The recent incident in Kazakhstan (brief comment on the situation in Kazakhstan) has made everyone marvel, and the airborne troops of lao Maozi are large in scale and quick in response (regarding the 98th airborne division sent by Russia to Kazakhstan this time), which is indeed a rare elite army.
The next natural question is: What will the future of airborne operations look like?
Personal opinion is that large-scale airborne landings are not easy to appear, small and medium-scale airborne landings will be very common, and there will be more and more cases of cooperation with helicopters, drones, etc.
Massive airborne landings were staged many times in World War II, with the splendor of Sicily, Normandy and the Rhine, to the crushing defeats of Arnhem and Dnieper and, well, Crete. But after the end of World War II, airborne landings above divisional size never appeared again. The scale limit of local wars is the main reason.
The difficulty of organizing large-scale airborne landings and the long time to prepare are in conflict with the fast pace of modern warfare. The cost of painstakingly organizing a division-sized airborne landing is not much less than launching a group-sized campaign on the ground. To prepare hundreds of medium-sized and above transport aircraft, the airport must have two or three, and at least ten landing sites suitable for battalion-sized paratroopers, otherwise you will still parachute into this division in two times. The air formation of a large-scale air group requires a large number of command and communication, occupies a large number of radio frequency bands, and the crosstalk of each frequency band when airborne is also a headache; the meteorological support conditions are not satisfied by a sunny day, and it is also necessary to look at the wind speed and direction of the landing field. In addition, there are requirements for escort and suppression of enemy anti-aircraft fire. When these conditions can be met, the enemy has basically lost strategic and operational air supremacy. So why not free up these resources for the Air Force to drop bombs?
In contrast, the airborne landings carried out after World War II were small and medium-scale. For example, the two regimental-sized airborne landings of the US 187th Airborne Regiment in the Korean War in 1950 and 1951, the large-scale parachuting of the Eight-Foot Gate Ferry Battalion when the Chiang Kai-shek Group attacked Dongshan Island in Fujian Province in 1953, the company-scale Jilong Beach parachute landing at the Bay of Pigs in Cuba in 1961, the regimental-size parachute landing of the French Foreign Legion in Keruvezy zaire in 1978, and the regimental-sized parachuting of the 75th Einsatzgruppen regiment when the United States invaded Grenada in 1983.
Due to the moderate size, most of these airborne battles were successful, but it should also be noted that the victorious airborne operations were won by the attacking side with a clear advantage. For example, the 75th Einsatzgruppen was subjected to intensive anti-aircraft fire during the airborne landing to capture Sarins airfield, and the airborne landing was temporarily suspended. The U.S. military then mobilized AC130E gunboats to suppress ground fire and resume airborne landings. During the invasion, all four branches of the US army were on the battlefield, not only far superior to the opponents in terms of equipment, but also invested 9 times the strength of the troops to ensure absolute superiority.
The US military parachuted into Grenada, and the net map was invaded and deleted
During the airborne landing, the battle is often lost when the organization is poor or the defender responds correctly. For example, during the battle on Dongshan Island, the paratrooper battalion of Chiang Kai-shek's army was shot at by our company of cross-border hydrants in the air during the airborne landing. In fact, the company did not have special anti-airborne training, but the commander had rich battlefield experience and correct response, with the main force of the company to hold the ferry, and some troops and militia controlled neilin village. The transport plane carrying the radio fled back to Taiwan in fear of anti-aircraft fire, and other transport planes began to airborne at an altitude of 1,000 meters, which was 3 times higher than the expected 250 meters, resulting in excessive dispersion. After the main force of the paratrooper battalion landed, it was suppressed by the ground fire of the sailor company and the villagers in Neilin Village, and the lack of the will to fight was afraid of casualties to form a confrontation, and finally it was annihilated by the 31st Army troops who crossed the sea to reinforce.
Heavy machine gun positions on Higashiyama Island
In general, small and medium-scale airborne landings are less expensive due to the small number of resources called, and the low complexity of the involvement makes the implementation efficiency high and the risks easier to control, so it is more popular with military powers. During the Cold War, the U.S. Airborne Division was gradually reduced from three to only one 82nd Division, and the equally famous 101st Division was reorganized into an Air Assault Division.
Airborne operations have shown a trend of closer integration with helicopter landing. When the U.S. invasion of Grenada was made an airborne landing at Sarins Airfield by the Army's 75th Einsatzgruppen, 400 U.S. Marines successfully landed and took control of the airfield at Pearl Airfield in the north of the island by helicopter from the USS Guam amphibious assault ship. In rugged Afghanistan, the United States and the Soviet Union used helicopters on a large scale to carry paratroopers or special forces to eliminate the rebels.
From the perspective of technological development, unmanned systems represented by unmanned aerial vehicles may become another arm of airborne troops. Since the UAV can patrol a specific area in a short period of time and can hit suspicious targets according to the instructions, more importantly, the loss of the UAV will not cause casualties to the UAV controller, and it is only necessary to re-order the new UAV. This makes drones ideal for some reconnaissance attack missions with a high risk factor. Airborne operations, on the other hand, are very sensitive to the casualties of paratroopers because they are no rear combat. Therefore, the combination of unmanned aerial vehicles and airborne operations may be a direction of development in the future.