On Friday, September 9, Online Defense published the Communiqué of the Paratroopers Brigade thunderbolt regarding the qualification of 26 new paratrooper explorers. While faithfully reporting the press releases, inherent to the activities carried out by our FFAA (both training and operational) as they are delivered to us, it is our duty to check its veracity and, if there were any, to refute some inaccuracies.
The aforementioned communiqué from the brigade reports that "The course for paratroop explorers, therefore, is only one of the first training steps to achieve a specialized niche capacity, to be developed with the achievement of other qualifications and qualifications at the CAPAR (such as the commanded opening parachuting course with the HALO / HAHO technique with and without oxygen) and at other specialized training bodies (survival and resistance to interrogation, vehicle recognition, environmental courses, etc.) ".
The Italian Army now uses the US nomenclature which identifies HALO / HAHO for free-fall jumps with airfoil parachutes (hence the old wording TCL). In general, a HALO is done as a simple drop, while HAHO involves immediate opening. As national regulations dictate that oxygen is mandatory above 10.000 feet (3.300 meters), it is evident that use at these low altitudes renders the technique completely useless. Therefore, it must be done with oxygen to become effective, especially the HAHO throwing technique.
The paratrooper explorers, a conventional reality within conventional paratrooper regiments of the large unit, are organized in a platoon for each regiment and have an exclusively oxygen-free formation (and not all of them, however, given the cost of training). It is clear from what it is certainly not cost-effective qualify conventional platoons to carry out HALO / HAHO launches with oxygen, when on the other hand not even i Animal 2 carry them out and would still come first in order of any priority. Hence, the statement "with oxygen" reported in the communiqué of the paratroopers brigade thunderbolt it is absolutely inaccurate.
The only department that is authorized by the SMD to carry out oxygen launches in addition to the Nono is the 17th raid wing of the Italian Air Force (which, like the Collar Moschin è Animal 1).
It seems to us that, the now endemic insistence on the part of SME, of wanting to equip some conventional departments with insertion capacity that has always been used exclusively by raiders - to carry out the institutional tasks assigned to them - constitutes a useless and harmful waste of resources. Among other things, in addition to the lack of funds to carry out these projects, human resources are also lacking (moreover, the personnel of the paratroopers regiments certainly do not have the same qualitative parameters as the FS), as they are overburdened with tiring shifts with the “Safe Roads” operation.
Also read "The HALO / HAHO insertion capacity"
Photo: brigade thunderbolt
