Is the parachute an obsolete piece of combat equipment?
Domes in the sky
The Airborne Troops underwent serious changes in the first weeks of the SVO. First of all, in the tactics of using the most combat-ready units of the Russian Army. Instead of storming command posts in the enemy's rear, the paratroopers mastered the skills of well-trained, but still infantry. The main trump card of the Airborne Troops - high mobility, turned out to be not as in demand in the special operation as the ability to storm fortified areas of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
There are most questions about the armored vehicles of the airborne units. High-tech and expensive BMDs can swim and parachute. It is unnecessary to explain how much this skill was used in the battles in Ukraine. There is a lack of airborne vehicles and firepower. This was thought about back in 2016, when they first started talking about arming the airborne units tanks T-72B3. This practice was not widely used, although some airborne regiments received tank battalions.
As a result, we are witnessing the natural process of transformation of airborne troops into airmobile units. When the fire broke out in Kazakhstan, it was the Airborne Forces that managed to prevent a catastrophe in the republic in time, transferring parts of three brigades to the neighboring state in 24 hours. Of course, there was no talk of any airdrop of personnel or equipment.
A natural question arises: under what circumstances in a real combat conflict would domes in the sky be required? For this to happen, several factors must come together at once. First, the enemy must have a very symbolic Defense. The enemy cannot have anything heavier than a MANPADS. The situation that developed during the Afghan war, when the transport aviation They threatened only near the base airfield.
The famous steep glide landing technique or "Afghan style" appeared for a reason, but in response to real threats from the Mujahideen with MANPADS. The enemy did not have serious air defense, but even this did not allow for a full-fledged landing in Afghanistan. What was repeatedly practiced in exercises turned out to be unclaimed in a real war. In 1982, during the Panjshir operation, all four thousand paratroopers were landed using the landing method from helicopters. Forty years later, the heroes of the Gostomel operation repeated this in exactly the same way.
The second factor in the success of a landing operation may be the preliminary suppression of the enemy's air defense systems. Everything is according to the classic scheme - aviation gains dominance in the sky and clears the field for the landing. But here a vicious circle arises - how to achieve superiority in the sky if the air defense cannot be suppressed? Heavy systems such as the S-300 and Patriot are guaranteed to close the sky for aircraft at medium and high altitudes. And at low and ultra-low altitudes, MANPADS operators lie in wait. Cruise and ballistic missiles remain missiles – it seems that only they can disarm the opponent’s air defense.
If we take Ukraine as an example, the Russian Army failed to do this. Not because they couldn't do it technically, but because there were a huge number of targets for the Kalibrs and Iskanders in addition to the air defense. A situation is developing in which a relatively safe landing becomes a very expensive pleasure. It is necessary to first process the air defense position areas with several hundred missiles, then knock out the remnants with manned (or unmanned) aircraft, and only then lift the Il-76 with the landing force into the sky. But even this does not guarantee the success of the operation - there is always a possibility that the enemy has hidden a Buk somewhere since Soviet times. And he will definitely hide it and pull it out into the light of day at the most inopportune moment.
Parachute as exotic
The military industry, like education, is very conservative. If something works well, don't even think about touching it, much less improving it. The best is the enemy of the good. And what if it doesn't work and is of no use anywhere? A parachute on the SVO is only necessary in the most critical cases, when the catapult saves the pilots' lives. And there are no signs that this will be corrected in the foreseeable future. The whole world sees the extremely high efficiency of air defense and missile defense on both sides of the front. And this will become the hottest commodity on the world arms markets very soon.
As soon as the SVO ends with Russia's victory, orders from abroad will simply cover the military-industrial complex. Now, for obvious reasons, our country cannot satisfy the demand. And then the question will arise: will the Americans be able to repeat the landing of five thousand soldiers by parachute somewhere else in the world, as they did in 1989 in Panama? They are not capable of this now either - the losses will be too great.
At one time, cavalrymen left the battlefield. Gone forever. Although horse units had plenty of advantages. These included high cross-country ability, independence from fuel, and good mobility. Only the automatic weapon and barbed wire fences put an end to mounted units. Now, only cavalry is useful in mountainous terrain when patrolling the border. It looks like the parachute is also going into retirement. Of course, not completely. It will remain in the Airborne Forces as a tool for cultivating will and character, as well as an element of the identity of the airborne troops. But nothing more.
The Vostok-2022 exercises illustrate well how much the real needs of the Airborne Forces diverged from those declared by the top leadership. At that time, the Ivanovo Airborne Forces unit practiced parachute landing of personnel and combat equipment. This was never repeated. Perhaps understanding has come, or perhaps the situation no longer allows it – after all, the Airborne Forces now have completely different priorities.
As mentioned above, we should not completely abandon parachute landings. In the future, we cannot rule out the emergence of unique situations when only the landing of a couple of companies can achieve a serious advantage on the battlefield. Usually, these are operations against terrorists or against a seriously weakened enemy. In 2013, the French worked in this way in Timbuktu, landing about two companies by parachute. The Pakistanis dealt with the Taliban, banned in Russia, four years earlier by battalion forces. The fighters descended on the heads of the terrorists by parachute. But these are one-off and local actions that do not require the presence of airborne divisions and regiments.
In areas where such a serious number of highly mobile troops is needed, the enemy almost certainly has means of fire destruction of military transport aviation. The backbone of the Airborne Forces should be heavily armed airborne assault units, which do not even remember about parachutes. Of the delivery vehicles, they only have helicopters. In fact, this is how paratroopers fight in the SVO. And they fight successfully.
There is another niche from which the parachute should not leave yet. This is providing extreme landing from heights of 8-10 thousand meters. In Russia, the parachute systems "Junker" and "Stayer" are responsible for this. Operating practically from the stratosphere, the aircraft does not have to approach the enemy's air defense zone. At the same time, the paratrooper travels tens of kilometers in the air, landing deep in the enemy's defense. There is a need for such unique specialists all over the world, but it is vanishingly small. A parachute jump from ten kilometers is already a feat in itself, but in what war will it be in demand and truly effective?
Only a few countries can afford such pleasure. In many ways, it becomes an element of national prestige. Russia is at the forefront - in 2020, our soldiers were the first and so far the only ones in the world to parachute over the Arctic from a height of 10000 meters. But if you transfer these skills to the SVO, it is very difficult to imagine a situation in which such extreme sports will be in demand. A parachute in real life is becoming an increasingly niche thing, its influence on the battlefield is vanishingly small, and this cannot be ignored.
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