British Army's rapid reaction force takes to the air.

[RoyalGreenJacket]

Troops from the British Army's rapid reaction force have taken part in an aviation skills master class.


Soldiers from 16 Air Assault Brigade parachute onto Salisbury plain from an RAF Hercules transport aircraft

From parachuting to helicopter assaults and Rapid Air Landing (RAL), Exercise EAGLES FLIGHT 12 has seen 16 Air Assault Brigade soldiers working on Salisbury Plain with RAF C-130 Hercules transport aircraft and helicopters.

The training was about honing key skills required for the Airborne Task Force (ABTF), which sees the Brigade maintain a force ready to deploy anywhere in the world at short notice to do anything from disaster relief to war fighting.

On Wednesday 4 April, some 120 troops from Colchester-based A Company (A Coy), 3rd Battalion The Parachute Regiment (3 PARA), parachuted onto the Everleigh drop zone before being picked up by helicopters to "assault" South Cerney airfield.



Major Richard Todd, Officer Commanding A Coy 3 PARA, said:

"This exercise has allowed us to work on a number of air insertion techniques, learning the skills and drills on the ground and then rehearsing it in the air.

"These techniques are applicable to all operations we could be asked to do as the ABTF, from the benign situation of moving into a country to a hostile environment where we could have to seize an objective by parachute assault."

The parachute jump on Wednesday was an overhead assault, which sees troops carrying light equipment and weapons jumping from C130s flying at only 600ft (182m).

read more: http://www.mod.uk/DefenceInternet/De...esToTheAir.htm

good to see such a potent fighting force practising this this capability on the grand scale.

[ollie]

Major Richard Todd, Officer Commanding A Coy 3 PARA,

Poor guy, why was he demoted ?, he was a Lt Col in "THE LONGEST DAY" lol

[spider]

Good prep for their upcoming Falklands deployment...

http://www.huntspost.co.uk/news/latest-news/colchester_3_para_return_to_falklands_1_1339515

[RoyalGreenJacket]

Good prep for their upcoming Falklands deployment...

http://www.huntspost.co.uk/news/late...ands_1_1339515

i had a great time doing that role in the Falklands, but it's an experience you only ever want to do once.

[Craghopper]

Poor guy, why was he demoted ?, he was a Lt Col in "THE LONGEST DAY" lol

He's an OC and not a CO.

[timhorgan]

RoyalGreenJacket;367563]

The training was about honing key skills required for the Airborne Task Force (ABTF), which sees the Brigade maintain a force ready to deploy anywhere in the world at short notice to do anything from disaster relief to war fighting.

Anywhere in the world except Afghanistsan obviously - having such an asset in Afghanistan would have been very useful on quite a number of occasions in the past few years and would likely be very useful between now and the "withdrawal".

But they are going to the South Atlantic? The Taliban are not stupid and operate on good intelligence so that such a "Fireforce" type asset lurking in Afghanistan now would give the Taliban serious pause for thought before attacking outposts.

"These techniques are applicable to all operations we could be asked to do as the ABTF, from the benign situation of moving into a country to a hostile environment where we could have to seize an objective by parachute assault."

It all just beggars belief - the capacity for self-delusion seems to be infinite.


good to see such a potent fighting force practising this this capability on the grand scale.[/QUOTE]

[timhorgan]

Poor guy, why was he demoted ?, he was a Lt Col in "THE LONGEST DAY" lol

Ollie,

He was a Captain in the Paras in WW2 and like Tom Beckett in our day another Dubliner who was actually in the thick of it. See Wiki-

Richard Todd was born as Richard Andrew Palethorpe-Todd in Dublin, Ireland.[1] His father, Andrew William Palethorpe Todd, was an Irish physician and an international Irish rugby player who gained three caps for his country.[2] Richard spent a few of his childhood years in India, where his father, a British officer, served as an army physician.[3]
Later his family moved to West Devon and Todd attended Shrewsbury School. Upon leaving school, Todd trained for a potential military career at Sandhurst before inaugurating his acting training at the Italia Conti Academy.
This change in career led to estrangement from his mother. When he learned, aged 19, she had committed suicide, he admitted in later life that he had not grieved long for her.[3]
He first appeared professionally as an actor at the Open Air Theatre, Regent's Park in 1936 in a production of Twelfth Night. He played in regional theatres and then co-founded the Dundee Repertory Theatre in 1939.


Captain Richard Todd landed near Pegasus Bridge on 6 June 1944.
During the Second World War, Todd joined the British Army, receiving a commission in 1941. Initially, he served in the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry before joining the Parachute Regiment and being assigned to the 7th (Light Infantry) Parachute Battalion as part of the British 6th Airborne Division.
On 6 June 1944, as a captain, he participated in the British Airborne Operation Tonga during the D-Day landings.[4] Todd was among the first British officers to land in Normandy as part of Operation Overlord. His battalion were reinforcements that parachuted in after glider forces had landed and completed the main assault against Pegasus Bridge near Caen.[4] He later met up with Major John Howard on Pegasus Bridge and helped repel several German counter attacks.[5]
As an actor, Todd would later play Howard in the 1962 film The Longest Day, while Todd himself was played by another actor.

[RoyalGreenJacket]

it's got nothing to do with Afghanistan - this is just an extra capability we have in the British Army, aswell as war fighting in Afghanistan.

there was no need to jump into Afghan - getting into the place was never a problem - getting around however was and as a result when the Paras did serve there they used the same Mastiffs and Ridgebacks as everyone else.

and what objectives in Afghan would we need to jump onto before NATO withdraws? we can just drive there without the higher threat of IED's taking out those moving on foot, but - if we were required to jump onto an objective en-masse - we can, so what's the problem?

there is no self-delusion here - our lads practice this role because we have dedicated airborne units - infact a whole Airborne Brigade. self-delusion might apply to a force that is practising an airborne role without any means of ever putting it into practice. we have that means.

so what's your beef?