I wondered whether the vast resources put into raising and training the elite parachute armies by the US and Britain in WW2 was really cost effective? I'm thinking in particular of the D-Day landings when most of the paras never reached their intended drop zones and their objectives were accomplished with much smaller numbers than were actually intended. I know that the British had good results from small scale use of paras such as the Bruneville raid and Pegasus bridge, but was the strategic use of vast airborne armies really that successful when compared to the resources invested in training and the logistics to get the paras into battle? And if the large scale use of airborne troops was that important wouldn't it have been more efficient to use glider borne infantry rather than specialist paratroops?
I just wonder if Ike would have preferred to have more regular infantry divisions to put into combat in late 1944 than paratroop armies which proved difficult to actually get into combat when and where necessary.

All currently military thinking is in agreement, no. The strategic use of airborne units (particularly in WW2) was in general a failure. As you correctly pointed out, tactical operations such as Pegasus (which ultimately had a strategic importance) worked out well whereas the 'Spectaculars' such as Varsity, and Market Garden were poorly executed/planned and rarely gained their objective. The assets which had to be diverted to Airborne operations were needed elsewhere. If one (for example) looks at the strategic bombers which were diverted as glider-tugs or transports during Market garden it quickly ceases to make any sense.
Glider forces? Too expiremental. Again large assets had to be diverted to allow their deployment, they were handicapped by their payload (apart from a few attempts to use the Hamilcar with the Tetrarch) and were unable to deliver the 'punch' particularly when facing German Armoured troops. The casualties in glider accidents were als heavy, too heavy to allow a succesful deployment. Only with the advent of the helicopter, the tactical transporter and of course greater integration with air-assets, were para units able to reach their full potential and more important, the ability to survive, fight and be re-supplied on the battlefield. Jim

I guess the evidence is shown today. The US only has one Div. the 82nd. The 101 became Airmobile. LOts of guys get jump wings, but I think that's more of a macho thing than anything else. I was accepted to jump school, but then I also got Motor Officers Course which was at same time. Figured as an officer, in tanks, that learning a higher level of maintence would be of much more value to me. Plus it was 2 months TDY VS 3 weeks and I didn't have to sweat.

Everything that has been brought up is quite true.Add this to the mix at normandy
the bad dispersal of the units involved in the drop,caused a great deal of confusion
in the german high command.They (the germans) had no idea of the strengh
of the troops dropped, or really were they all were. Even with the monumental
screw up of the drop( it really was) the mission over all were completed

ponysoldier

ponysoldier, this is why I wondered if the use of gliderborne troops only would have been better than paras if large scale airborne forces were to be used, at least with gliders on landing a troop or platooon would have come down together. I wonder how much time was lost by soldiers simply trying to locate their mates before actually engaging the enemy.

NO.It may have been necessary

what about the germans and their brilliant paratrooper actions?
siccily the resque of il duce, mussolini?

so it can be affectiv,
the allies just used them wrong I guess... d day. was the first time.
market garden was 90% succesfull.

so they were worth it and that their arnt many left these days..
well maybe cause you send in one smart bomb to do the work?

just my toughts!

Morning
Well some glider borne troops were used to follow up the first drops, to renforce
the first drop. But the glider themself caused problems.Most of the pilots were
taken right from the unit involved and had miniumn training in flight there
was alot of busted up troops and equipment. Was it costly ? yes it was
was the mission a failure ? no, it was more successful than hope for.
The mission was to capture and hold certain key points this was done
as you say with less troops dropped on target . In trying to reassemble
the rest you had troops running around in the the rear areas. What
that created was a bonus.