The paratroopers took heavy casualties. They were not "totally annihilated".
Total or not annihilation the casualties were heavy enough to cause a shock to the German leadership...
The paratroopers took heavy casualties. They were not "totally annihilated".
Hitler stopped doing airborne operations after appaling casualties on Crete, which was nearly ideal conditions for an airborne operation.
I may be totally stupid, but weren't German paratroops used in Sicily 1943?
Total or not annihilation the casualties were heavy enough to cause a shock to the German leadership...
To add to that, it doesn't take 100% casualties for an unit to be useless. For example during WW2 finnish determined any soviet division that had taken 40% casualties to be destroyed. Because for all practical purposes it was.
Same applies for the airborne troops, if you have to rebuild the entire unit after each time it is used, then perhaps the resources are better used somewhere else.
Well, airborne landing is rather complicated operation - planning and preparing it takes some time. Blitzkrieg is to fast for this, unless you planned an ariborne attack before starting the campaign. Situation changes to quickly, e.g. one position might be vital one day, and completely without any importance two days later. The same about blocking retreating units - situation changes to quickly if enemy decides to choose other way of retreat. Besides, retreating forces are dangerous too, and in open field lightly armed paras don't have big chance against masses of infantry, unless you count psychological factor. Also Germans didn't have that many paras and, what is more important, that many planes. Tactical landings might be possible, nothing more.Originally posted by merlin
Perhaps on the Eastern Front, rather than have a paratroop drop to achieve a particular objective, why not have one to hold one!?
What I mean by that is that the problem with the German invasion of Russia was the the Germans had two 'armies' a Panzer Army, and a much slower infantry army - that marched fought and marched again - supported by horse drawn artillery. The problem being that with the different 'speeds' of the two 'armies' gaps appeared - or else orders came down from on high for the Panzers to halt - while the infantry caught up.
But, in order to continue the disruption, of the enemy that the Panzer thrusts made, then they shouldn't halt but go on to the next objective.
Hence, the thought couldn't a paratroop drop be made where two Panzer pincers have met. Now in this situation the retreating Russians that were caught in the 'pocket' are met not by the panzer division's motorised troops, but the paratroopers. This leaves (much to Guderian's relief) the Panzers able to resume their advance and continue their disintegration of the enemy.