Hi guys, Would like to pick at your wealth of knowledge! I'm working on some artwork and want to get this right. I'm wondering what colours US Airborne and British Paratroopers parachutes were? Searching the mighty Google tells me the British used X-Type parachutes that were a reasonably light olive green? I've also found the Americans used T-5 chutes and believe these were also olive green but I seem to recall seeing white in movies/media? Maybe they were training chutes? Did they come in two different colours? I'm 99.9% certain both Brits and US jumped out of DC3 / Dakota's on both operations, can somebody confirm to remove the 0.1% of doubt? Also, I'd like to know if the chute stitching / pattern physically looks the same when the canopy is open and viewed from above? Any help appreciated
In addition to the C-47 Skytrain (Dakota for you people) he C-46 was used in parachute drops during Operation Varsity, but due to an inordinate combat loss of these aircraft, General Matthew Ridgeway forbade the further use in airborne operations. They continued to be used as cargo planes since they carried twice the load of the C-47. Here's a quick looksee of the C-46. Read all about it; Curtiss C-46 Commando - Wikipedia As for parachutes, the US Army used both white and OD green, sometimes paratroopers in the same stick had different colors (colours, happy now?). You can google "WW2 parachutes" and go to images to see what was used. This article is mainly about aircrew parachutes, but I thought that it was neat and included it anyway. WWII Uniforms - Parachutes 1943-1945 Enjoy!
There were certainly some US pattern camouflage parachutes used by the British 6th Airborne as there are numerous photos of them being used to line some of the command trenches dug during Varsity
Or the US style camo parachute material was gathered from the supply drop at 13:30 hours on the Varsity drop. The re-supply was done exclusively by the US airforce using B-24's. Alex.
I never figured out why bombers couldn't be used more for re-supply missions than they did. More than just a few times I've read that airborne operations were hampered by the lack of suitable aircraft, namely the C-47/Dakota. Dropping bombs, dropping supply canisters, what's the difference? For all that matters, why couldn't some of the bazillion bombers the USAAF had available in the ETO be modified for dropping paratroopers? I'm just talking about a few squadrons or so. After dropping paratroopers, they could fly in and air drop supplies, or pull gliders. Then when the paratroopers were relieved, those squadrons can go back to dropping bombs again.
Re supply only works effectively if you can drop from a very low height. On Varsity the B24's came in at 300 feet. You can only obviously do that when you have complete control of the air and ground. After the Ardennes the time was right to pummel Germany with every available bomber to press home the advantage. The Russians were also asking to RAF / USAF to help bomb eastern Germany to help their advance. Alex.
So what's the difference of a C-47 making a drop at 300 feet or a B-24 making a drop at 300 feet if control of the air and ground is contested? C-47s did that regularly in support of airborne forces wherever they were dropped. Germany was pummeled pretty good by 1945, except for maybe Dresden. And we all know how Dresden ended up. After the collapse of the Ardennes Campaign there was really no need for a massive airborne operation. We could've gotten by without Operation Varsity in the big scheme of things. In general, I'm talking about earlier in the war, when shortages of C-47s were critical. Yes I understand that everything was critical early in the war, but if the situation was desperate, some AAF bombers could've been used in support of airborne operations without much of a problem.
Yeah I guess maybe they could've but how many airborne ops happened during the whole war? 5, 6,7 or so? So there probably wasn't the appetite to change bombers into people droppers when there were how many bombing missions during the whole war ? 50,000 or some crazy number. I think the overriding factor is the airborne units and whole idea of parachute drops were new so they were still learning and figuring it all out.
Sounds good to me I guess. It's just that I've read numerous times about the critical shortages of aircraft to support airborne operations. Just trying to see if anyone else had any ideas. Appreciate the feedback.
