 'rear security', adding to their difficulties...
 
For the D-Day landings, why did we have soldiers land in slow unarmed boats then have them try to get off the beaches amidst a hail of bullets? Why couldn't we have them parachute in, which seems to me a lot less risky? I'm sure there's a good reason for it, and I'd like to know.


One thing to bear in mind is the other 4 invasion beaches did not produce the heavy casualties that the Americans suffered at Omaha beach. Only at Omaha was the casualty rate comparable to the Airborne losses. At the other 4 beaches the defenses were better suppressed. On D-day it was far less dangerous coming in by landing craft then parachuting. Omaha being the exception.

And as other posters have said a seaborne invasion allows the landing of vehicles and heavy weapons. And insures that there is a concentration of troops.
 
Sustainability. paratroopers only have what they can carry on them, plus a limited number of supply canisters. Resupply by air is chancy at best. basically paratroopers only work well in seizing a given objective and then holding until regular ground forces arrive. Crete worked only because once the Germans took an airfield they could bring in reinforcements and supplies quickly, and even then seaborne follow on was needed, and of course, Crete is an island so the Commonwealth forces could not reinforce. In Normandy, in spite of Allied air power the Germans could have brought heavy forces against the paratroopers who would quickly run out of everything. See Arnhem for example.
 
4. Paratroopers can't take heavy equipment with them. They are light infantry without armour, artillery, or pretty much anything above what a guy can carry.

Point 4 is incorrect a total of 4 parachute field artillery battalions and 2 glider field artillery battallionswhere dropped in D day and d+1. The British forces successfully landed tetrach tanks using gliders but this weren’t very effective, the artillery however was.

Also overlord after action report and lessons learned states that one of the reasons Omaha was so bloody was that it was the only beach that lacked an airborne carpet being dropped near the avenues of approach to such beaches. And that in fact the dispersion caused by the winds, and missed drop zones actually might have helped minimize casualties when SGP (small groups of paratroopers) engaged and slowed German forces on the way to the beaches
 

nbcman

Donor
4. Paratroopers can't take heavy equipment with them. They are light infantry without armour, artillery, or pretty much anything above what a guy can carry.

Point 4 is incorrect a total of 4 parachute field artillery battalions and 2 glider field artillery battallionswhere dropped in D day and d+1. The British forces successfully landed tetrach tanks using gliders but this weren’t very effective, the artillery however was.

Also overlord after action report and lessons learned states that one of the reasons Omaha was so bloody was that it was the only beach that lacked an airborne carpet being dropped near the avenues of approach to such beaches. And that in fact the dispersion caused by the winds, and missed drop zones actually might have helped minimize casualties when SGP (small groups of paratroopers) engaged and slowed German forces on the way to the beaches

You mean the two American glider borne field artillery battalions in Normandy which lost their their howitzers due to damage:

The 319th and its sister GFAB, the 320th, are the only two glider field artillery units to make two glider assaults behind enemy lines during the Second World War; at St. Mere Eglise on D-Day and at Nijmegen in the Netherlands. The 319th lost approximately 40% of its strength due to death, wounds and injuries sustained by glider crashes and enemy fire on the night of 5–6 June 1944 during the Normandy landings.

Because all of their howitzers were damaged by crash landings, the 319th fought as infantrymen for the first few days supporting the paratroop and glider infantry of the 82nd Airborne during the battles to control the Merderet bridgehead. The glider carrying the commander of the battalion, Col Todd, crash-landed behind German lines and he and the survivors had to fight their way back to the original landing zone to rejoin his men.
 
9. It takes a long time to teach people how to jump out of an aircraft and survive the experience.

Not really; you can get people up to free-fall parachuting standard in a couple of weeks.

Static-line jumps are easy; the challenges are moving around the plane fully-loaded, and landing without breaking too many things.
 
Logistics and Training. It takes far, far more time to train paratroopers. They are specialists, after all.
Isn't that more to do with how they're expected to be used and viewing them as if not elite then at least a cut about units so receiving extra training rather than the actual parachute part though? You can get qualified to carry out static line parachute jumps in a day nowadays. Granted it's rather harder with a rifle and carrying a metric ass-tonne of equipment whilst swinging under an old-fashioned parachute but at the same time they were rather more free and easy with the health and safety regulations.


3. Planes sometimes get navigation wrong, and drop in the wrong place.
IIRC wasn't part of the problem that they didn't have any navigation aids so a large number of aircraft dropped them in the wrong places even before scattering thanks to wind? Considering how close the range was I've wondered previously why they didn't try to make sure that the transports had something like Gee or one of the other systems.
 
Leaving aside the ridiculous logistical challenge of trying to land the seaborne troops by air (and it would have been impossible), paratroopers are by definition light infantry without access to heavy weapons beyond what little guns can be glider landed in. A German armored counterattack, as we saw in the case of Arnhem, against Paratroopers, is not a fair fight.
 

Driftless

Donor
Also, the Germans did prep some inland areas against paratroops and gliders. Low-lying meadows were flooded, open fields had tall glider-shredding posts driven in them (Rommel's Asparagus)
 
The real question is why no Marines in LTV(A)-2 Buffaloes and LVT(A)-4 for support
Germany First, right?

General Goerge C Marshall: MARINES in Europe? GET THE FUCK out of my office i'll be damned if those fucking gloryhounds steal the credit for the war again GODDAMNIT
 

Driftless

Donor
The real question is why no Marines in LTV(A)-2 Buffaloes and LVT(A)-4 for support
Germany First, right?

More LVT's of all flavors could have been very handy during the landing. Also, for river and morass crossing in the weeks after the invasion.
 
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