3 ms·

>... it is theoretically possible that they could visually look at clouds vs trees and trash blowing about to correct for the difference between surface winds

>... it is theoretically possible that they could visually look at clouds vs trees and trash blowing about to correct for the difference between surface winds and winds aloft They[0] achieved remarkable drop retrieval rates in Vietnam, often over 95% and sometimes 100%, by doing just that; having an observer on the ground report the surface conditions. The navigator had a very stressful few minutes on the run-in adjusting his previously-calculated ballistics. A easier and superior technique was high-speed dropping using reefed parachutes. The payload would descend at 100 metres / second, basically immune to crosswinds. This wasn't suitable for medicines, fuses or other fragile payloads but was fine for munitions, rations, rice and tins of peaches ( a tonne of which once squashed a jeep ). HALO dropping was also used but whilst being gentler on the payload it was less accurate and more susceptible to rigging failures. The Caribou squadrons adopted a technique later used by Blackwater in Afghanistan; fly directly over the drop-zone at 50ft, pitch-up and kick the pallets right out the back. [0] 374th Air Wing and later the Vietnamese airlift squadrons who were trained in the same techniques

VLM 11y ago
Imagine semi-AI parachutes and pallets that measured their trajectory as they landed and fed that data back to the parachutes a few seconds behind them such that the landing precision increased automagically when you drop multiple pallets. Even better prioritize by contents so stuff thats tough and easy to recover by hand lands first as the guinea pig and signals back to all the other soon to arrive pallets whereas you can nearly guarantee the mortar ammo lands within 10 feet of the mortar weapon. Why you could even kick the mortar and mortar rounds off different aircraft and theoretically they'd land right next to each other in formation, whereever they happened to land. Speaking of guys on the ground using some of those "invisible" IR chemlights and some smoke grenades the soldiers on the ground could visually signal conditions back to the parachutes while the parachutes are falling... This formation of flares on the ground or whatever means hot LZ so use dense hot LZ pattern, this formation means crazy civilians are rushing the field about to get squashed so disperse, this pattern means the LZ has just been overrun so fire the thermite grenades while you're still in the air... Another strange idea, do the helo LZ thing where you try to secure three LZs to throw the enemy off, and only after the parachutes are already falling, throw smoke and the parachutes all formation fly to the pre-determined LZ. So instead of the enemy having an hour to react or tens of minutes, the troops will be resupplied a couple minutes at most after its obvious they're getting supplies.

VLM 11y ago

Imagine semi-AI parachutes and pallets that measured their trajectory as they landed and fed that data back to the parachutes a few seconds behind them such that the landing precision increased automagically when you drop multiple pallets. Even better prioritize by contents so stuff thats tough and easy to recover by hand lands first as the guinea pig and signals back to all the other soon to arrive pallets whereas you can nearly guarantee the mortar ammo lands within 10 feet of the mortar weapon. Why you could even kick the mortar and mortar rounds off different aircraft and theoretically they'd land right next to each other in formation, whereever they happened to land. Speaking of guys on the ground using some of those "invisible" IR chemlights and some smoke grenades the soldiers on the ground could visually signal conditions back to the parachutes while the parachutes are falling... This formation of flares on the ground or whatever means hot LZ so use dense hot LZ pattern, this formation means crazy civilians are rushing the field about to get squashed so disperse, this pattern means the LZ has just been overrun so fire the thermite grenades while you're still in the air... Another strange idea, do the helo LZ thing where you try to secure three LZs to throw the enemy off, and only after the parachutes are already falling, throw smoke and the parachutes all formation fly to the pre-determined LZ. So instead of the enemy having an hour to react or tens of minutes, the troops will be resupplied a couple minutes at most after its obvious they're getting supplies.