Airborne Deployment Exercise

HAMI, XINJIANG

The Third Airborne is deploying for its Divisional Combat exercises. The Regimental Headquarters of the Marakkar's Airborne at Hami is seeing a flurry of activity with the troops and equipment being driven towards Auxiliary Air Base Hami.

Mission Objective : Secure and occupy NTC Achalpur against Division size infantry force through airborne assault.

SCOUT

The first phase of the mission started with an RCAF Merat being boarded by a platoon of 16 RCSF trained Special Forces scouts. The Merat marked as a transport aircraft lifts off for the long flight towards Maharashtra. The Air Defense aspect of the exercise is not however being tested now.

At 75000 ft altitude above NTC Achalpur, the red warning lights suddenly turned green and the jump master helped each of the 16 commandos to jump out into the inky black night. Assisted by their radium lit altimeter and wrist held GPS the 16 paratroopers maintained their controlled free fall making adjustments to their horizontal vectors by changing their body postures. The webbed jump suits also helped gain a greater degree in control over their flight. Wearing NVG/Thermal/Optical goggles they maintained formation watching and correcting flight as a team. With their Submachine guns safed and strapped tight across their chest, the paratroopers opened their parachutes at 3000 ft above the estimated ground level. Now was their most vulnerable part of operation. They hoped they would not be seen by any hostiles on the ground.

Trusting to their luck that there be safe ground, the 16 commandos landed. The scout leader landed first and his thermal signature on ground enabled the rest of the platoon to make terminal corrections to their descent. One soldier landed on a large rock and fractured his legs. Holding back a scream, the agonized soldier squawked over the encrypted radio asking for assistance. The Captain commanding the platoon and the platoon medic rushed to him and gave him temporary palliative while mending the legs as best as possible using splits. The rest of the platoon spread around the small jungle clearing where they had landed. 

Divisional Intelligence and Reconnaissance had plotted this clearing as most apt for the assault. The scout force had to gather tactical intelligence for the next wave of soldiers who would be waiting for the go order at Hami.

Leaving their stricken colleague to be the radio man, the platoon spread out. They had to scour the territory and make sure that any hostile activity is detected and plan for neutralizing them readied.

Two hours later, they detected a jungle patrol post manned by a team of 5 hostiles with possible radio connectivity. Leaving the scout teams to monitor patterns and gain any tactical intelligence, the team reported back to the Division.

FIRST WAVE

The 4th Assault Brigade of the Third Airborne Division is boarding the HALOBs at the AAB Hami. The 3000 strong Brigade force is currently deployed on a massive airborne assault. With dual mission of parajumping and air cavalry, the assault brigades of the Royal Cochin Ary's Airborne Divisions are trained in both. Each of the 10000 combat soldiers in an Airborne Division has to be para qualified. 

Airborne deployment of an entire brigade along with its equipment is no slight matter. Fully 2 regiments (100 Nos) of HALOBs are tasked to this operation. Each HALOB can carry 100 fully equipped parajumpers, thus 30 HALOBs are devoted to the paratroopers alone, with the remaining 70 tasked to airdrop the heavy equipment needed by the Brigade to hold the ground and prepare the way for the next stage in deployment.

Meanwhile back at NTC Achalpur, 4 commandos have staked out the jungle patrol post, 4 have maintained stationed around likely points of assault and the remaining soldiers have readied remote controlled thermal flares and radio beacons along the clearing with special IR markers denoting hard ground, bad for landing. Soon their combat radio chirped to life and the GO signal was received. 

There was no point in subtlety at this point, the roar of scores of HALOBs is unmistakable for any peaceful purposes. As soon as the GO signal was received the jungle patrol post was attacked and its personnel neutralized. As each Halob passed through a certain designated corridor at 30,000 ft altitude, the parajumpers ran out trusting to the Static Lines to deploy the parachutes. Each Halob would take a semi circular track for the airborne delivery starting from 30,000 ft and ending at 35,000 ft thus ensuring the the flights following them would not be disturbed. The course lasting for a total of 120 seconds would see all 100 parajumpers exiting the aircraft, followed two minutes later by the next HALOB on the same course. Thus in two hours a force of 3000 heavily armed Airborne troops landed in the jungle clearing, immediately setting out to improve their perimeter to make way for the successive brigades. However at this time this brigade is still infantry in nature and its full potency can only be delivered by the heavy equipment now being air dropped by the remaining HALOBs on the course. 

With a Company sized force remaining to oversee the airdrop and prepare a logistics base, the brigade would be assisted by the scout commmandos to expand the defensive perimeter. Until their heavy equipment arrived in a few hours, they would not be able to do any assault but could defend from an attack in limited manner. 

Meanwhile 35,000 ft up, the rear bay doors are opening up for the first squadron of 15 HALOBs as their palletized cargo are being dropped by the jumpmasters. The leading parachutes pull the pallets, 5 to a HALOB from the cavernous hold of the transport aircraft. Altitude activated lines open the parachutes automatically and special air drop specialists on the ground guide the remote controlled control station of the parachutes by timely adjustments. The pallets dropping on the ground are carefully recovered by the logistics company, who proceed to deploy out the field mortars, field guns, ammunition, food and water in these pallets. The engineer company meanwhile use the clearing equipment from a few of these pallets to expand the jungle clearing.

PHASE THREE

Phase three of the assault involves the landing of heavy equipment and remaining brigades. The jungle strip which is now widened and cleared by the engineer company now sees the first of Metacs and GH44s landing, bringing the BMP3s, BTR90s, BRDMS and the Piranha and Blackhawk helicopters. Another day would see the clearing made still larger and HALOBs bringing more heavy weaponry and MH53s.

GH44 Aerial Artillery Platform would soon join the assault which would be launched by the Airborne Division.

From the first scout landing to full Divisional formation would take a total of 14 days in combat conditions.