Airborne Warfare 1918 1945

The first drop of a body of troops was carried out by the Italians in 1927. The first active engagement of an airborne force, against a bandit army in Central Asia - just fifteen Russian troops dropped from three aircraft - took place in 1929.Yet only eleven years later airborne forces were to change, radically and completely, the way that war on the ground was conducted. Once again a new technology had pushed forward man's ability to conduct war with ever increasing effectiveness. This book tells the complete story in detail never previously accomplished. It covers all aspects of airborne forces, including the aircraft, specialist equipment and systems developed for the safe delivery of airborne troops, vehicles, weapons and other equipment.

Tyske hær; Balkan-halvøen; Middelhavsområdet; Vestfronten; Normandiet; Luftlandetropper; Red Devils; Faldskærmssoldater; 1950'erne; Korea; Suez-kanalen; Suez; Ægypten; 1960'erne; Vietnam; Fremtiden

On 10 May 1940 German Fallschirmjäger stormed the Dutch fort of Eben-Emael, south of Maastricht. The brilliantly executed operation was the first signal success by airborne troops in the Second World War and it made the military world sit up and take notice. Improved parachutes and the creation of gliders that could carry troops meant that assault forces could be dropped or landed behind enemy lines. This was a significant new tactic which had a dramatic impact on several of the key campaigns, and it is the subject of Simon and Jonathan Forty’s in-depth, highly illustrated history. They tell the story of the development of airborne forces, how they were trained and equipped, and how they were landed and put into action in every theatre of the global conflict. The results were mixed. German airborne forces were victorious on Crete, but the cost was so great that Hitler vowed never to use them in the same way again. The Allies saw things differently. After Crete they built up elite units who would play important roles in later battles – in Normandy, for example, where the British 6th Airborne Division took vital bridges prior to the D-Day landings. These are just two examples of the many similar operations on the Western and Eastern Fronts and in the Pacific which are covered in this wide-ranging book. It offers the reader a fascinating insight into airborne warfare over seventy years ago.

A complete story of the Great War's air battles, from eastern to western front, from the skies and ses of Europe to those of the Middle East and Africa.

Many books have been written about military parachuting, in particular about famous parachute operations like Crete and Arnhem in the Second World War and notable parachute units like the British Parachute Regiment and the US 101st Airborne Division, but no previous book has covered the entire history of the use of the parachute in warfare. That is why Nikolaos Theotokis’s study is so valuable. He traces in vivid detail the development of parachuting over the last hundred years and describes how it became a standard tactic in twentieth-century conflicts. As well as depicting a series of historic parachute operations all over the world, he recognizes the role of airmen in the story, for they were the first to use the parachute in warfare when they jumped from crippled aeroplanes in combat conditions Adapting the parachute for military purposes occurred with extraordinary speed during the First World War and, by the time of the Second World War, it had become an established technique for special operations and offensive actions on a large scale. The range of parachute drops and parachute-led attacks was remarkable, and all the most dramatic examples from the world wars and lesser conflicts are recounted in this graphic and detailed study. The role played by parachute troops as elite infantry is also a vital part of the narrative, as is the way in which techniques of air assault have evolved since the 1970s.

This book examines how Anglo-American ideas about long range bombing were formed and implemented. It explains how air theorists came to believe that strategic bombing would be an effective coercive tool in warfare.