Airborne (1997) (66 page)

Despite the claims of the Russians to still have combat-capable parachute divisions, only the U.S. has demonstrated such a capability in the last few years.

The U.S. Navy version of the C-47 was known as the R4D, and went by the whimsical nickname of “Gooney Bird.”

See my book
Fighter Wing: A Guided Tour of an Air Force Combat Wing
(1995, Berkley Books) for a full description of the KC-135. 4 Howard Hughes’s eight-engined one-of-a-kind HK-1 Flying Boat, nicknamed the “Spruce Goose,” was larger, but it only flew one short test hop in Long Beach Harbor before being placed in storage.

See my
Marine: A Guided Tour of a Marine Expeditionary Unit
(1996, Berkley Books) for a full description of the Navy’s amphibious lift and sealift forces.

The very first American jeep that arrived in England in 1942 was assigned to the British Army’s airborne training unit, to test the possibility of air-transporting it.

As this book is going to press, the last airborne armored unit in the U.S. Army, the 3/73rd Armored, assigned to the 82nd Airborne Division, is scheduled to be disestablished on July 1st, 1997.

This actually happened to several Soviet airborne operations behind German lines on the Eastern Front during World War 11.

This was the notorious Date of Return Stateside (DEROS) system, which only allowed one-year tours of duty in Vietnam.

The 10th Mountain is mainly a light infantry formation, though it does have some special mountain training for operations in high altitude and arctic environments.

See
Marine. A Guided
Tour
of a Marine Expeditionary Unit
(Berkley Books, 1996) for a description of this exercise. 4 Admiral Johnson was assigned the job of Chief of Naval Operations following the suicide death of his predecessor, Admiral Mike Boorda, USN.

For more on the ethos of elite fighting, see my book
Marine:
A
Guided Tour of a Marine Expeditionary Unit
(Berkley Books, 1996).

A former professor and Brigadier General in the North Carolina militia, J. J. Pettigrew lead his troops during Picket’s Charge at Gettysburg on July 3rd, 1863.

The Airborne troopers are famous for their running cadences, with tapes and CDs of their favorite chants being popular sellers at post exchanges around the world.

Known in civilian life as cream-chipped beef on toast, the military acronym translates loosely to “slop on a shingle.”

Pronounced “Hu-Ahhh,” it is the standard Airborne acknowledgment to an order or statement, and stands for Heard... Understood ... and Acknowledged!

In addition to the basic T-10-series parachute system, the Army also uses the MC1-1 steerable parachute. The use and certification of this square-canopy system are handled in later classes, since BAS concentrates just on basic T-10 operations and safety.

The standard speed for all aircraft (C-130 Hercules, C-141 Starlifter, and C-17 Globemaster III) dropping paratroops is 130 knots. Any more than this can literally tear the troopers apart.

Air Tasking Orders (ATOs) are the flying schedules for every kind of aircraft in a theater of operations. During Operation Desert Storm, the ATO controlled everything from bombing missions to MEDIVAC missions.

For more on the early problems of the M16, see
Armored Cav
(Berkley Books, 1994) and
Marine
(Berkley Books, 1996).

Used as a booby trap for centuries in Asia, this is a sharpened steel spike or bamboo stake, hidden in a shallow covered pit and often smeared with excrement to cause disabling infections.

Chlorine bleach and Trisodium Phosphate, two common household cleaning solutions, can neutralize many chemical agents.

A great deal of other information about the systems being described in this chapter has been covered in my other books
Armored Cav
(Berkley Books, 1994) and
Marine
(Berkley Books, 1996).

With its handsome wooden stock, the M14 is still carried by the Honor Guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. It also is used by Naval and Coast Guard vessels as a boarding weapon.

After decades of incompatibility, the Army and Air Force radios can finally communicate on common frequencies.

Prime Chance was a program to rapidly convert existing OH-58Ds to an armed configuration to support maritime interdiction operations in the Persian Gulf. In 1988, the Prime Chance aircraft swept the Gulf of Iranian gunboats that were harassing tankers. Later, the decision was made to upgrade the entire OH- 58D fleet to the Prime Chance configuration.

Army helicopters are named for Native American tribes, so the UH-1 is officially the “Iroquois.” Nobody actually calls it that, not even full-blooded Iroquois.

In an emergency, which is the normal combat situation, you can probably pack in sixteen troops, maybe more if they’re little guys with a high tolerance for discomfort.

The Battle of Kursk, which occurred in July of 1943, was the largest armored battle of the Second World War.

Known as the “Key West Agreements,” these “treaties” were hammered out at a series of meetings which determined that only the USAF could operate armed fixed-wing aircraft. Ironically, the Army used the loophole of “fixed wing” to eventually create their fleet of armed attack helicopters.

The TF-34 has also been used on a number of commercial aircraft, particularly highly fuel-efficient commuter jets.

For those of you who are among my younger readers, the Volkswagen was the original subcompact car, which was designed by Dr. Ferdinand Porsche in the 1930s for Adolf Hitler. When I was young, they were frequently a person’s first car.

One thing that the USAF rarely tells folks is just what the GAU-8 and other Gatling-type gun systems sound like when fired. From a position on the ground, the most civil way to describe it would be “a fart from God.” Hardly the last thing that one wants to hear!

“Manual Reversion” feeds the controls back into aprimitive series of pulleys and cables with just enough play to make gross corrections to the flight path of the aircraft. This is a last-ditch mode of operations only! 7 For a better understanding of this AGM-65 Maverick, see
Fighter Wing
(Berkley Books, 1995).

Before you laugh too hard at this idea, “heated” Hogs (as the Sidewinder-equipped A-10s are known) shot down a pair of Iraqi helicopters with their guns (they were too close to use the AIM-9s). By comparison, the huge force of F-16s that fought in the 1991 Persian Gulf War failed to score a single confirmed “kill” against enemy aircraft.

On a personal note, the general’s son, Major John Horner, USAF, is a distinguished Warthog driver with numerous missions in the “no-fly” zones over Bosnia-Herzegovina. Not that this keeps the senior Horner, himself a supersonic flyer of some renown, from jokingly saying that “he died in a motorcycle accident,” rather than tell folks that his son is a “Hog” driver!

For a fuller description of the Desert Storm air campaign, again see
Fighter Wing
(Berkley Books, 1995).

The squadron, the famous 138th Fighter Squadron of the 174th Fighter Wing, part of the New York Air National Guard (ANG), “The Boys From Syracuse,” served honorably in the Gulf, though dogged by technical problems with CAS F-16s. Today they are a “normal” F-16 ANG unit.

Johnson and the Skunk Works were already working on the F-104 Starfighter, and soon would begin work on the famous U-2 spy/reconnaissance plane.

In the USAF, while officers fly aircraft, enlisted personnel “own” them. If you doubt this, just ask any Air Force crew chief. He or she will rapidly set you straight!

For more on the Bell-Boeing V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor transport, see
Marine
(Berkley Books, 1996).

The number 717, which seems to be missing from the sequence of Boeing model numbers, was the company’s internal project designation for the KC-135.

Each KC-10 is roughly equivalent to 2.3 KC-135s in fuel capacity.

The YC-15’s maximum takeoff weight of 216,000 lb/98,000 kg and wingspan of 132 feet 7 inches/40.4 meters compares with 580,000 lb/263,000 kg and 170 feet/51.7 meters for the C-17.