Bridges Too Far - The Parachute Regiment, WW3 and Military Parachuting

The Parachute Regiment is one of the youngest Regiments in the British Army, yet holds near legendary status for its exploits. Born in the dark hours of WW2, perhaps its most difficult yet proudest hour was during Operation Market Garden, 80 years ago this month, when after landing in the Netherlands, it fought against overwhelming odds to try to capture and hold the bridge at Arnhem. Unable to be relieved in time by the wider Army, the ensuing withdrawal was a defeat. With losses of over 8,000 men from the 12,000 dropped, the battle for Arnhem is one of its proudest Battle Honours and a salient reminder of both the courage of the individual soldier, and the challenges in integrating airborne operations into the land campaign.

Crown Copyright

After WW2 the British Army retained a credible parachute capability, in the form of 16 Independent Parachute Brigade, carrying out post war colonial policing and carrying out drops into Egypt  in 1956 as part of the Suez campaign. Used as a ‘fire brigade’ for more conventional operations across the Middle East as the UK withdrew from ‘East of Suez’, the Brigade was central to many of the messy and bloody operations that occurred as the Empire drew to a close. By the late 1960s though, the British Army focus had shifted overwhelmingly to preparing for war in Europe as part of a NATO operation. The British Army Of the Rhine (BAOR) was fully committed to operations to support the defence of Germany against a Warsaw Pact invasion.

Built around a Corps sized formation, comprising multiple armoured divisions and supporting infantry assets, and occupying part of northern Germany, BAOR was a central part of the wider NATO Northern Army Group (NORTHAG) that was under the command of a British officer. In addition to the German army, the Royal Netherlands Army also contributed the 1NL Corps to NORTHAG, a formation of three divisions. NATO plans called for a period of time during the both transition to war and also after the outbreak of war for reserves to be called up and reinforcements assigned to bring formations up to their full war strength.

The reason this matters is because by 1970 16 Parachute Brigade was a bit of an oddity for the British Army. Committed to NATO and the ‘Allied Command Europe Mobile Force’ (ACE), sometimes known as the Allied Mobile Force (AMF)  and under SACEUR control, it was intended for use to provide rapid reinforcement to NATO flanks as a crisis grew and reinforcements were rapidly required. This force often consisted of airborne units, intended to be quickly deployed as needed, not necessarily to turn the tide of a battle, but to provide support and assistance before the main forces were stood up.  By 1970 documents reveal that SACEUR had three different concepts for how the Brigade was likely to be deployed in wartime as part of its wider commitment to the AMF:

‘AFNORTH: The Parachute Force would be used with the whole of UKMF, or with one brigade and associated aircraft. The force would remain based in the UK for operations as required by CINCNORTH.

AFSOUTH: The force would respond to the Southern Region as a rapid responding reinforcement force, or as part of a Joint Airborne Task Force.

AFCENT: The Parachute Force would deploy in the parachute role from a mounting base in the UK when the UKMF complete is allocated by SACEUR for tasks in the Central Region.”

What this means is that had WW3 broken out, the role of the Parachute Regiment would likely be to conduct some form of rapid reinforcement operation by land / air to support whichever front SACEUR felt would most benefit from being augmented at the time.

Crown Copyright

In 1970 though, as part of a wider review of NATO plans, forces and the process of transitioning to war, the Commander Northern Army Group  (which would, depending on when the process was commissioned have either been General Fitzpatrick or General Hunt – both combat veterans of WW2)  several concerns were identified about the speed of mobilisation and the risks this posed to security of the main force.  The key issue was that of the speed of mobilisation of 1NL Corps for war and how to protect vital river crossings. Concerns had been raised that during the transition to war phase:

 “the comparatively slow build up of certain national corps M-Day forces, particularly that of the Netherlands, would necessitate temporary misemployment of mechanised formations on vital protection tasks on the River Wesser… 1NL Corps currently plans that the River Wesser, roughly between Bremen and Verlen, should be secured by a mechanised brigade of the Netherlands Army, which is based in Holland, to allow 3 other Dutch brigades to cross the river and move forward to their Defence Plan positions. This Brigade will not be mobilised in time to start moving from Holland before Simple Alert’.”

What this meant in practise was that at the point when NATO forces would want to be moving forward into pre-planned defensive positions to stop the Warsaw Pact attack, they would instead be disrupted by having to hold vital defensive lines in critical locations (particularly bridges) to enable the mobilised Dutch Army to move forward into its wartime position. This could have weakened the overall mobilisation as their forces struggled to get into place in time, exposing chinks in the defensive posture that could be exploited in a breakthrough.

To reduce the chance of this, NORTHAG instead proposed a plan to use the Parachute Regiment for the job and allow the Dutch Army the space to proceed to its wartime roles. This caused some concern in the UK, and led to a fascinating paper that highlighted the real challenges of identifying effective employment for the Parachute Regiment during a general war.

The proposed plan involved taking the Parachute Force (essentially 16 Parachute Brigade) and using it to secure crossings on the River Wesser until such point as the Dutch Army had been fully deployed. It was a more modern spin on the ‘Market Garden’ operation in that it involved the Parachute Regiment holding bridges, possibly against Soviet attack, until such point as they were relieved, and returned to NORTHAG control for further use.

Two main options were considered for this possible operation. The first was to air drop the Brigade across the area, before hostilities had begun, enabling them to land and secure the bridges in peacetime. This would ensure that were a surprise attack to occur, the crossings were already under allied control and they could mount a robust defence of them.  The problem with this option was that it raised significant concerns around how best to carry out the drop. There were four main issues identified with this plan.

A.     If the force were to be airdropped, there are insufficient parachutes and platforms to enable it to be dropped a second time, unless they were recovered, which under the circumstances is unlikely.

 

B.     The Parachute Force lacks logistic transport and its war reserves would still be in the UK. Replenishment could only be air, which could be difficult if hostilities had started before the Parachute Force had been recovered…

 

C.      It would take 48 hours to assemble and prepare virtually the whole of the Hercules force which would be required for a para dropped operation. As the parachute force would be required to be in position at the River Wesser at Simple Alert, this would considerably delay the move of reinforcements to BAOR at a vital time…

 

D.     There is the danger of rumour and possibly local panic being engendered in the period of great tension which is bound to exist at Simple Alert by the dropping of Parachutists on Wesser crossings.

 

The alternative plan therefore was to look to move the force by air to airheads and move it into position ahead of the alert. This would require the Germans to provide motor transport to get to the bridges, but it would have offered four main advantages:

A.     It would be more economical in aircraft effort

 

B.     The Parachute equipment would remain available for later use.

 

C.      The Force would arrive complete for its task without suffering the disorganisation and possible casualties of an airdrop.

 

D.     An air portable infantry brigade of 3 Division could be used for the task, thereby saving the Parachute Force for a parachute role…

Both options also considered the issue of recovery – namely how do you get the Force back to the UK. It was concluded that: “For the force to be fully effective once more, it should be recovered to the UK, if possible by air, where the RAF ST bases are fully organised to mount the force and where the War Maintenance Reserve is held. If hostilities began before such recovery, later employment in the primary role might prove to be impossible.”  

Crown Copyright

What does this analysis tell us about the viability of the Parachute Regiment in wartime operations? There are several key points that really leap out here. The first is that even in 1971, there was recognition that the force was heavily reliant on RAF aircraft to be deployed operationally. It was noted that to employ it on this task would have taken the entire available Hercules force (some 50 plus aircraft at this stage) which would have disrupted the wider transition to war process for BAOR. In other words, to deploy your premier infantry asset, you must trade off other operational activity to deliver this. This choice remains key today – the RAF airlift force is vastly smaller than almost 55 years ago and any decision to use the force at scale would undoubtedly cause the same issues – if we are operationally deploying it, other activity must cease.

The next issue is logistics – its clear that the Parachute Regiment represented a ‘use it and lose it’ capability – once deployed in wartime, recovery would almost certainly not be possible and it would become a disrupted force in the short term, and then effectively a land based asset for the remainder of the war. In the context of WW3, this highlighted the risk of deployment – once on the ground and committed, there was unlikely to be any form of recovery operation  possible. All air assets would have been in use elsewhere, and likely taking casualties too. For senior commanders, they were faced with an impossible choice – assigned some of the finest and most capable soldiers in the British Army, they would only be able to use them in their intended role once – and after the war began, the air battle in the Central Front and wider attrition may well have made this impossible to do. At what point do you commit your reserve, and what happens if you hold on for too long and deployment becomes impossible?

The final issue is that of whether to use other infantry for the role (for example a 3 Div infantry brigade). What is the right use of a force designed, trained and intended to inflict extreme violence on the enemy, ideally causing strategic shock and disruption, and is it best intended to ‘dig in and hold on’ as static troops behind the front line, or is it better to hold it back and deploy it to disrupt and cause chaos, but in doing so, accept they are likely written off for good? Its hard to envisage any circumstances where ‘recovery’ would have been possible if dropped once war began, but equally would wasting some of your finest troops on vital defensive roles be more sensible in terms of ensuring their survival for later use as the war progressed? There is no right answer here, but it indicates the challenge with identifying the role of airborne forces in a large scale conventional war environment – what is the best use for them, and can the job be done more effectively by other infantry units?  If the latter is the answer, what then is the case for military parachuting at all?

This is an interesting question to explore because it highlights the challenge of defining why the Parachute Regiment matters, particularly in the context of planning for WW3. Central to its ethos is the idea that it exists to deploy by air, into the maelstrom and conduct highly aggressive operations to overcome impossible odds. But as planners noted, it is a resource heavy capability that would require being supported to the detriment of all other operations, and it can only be used once in wartime. Is this a capability that makes sense in that context?

Crown Copyright

It perhaps highlights that the role of airborne troops isn’t necessarily for full wartime use, but instead to provide a capability for operations short of all out war. The discrete use of a company group to support operations in a third nation, or providing a capability to parachute  in and conduct raids in support of wider limited operations indicates there is a need for military parachuting outside of the central front scenario. The challenge for planners in the 1970s and arguably today is defining how much resource should be invested in that, versus other equally valid needs. Do you focus resources on the elite troops, tying up airlift and other assets to support their operations, or do you step back from this and refocus these resources to bolster normal line infantry units? If the role of the Regiment was to have been to hold bridges, do you even need a Parachute capability at all to do this? Would it have been better to invest in some more helicopter lift and trucks to move them as an elite force into operations, but accept that the need (and associated costs) of maintaining a large-scale airborne force was unnecessary in the context of WW3?

In 1971 the outcome was that it was agreed not to employ the force on this task, and it remained committed to the AMF. Interestingly the debate on how best to employ the Parachute Regiment in the context of NORTHAG continued well into the 1980s – in the superb website BAOR ORBAT 1989 – which is arguably the single best document setting out just how large and complex the fully mobilised BAOR would have been in wartime, Page 126 sets out the discussions on the role of the Parachute Regiment in the ground defence plan. It seems likely that in the event of war it would have been employed to hold ground in the town of Hildesheim in Germany, and probably deployed by land, that was crucial to the planned battle that 1 Div planned to fight. Once deployed, the goal of the Parachute Regiment would have been to fight and hold the Town to the last man to deny it to the Soviets, to ensure that BAOR could absorb any initial attack and then regroup and defeat any enemy attack. As a plan it would have meant a land focused role, but one that required the traits that the Parachute Regiment is renowned for – unpleasant fighting in foul conditions where the toughest of men will be needed to triumph in adversity.

It is easy to see similarities to the 1970/71 debate and the modern era. In both cases planners are trying to balance off the value that the force brings with the associated costs that it generates and defining the right wartime role for it. In a world where planning is focused on deterring Russian aggression and where reinforcing NATO and holding the line matters, do you need to be able to parachute, or could you just fly in to an airhead and move by land? What is the operational benefit of landing by air in either 1970 or 2024 if the cost of doing so is widespread disruption to wider airbridge work and the reality that once deployed, the force cannot be used again unless recovered, which would seem unlikely.  This is not arguing that there is a case for scrapping the Parachute Regiment, or for stepping away from the need to conduct military parachuting. There will always be an enduring need for some discrete capability to support some defence tasks in this way, but it is important to understand what the strategic effect is that the Parachute Regiment can have in the context of the wider Army / Defence operations, and whether it needs to be able to jump at scale to deliver this.