Air mobility has been a key concept in offensive operations since the 1930s. Initial approaches to air mobility focused on parachutists and the use of
military gliders. During World War II many assaults were done by military gliders. The World War Two era German
Fallschirmjäger,
Brandenburgers, and the
22nd Air Landing Division glider borne paras laid the foundation for modern day air assault operations. In 1941 the U.S. Army quickly adopted this concept of offensive operations initially utilizing wooden gliders before the development of helicopters. Following the war, faster aircraft led to the abandonment of the flimsy wooden gliders with the then new helicopters taking their place. Four
YR-4B helicopters saw limited service in the
China Burma India theatre with the
1st Air Commando Group In 1943 the Germans conducted the
Gran Sasso raid which implemented many aspects of the air assault concept. Another example was the German
Brandenburgers' glider borne operation at Ypenburg during World War Two. In 1946,
U.S. Marine General
Roy S. Geiger observed the atomic bomb tests at
Bikini Atoll and instantly recognized that atomic bombs could render amphibious landings difficult because of the dense concentrations of troops, ships and material at beachheads. During this time, The
Commandant of the Marine Corps,
Alexander Vandegrift, convened a special board known as the
Hogaboom Board. This board recommended that the USMC develop transport helicopters in order to allow a diffused attack on enemy shores. It also recommended that the USMC form an experimental helicopter squadron.
HMX-1 was commissioned in 1947 with
Sikorsky HO3S-1s. In 1948 the Marine Corps Schools came out with
Amphibious Operations—Employment of Helicopters (Tentative), or
Phib-31, which was the first US manual for helicopter airmobile operations. The Marines used the term
vertical envelopment instead of air mobility or air assault. HMX-1 performed its first vertical envelopment from the deck of an aircraft carrier in an exercise in 1949. American forces later used helicopters for support and transport to great effect during the
Korean War showing that the helicopter could be a versatile and powerful military tool.
First helicopter air assaults The first helicopter airlift and helicopter sling load mission was conducted on September 13, 1951, during the
Korean War. "Operation Windmill I" was conducted by the
United States Marine Corps in support of a battalion clearing the enemy from a series of ridges around a basin called "
The Punchbowl." In total seven
HRS-1 Marine helicopters made 28 flights that delivered 8,550 kg (18,848 pounds) of supplies and evacuated 74 seriously wounded men. On November 5, 1956, the
Royal Marines'
45 Commando performed the world's first combat helicopter insertion with air assault during an amphibious landing as part of
Operation Musketeer, in
Suez,
Egypt. 650 marines and 23 tons of equipment were flown in ten
Westland Whirlwind Mark 2s of 845 Naval Air Squadron from the deck of
HMS Theseus, and six each Whirlwinds and
Bristol Sycamore HC.12s and
HC.14s off s embarked Joint Experimental Helicopter Unit (JEHU) (
Royal Air Force). The plan was to use the helicopters to drop No. 45 Commando at Raswa, to the south of Port Said, in order to secure two vital bridges. Last-minute concerns about their vulnerability to ground fire meant that they were replaced in this role by French paratroops who conducted a daring low-level drop on 5 November, securing one of the two bridges intact. Instead No. 45 Commando was landed the following day, disembarking close to the seafront in the aftermath of the seaborne landing that had secured the area. This first-ever operational use of helicopters to land troops during an amphibious assault proved successful. With their carriers lying nine miles offshore, the marines were landed far more quickly than could have been achieved using landing craft, and without the need to get their boots wet. However ... they landed the marines in much the same place that old style landing craft would have put them. In 1956, the United States Marine Corps executed the first Division-strength exercise of vertical envelopment when the 1st Marine Division was helicopter-lifted from converted WWII jeep carriers to landing sites at Camp Pendleton, CA, U.S. Marine Corps Base. One of the ships utilized for this exercise was the USS
Thetis Bay. This exercise was the culmination of the Marines' developing strategy of vertical envelopment rather than amphibious assaults on heavily defended beaches. The maneuvers were well-covered by the media of the time, including LIFE Magazine. The Marine Corps subsequently adopted this method as standard operating procedure after proving that helicopters could be used to transport very large numbers of troops and large amounts of supplies in a timely fashion.
Operation Deep Water was a 1957 NATO naval exercise held in the Mediterranean Sea that involved the first units of the
United States Marine Corps to participate in a helicopter-borne vertical envelopment operation during an overseas deployment. During the Vietnam war the U.S. Army's
1st Cavalry Division conducted the first large scale air assault operation in combat during the
Battle of Ia Drang.
Algerian War The use of armed helicopters coupled with helicopter transport during the
Algerian War for the
French Army to drop troops into enemy territory gave birth to the tactics of airmobile warfare that continues today. The machines of the
French Army Light Aviation carried out a considerable number of missions against Algerian insurgents between 1955, when the
Groupe d’Hélicoptères No.2 (GH 2) was created, and 1962 when the French colonial rule in Algeria finally came to an end. GH 2 was based at Sétif – Aïn Arnat in the east of the country, and it was equipped primarily with machines to undertake transport missions, though the
Vertol H-21C, would soon join the unit owing to concerns about the lack of machines which could both defend themselves and carry out offensive missions against the insurgents. Acquiring these machines lay in the hands of the licensee
Piasecki given France's urgent need to have them on account of the circumstances. Usually, the H-21 could carry up to 18 troops, yet local operating (as well as climatic) conditions decreed that the French army examples could carry only up to around 12 troops each. In two years, GH 2 received the vast majority of the H-21s acquired by ALAT, which consisted of five squadrons by the end of 1958. A sixth squadron from the French naval air arm, the
Aéronautique navale, had operated with GH 2 for little more than a year. From 1955 to 1962, GH 2 took part in the major battles, which occurred near the frontier between Algeria and Tunisia, including the battle of Souk-Ahras in April 1958. The helicopters, including types such as the H-21, the Alouette II, the
Sikorsky H-19 and
Sikorsky H-34, together aggregated over 190,000 flying hours in Algeria (over 87,000 for the H-21 alone) and helped to evacuate over 20,000 French combatants from the combat area, including nearly 2,200 at night. By the time the war in Algeria had ended, eight officers and 23 non-commissioned officers from ALAT had died in the course of their duties.
Vietnam War U.S. Army CH-21 helicopter transports arrived in
South Vietnam on 11 December 1961. Air assault operations using
Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) troops began 12 days later in
Operation Chopper. These were very successful at first but the
Viet Cong (VC) began developing counter helicopter techniques, and at the
Battle of Ap Bac in January 1963, 13 of 15 helicopters were hit and four shot down. The Army began adding machine guns and rockets to their smaller helicopters and developed the first purpose built
gunship with the
M-6E3 armament system. U.S. Marine helicopter squadrons began four-month rotations through Vietnam as part of Operation SHUFLY on 15 April 1962. Six days later, they performed the first helicopter assault using U.S. Marine helicopters and ARVN troops. After April 1963, as losses began to mount, U.S. Army
UH-1 Huey gunships escorted the Marine transports. The VC again used effective counter landing techniques and in Operation Sure Wind 202 on 27 April 1964, 17 of 21 helicopters were hit and three shot down. The
2nd Battalion 3rd Marines made a night helicopter assault in the Elephant Valley south of
Da Nang on 13 August 1965 shortly after Marine ground troops arrived in country. HMM-361 commanded by LtCol Tom Ross. On 17 August 1965 in
Operation Starlite the
2nd Battalion 4th Marines landed in three helicopter landing zones (LZs) west of the 1st VC Regiment in the Van Tuong village complex, south of
Chu Lai, while the
3rd Battalion 3rd Marines used seaborne landing craft on the beaches to the east. The transport helicopters were 24
UH-34s from
HMM-361,
HMM-261 and HMM-161 in relief, escorted by Marine and Army Hueys from VMO-2 and VMO-6 led by Maj Donald G. Radcliff, US Army who was killed in action. VC losses were 614 killed, Marine losses were 45 KIA and 203 WIA. The need for a new type of unit became apparent to the Tactical Mobility Requirements Board (normally referred to as the
Howze Board) of the U.S. Army in 1962. The Board met at a difficult time; the bulk of the military hierarchy were focused primarily on the Soviet threat to Western Europe, and perceived as requiring heavy, conventional units. The creation of new, light airmobile units could only occur at the expense of heavier units. At the same time, the incoming Kennedy administration was placing a much greater emphasis on the need to fight 'small wars', or counter-insurgencies, and was strongly supportive of officers such as
General Howze who were embracing new technologies. The Board concluded that a new form of unit would be required, and commissioned tests – but justified these at the time on the need to fight a conventional war in Europe. Initially a new experimental unit was formed at
Fort Benning, Georgia, the
11th Air Assault Division on 11 February 1963, combining light infantry with integral helicopter transport and air support. Opinions vary as to the level of support for the concept within the Army; some have argued that the initial tests against the context of conventional warfare did not prove promising, and, despite opposition from the
Joint Chiefs of Staff, it was primarily the Secretary of Defense
Robert McNamara who pushed through the changes in 1965, drawing on support from within the Pentagon which had now begun to establish a counter-insurgency doctrine that would require just such a unit. Others have put more weight on the support of newly appointed senior Army commanders, including the new Chief of Staff
General Wheeler, in driving through the changes. Nonetheless, the 11th Air Assault Division assets were merged with the co-located
2nd Infantry Division and reflagged as the
1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile), continuing the tradition of the 1st Cavalry Division. Within several months it was sent to Vietnam and the concept of air mobility became bound up with the challenges of that campaign, especially its varied
terrain – the jungles, mountains, and rivers which complicated ground movement. The first unit of the new division to see major combat was the 1st Battalion,
7th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division, led by
Lieutenant Colonel Harold G. Moore. The 7th Cavalry was the same regiment that Custer had commanded at the ill-fated
Battle of the Little Bighorn. On November 14, 1965, Moore led his troops in the first large unit engagement of the Vietnam War, which took place near the Chu Pong massif near the Vietnam-
Cambodia border. It is known today as the
Battle of Ia Drang Valley, and is considered to be the first large scale helicopter air assault.
Bangladesh Liberation War (1971) Meghna Heli Bridge was an aerial
operation of
Indian and Bangladeshi allied forces during the
Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971. It took place on 9 December, when the
Indian Air Force airlifted the
Mukti Bahini and the IV Corps of the
Indian Army from
Brahmanbaria to Raipura in
Narsingdi over the River
Meghna, bypassing the destroyed Meghna Bridge and Pakistani defences in
Ashuganj.
Post Cold War air assault during
Desert Storm to secure the Coalition's left flank in Iraq, 2006 In the United States Army, the air assault mission is the primary role of the
101st Airborne Division (Air Assault). This unit is a division-sized helicopter-borne fighting force. The
10th Mountain Division Light Infantry has a limited capability to perform air assault operations. On September 19, 1994, the 1st Brigade of the 10th Mountain Division conducted the Army's first air assault from an aircraft carrier, the , as part of
Operation Uphold Democracy. This force consisted of 54 helicopters and almost 2,000 soldiers. This was the Army's largest operation from an aircraft carrier since the
Doolittle Raid of
World War II The
16th Air Assault Brigade of the
British Army is the UK's main air assault body. It comprises units of paratroopers from the
Parachute Regiment and light infantry units trained in helicopter insertion, as well as light
tanks and
artillery. Britain's
3 Commando Brigade Royal Marines are also highly experienced in air assault, both for boarding ships and in land attacks, see article above.
Russo-Ukrainian War The
Battle of Antonov Airport was an operation during the opening days of the
2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine where the
Russian Airborne Forces (VDV) attempted an air assault in order to capture
Hostomel Airport, in order to use the airport to
airlift troops and heavy equipment directly into
Kyiv. The VDV was initially able to capture the airport, but without artillery or armored support they were not able to handle a counter-attack started by local Ukrainian forces. The airport was captured only on the second day by a second air assault combined with an armored push from ground troops. A simultaneous air assault was attempted at
Vasylkiv, where VDV paratroopers attempted to seize the
Vasylkiv Air Base but the attack was repelled. == List of air assault forces/units ==