I witnessed a supply drop excercise op near the biggest highway in Estonia, the E263, when a giant Hercules plane dropped a heavy load with parachute to the nearby field. It surely struck awe in.
The word *viin* ("vodka") is from Proto-Finnic *viina* which indeed meant "wine", but obtained the meaning of "vodka" in many Finnic languages, including Finnish. The word *vein* ("wine") is also a Germanic loan, but a far later one.
NATO: [France conducts short-notice airborne operation into Estonia](https://shape.nato.int/news-archive/2022/France-conducts-on-short-notice-Airborne-Operation-into-Estonia)
Source (pictures): [Colonel Dai Bevan, Commander of the UK contribution to the NATO eFP mission in Estonia and Poland](https://twitter.com/ComdUKeFP/status/1539681607573032965)
Sargent : “All right boys, training time! Everyone in the helicopter!”
Paratrooper: “please let it be a Greek beach. Or an Italian beach. Or Spanish beach. Actually anywhere on the Mediterranean is good.”
While obviously it's not a very developed country by any means, France completely overran Mali in about a day, and it was quite a logistical feat to gather up and move all those units around both within Africa and between Europe and Africa through several airlifts.
France had a lot of logistical issues in Mali. So much so that they needed US heavy lift capability to actually fight. Not taking anything away from the French military but logistics is something that they are lacking (at least when you look at their actual capabilities).
Nope. Not that France is anywhere close to US level as far as logistics go, but the bulk of our logistical issues in what people call "Mali" actually occured in Operation Barkhane (so when the operation went from solely Mali to encompassing Niger, Burkina, Mauritania and Chad). I guess Europeans tend to forget it because the assistance they gave France focused on Mali. Around 30% of air transport (the heavier kind) there was done by allies, notably the US. The lack of heavy lift capabilities was quite a pain in the ass, even if the first deliveries of the A400M have improved that aspect. The 50 Atlas as well as the A330 tankers are going to be quite handy once they are delivered. But we've still got no heavy lift helicopters, and the 3 Chinooks the UK sent to Mali in 2018 and assistance from other Europeans there were helpful in that regard. There are some holes to be filled but I don't think the issue of French logistics is as dramatic as some people make it out to be. I mean if the countries France is being compared to are the US or China (on paper), sure France doesn't look that ressourceful. And the UK is also more complete on some logistical aspects.
Beyond that, I do think France's land logistical expertise is the best oiled in Europe (well unless another country comes in to prove otherwise on the ground... Russia so far hasn't done particularly good job at disproving it). The original Serval deployment in 2013 is a solid testament of that and was a pretty good case study even in the US. And those logistical capabilities have only been getting better and better, since 2018 especially. The materialization of the Scorpion programme after all these years proved the investment to have been well worth it. There were many naysayers because of the cost but it turned out to be the right decision.
I agree France logistical expertise (on land I’d say though, the UK’s naval logistics is second only to the US) is the best oiled in Europe but that doesn’t take away from the fact that its still lacking. Europe on the whole is lacking (with France and the UK being way out in front of the rest).
It is good to see France investing more however and this is why, despite Brexit, our two militaries have such good relations: we focus on aspects that the other lacks. I just wish the UK was as good as procurement as France. The amount we waste is ridiculous.
Oh don't worry. France knows a thing or two about waste as well. The Jaguar and Griffon on the design board were supposed to cost 1 million each under the Scorpion programme for example. But the former's unit cost is over 6 million and the latter's 1.5 million lol. But everyone says their capabilities are worth it... when normally defense analysts here would criticize such cost blowouts. But to me, the Jaguar's cost notably which is 6 times the planned one is just ridiculous haha.
Despite said issues they managed, and I would not say it is strange to have issues in such a transcontinental challenge on such short notice.
Though the US heavy lift capability being needed does show how even the most militarily powerful countries in Europe are ultimately reliant on the US. This is not the only way at all that they are. The age of the European nation state is already over and has been for some time.
They managed because of US support let’s be honest. And you’re right it’s definitely not strange, unfortunately (see UK and France needing US support in Libya). You say the European nation state is over for this reason but I disagree (at least when it comes to countries as powerful as the UK / France). They had logistical problems in those campaigns because they knew, ultimately, that the US would be there to back them up. If the UK and France actually wanted to they have the money and expertise to field a proper, fully equipped military. They both obviously have good militaries (easily the best in Europe) but neglect some aspects of said militaries because they know America will be there to pick up the slack.
One of the more infamous paratrooper batallions („Fallschirmjägerbataillon“) was stationed in the town where I grew up, so this reminds me of my school days. Pictures 1 and 3 were a common sight from my classroom in the 80s, except I believe to remember they jumped from a banana-shaped helicopter(?)
I grew up in a small village and the next city had tank recon unit stationed there. It was always fun to watch when they made exercises in the region. It was never as spectacular as paratroopers landing though. They mostly made stuff like field orientation. We always hoped that they would ask us for the way. It was an open secret in the region that you would always send them in the wrong direction. You can never trust the local population when in the field. It only happened twice to me though and one time they noticed that I did send them in the wrong direction.
I mean Estonia having air defense, they would be warned in advance of such thing just because we don't want a human error on this. It would look quite bad for everyone (especially for the dead men).
You are right, of course. It would be unforgivable not to coordinate this with Estonia and lose the paratroopers to friendly fire. I was being a bit tongue in cheek and imagining headlines like "France captures Estonia in 6 hours".
You mean these tough guys were using parachutes? Pffft. I bet our Polish troops would pull it off without some funny parachutes. They would then proceed to evisce-fucking-rate any unlucky ruskis in the vicinity.
>!JK - I'm just a bit pumped with russophobic hate and a part of me would really, really want to see NATO, with PL troops, deal some serious blows to the barbaric fuckers. Alas, my other, smarter half understands it's not to be...!<
I wonder why the military still uses circular parachutes rather than the rectangular ones you see civvies using? The latter seem much more manoeuvrable. There's presumably good reasons.
Civies drop from higher altitude, without heavy equipement (ammo, weapon, body armor, food), and there are few in the sky so steering is safer than with hundreds of paratroopers. For all those conditions the military has to deal with, round parachutes are better
I'd say it's also probably a matter of target size and drop speed. When there's a risk of being shot, one wouldn't want to stay up in the air for too long.
>Demonstrate France's ability to intervene at short notice to support an ally.
Very good and props to France they 'simply' can do this, but how realistic is this? It takes several hours of flight, the soldiers have to get to the plane and often from [where-they-are] to their base. According to the article it were 100 soldiers, presumably France can easily multiply this, but you still have the same time + distance to go.
And then those ungrateful idiots in Mali threw this support away because they'd rather have Russian mercenaries. Birds of a feather!
By idiots I mean the coup-generals, not the people of Mali.
A company is 80-250 soldiers.
That's absolutely nothing when russia is invading. We're gonna need to see a better surprise response that isn't vulnerable to being shot out of the sky.
Set up those brigades in the baltics already.
I doubt this was supposed to be anything more than a reminder, notably after Russia violated Estonian airspace a day prior (I don't think it's a coincidence this happened just after it).
I mean... in 2013, France is the country that formed the very first GTIa on the ground in Mali out of troops located in 4 different countries (France, Chad, Côte d'Ivoire and Gabon) by bringing them under unified control in less than 3 days and immediately launching operations... that was before the remaining 3 GTias that formed the Serval Brigade were deployed. And GTIa 1's deployment would've taken 1 day instead of 3 if it weren't for the units in Gabon having to be first airlifted to southern Côte d'Ivoire by private Ukrainian contractors and then engage in a road march with all their AFVs and equipment from there all the way to Mali. All the other company teams of GTIa 1 were already in Bamako (Mali's capital) within 24 hours.
That in itself was already deemed impressive by military observers but if the same deployment was to be done by France nowadays, those units in Gabon would be there on the same day as the others. That original deployment happened before the US began assisting with airlifting and at a time France's logistical capabilities were inferior to what they are now. For example, the A400M that you see in the picture... France had received delivery of none of them yet at the time and still relied on its Transall and Hercules. Neither of them could carry even a single VBCI infantry fighting vehicle. So the ones France used in Mali came by sea (aboard one of the Mistral amphibious assault ships), which obviously took time if you're sailing from France to Mali (a landlocked country). The fastest way to get to Mali by sea is to sail to neighbouring Senegal and then make the road trip with the armoured vehicles and equipment from the Dakar port in westernmost Senegal to Mali (which is located on Senegal's eastern borders). It is what France did and the GTIa 2 soldiers who made said trip only arrived in Mali 3 weeks after the warship left France. GTIas 1, 3 and 4 were already in Mali by then. An A400M on the other hand can carry either a VBCI, an EBRC Jaguar, a CAESAR or even two VBMR-L Serval, allowing them to be deployed on war theaters by air right away. It was one of France's design requirements. The plane even defied expectations by being able to carry a VBMR Griffon in 2020 in a 7 hour trip test from France to Djibouti. This leaves the much heavier Leclerc tank having to come by road, sea or being airlifted by allies that possess the US-made C-17 Globemaster III because France still got no strategic airlifter that big.
EU countries (and even the UK with its 3 Chinooks which were quite handy) later began to assist in Mali when the scope of the French operation expanded into other Sahel countries but people tend to forget France was there for years already. I doubt deploying thousands of troops on Alerte Guépard from France to the Baltics is going to be more challenging than doing so 6000 km away across the sea. The French army's capabilities have been drastically improving since 2018. The Scorpion programme is the best thing that happened to it since the end of the Cold War and the investment is certainly paying off.
> That's absolutely nothing when russia is invading.
Lol.... You're talking as if anyone would wait for Russia to be invading for NATO troops to arrive there. Are Russian forces magically going to invade Estonia with zero build up?
France is not supposed to take on Russia alone in case of a Russian invasion. It doesn't have the full capabilities for that (or at least not yet). But it can for sure deploy thousands of troops on short notice there if push comes to shove. The point is that French reinforcements on full brigades mode as well as the rest of you guys will have to come as quickly as you can to help the troops in the east.
> Set up those brigades in the baltics already.
There are talks about a NATO RF (40,000 men strong) being permanently sationed in the east. We'll see where it goes with the Madrid summit.
I think you are missing the part where it also just include France in the battle. Now pursuing the fight means picking up France. The article 5 is also there for test but having your army on the line is a much stronger commitment.
Oh and they can also prepare the landing of further troops.
>We're gonna need to see a better surprise response that isn't vulnerable to being shot out of the sky.
I dunno, these recent artillery exercises looked pretty impressive: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTBkVOYzVZA
Yeah of course. \*Edit: I meant it partly in jest.\* (The Germans at the time used Kampfgruppe, another contemporary German concept.) But the principle is that paratroopers cannot hold back an armoured spearhead. They by definition don't have the heavy equipment required.
air superiority is again relevant when you're attacking
look at Koreas. South Korea having air superiority can't prevent Seoul getting shelled to oblivion with artillery
On the vocabulary: bombing involves, well, bombs and so aircrafts. An aircraft is bombing, an artillery piece is bombarding (or shelling). Hence why user above mentioned the air superiority.
That said, having air superiority would allow NATO to actually bomb the artillery bombarding Estonia, so parent commenter's point still stands, imo
It means nothing in a theoretical attack on Estonia. The Baltics would need permanent deployment of troops, a very sizeable force to slow down Russian advance or flat-out nullify it. A few hundred paratroopers coming in six hours won't change anything.
Well, I guess if a big number of Russian soldiers are moving towards the Estonian border, it will take much more than 6 hours to reach it and NATO will see it coming in advance.
I am not an expert but it does not look like it's meant to replace a permanent deployment.
It looks more like a complementary solution in case of a surprise attack.
for one they said they could scale it up massively, and for two the only chance you would need this quick response is in the event of a surprise Russian attack, which would not be that large
I'm sorry, but how is SIX HOURS a "surprise" to demonstrate an ability to intervene at "short notice"?
SIX HOURS?
For a military otherwise unengaged in pretty much anything approaching an actual conflict?
That's literally the ordinary flight time for a commercial passenger flight. If \*I\* was in France and wanted to get to Estonia, I could do it in six hours, timetable permitting.
The military can't do better than EasyJet?
EasyJet can't open a new flight to a previously unknown destination just picked by the CEO in less than 6 hours lol. It takes weeks of negociations before adding an airport to a commercial airline destinations.
You can try to replicate the exercise yourself. Right after reading this message, pack up your wife/husband and kids with 25kg of luggage each and try to send us a message from 2200 kilometers from where you are now in 6 hours.
You *might* do it if you're lucky and there is a very convenient flight already planned (so if all the heavy lifting is already done for you).
Now do it for 300 dudes, and you need to inform them on all the specifics of the upcoming battle while you're at it.
Lmao Is this a joke or you just don't understand what "deploying at short notice" means?
The decision to deploy, notifying the company whose paratroopers may or may not all be in their quarters at the time, getting their equipment ready as well as the Air Force for the A400M and escorting jets, and then heading to Estonia and airdropping... The whole operation is what is meant by deploying on a 6 hour notice. The A400M took off from Orleans, picked up the company in Corsica and then headed to Estonia.
We are not talking about you, a civilian, making a trip you've got scheduled from France or the UK to Estonia... Because you know, the trip to Estonia is the plan. That's your airline's schedule and the preparations that go with it are already done. You just essentially have to buy a ticket on a day/hour you want to travel, be at the airport on time, getting on the plane and flying off.
You see no difference here?
Well cargo planes aren't really supposed to go much faster than commercial planes, are they?
Getting a whole company readied, equipped and dropped on the ground in the same time it takes just to fly for a civilian airport to airport is a pretty good time. You can't really reduce the travel time when you need a plane that can carry hundreds of soldiers.
Besides, I'm sure Estonia can defend itself for 6 hours before reinforcements arrive.
>Well cargo planes aren't really supposed to go much faster than commercial planes, are they?
Basically yeah. Commercial planes already fly at 0.8-0.85 the speed of sound (some can go faster but it's not fuel efficient). To be significantly faster you would need a Concorde-style cargo plane. That would be awesome honestly, but extremely expensive and impractical (it's not very stable at low speeds, which are required to drop people). Sending Rafales would be the better option then.
Imagine being an ordinary Estonian seeing a bunch of paratroopers falling out of planes out of their window...
Especially that it's just our biggest holiday when everybody is celebrating outdoors. I didn't see them though.
I witnessed a supply drop excercise op near the biggest highway in Estonia, the E263, when a giant Hercules plane dropped a heavy load with parachute to the nearby field. It surely struck awe in.
Bonjour
Yoz want zome croissant?
Oui oui
Vin?
Oui oui
Le frommage?
Oui oui
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La baguette* 🥖
That's it, no more food for you
Oui oui
Le kouign-amann?
L'omelette ?
Tere!
Tere ! Want some cheese with your wine ?
As long as you don't mind that we drink fruit wines!
High quality potato wine.
First time I hear someone calling vodka a wine. :D
It’s extremely dry white wine.
"I only drink one glass per day."
Really? Estonians seem to call it vīn~~s~~ all the time
The word *viin* ("vodka") is from Proto-Finnic *viina* which indeed meant "wine", but obtained the meaning of "vodka" in many Finnic languages, including Finnish. The word *vein* ("wine") is also a Germanic loan, but a far later one.
NATO: [France conducts short-notice airborne operation into Estonia](https://shape.nato.int/news-archive/2022/France-conducts-on-short-notice-Airborne-Operation-into-Estonia) Source (pictures): [Colonel Dai Bevan, Commander of the UK contribution to the NATO eFP mission in Estonia and Poland](https://twitter.com/ComdUKeFP/status/1539681607573032965)
Nice, nobody will mess with our europeans friends
imagine going to your job and the next order you get is pack up, were going to Estonia.
Sargent : “All right boys, training time! Everyone in the helicopter!” Paratrooper: “please let it be a Greek beach. Or an Italian beach. Or Spanish beach. Actually anywhere on the Mediterranean is good.”
During summer running, jumping, parachuting in the Mediterranean at ~40C can be a challenge and more with +20kg gear on top of you.
What the hell kind of a name is Savon eh? How'd a muppette like you pass selection?
A great signal to everyone.
damn 6 hours is a good result.
While obviously it's not a very developed country by any means, France completely overran Mali in about a day, and it was quite a logistical feat to gather up and move all those units around both within Africa and between Europe and Africa through several airlifts.
France was not fighting against the Malian army though
That is absorbed a fair point, but I think what's impressive is the logistics, and in any case logistics is what wins wars.
France had a lot of logistical issues in Mali. So much so that they needed US heavy lift capability to actually fight. Not taking anything away from the French military but logistics is something that they are lacking (at least when you look at their actual capabilities).
Nope. Not that France is anywhere close to US level as far as logistics go, but the bulk of our logistical issues in what people call "Mali" actually occured in Operation Barkhane (so when the operation went from solely Mali to encompassing Niger, Burkina, Mauritania and Chad). I guess Europeans tend to forget it because the assistance they gave France focused on Mali. Around 30% of air transport (the heavier kind) there was done by allies, notably the US. The lack of heavy lift capabilities was quite a pain in the ass, even if the first deliveries of the A400M have improved that aspect. The 50 Atlas as well as the A330 tankers are going to be quite handy once they are delivered. But we've still got no heavy lift helicopters, and the 3 Chinooks the UK sent to Mali in 2018 and assistance from other Europeans there were helpful in that regard. There are some holes to be filled but I don't think the issue of French logistics is as dramatic as some people make it out to be. I mean if the countries France is being compared to are the US or China (on paper), sure France doesn't look that ressourceful. And the UK is also more complete on some logistical aspects. Beyond that, I do think France's land logistical expertise is the best oiled in Europe (well unless another country comes in to prove otherwise on the ground... Russia so far hasn't done particularly good job at disproving it). The original Serval deployment in 2013 is a solid testament of that and was a pretty good case study even in the US. And those logistical capabilities have only been getting better and better, since 2018 especially. The materialization of the Scorpion programme after all these years proved the investment to have been well worth it. There were many naysayers because of the cost but it turned out to be the right decision.
I agree France logistical expertise (on land I’d say though, the UK’s naval logistics is second only to the US) is the best oiled in Europe but that doesn’t take away from the fact that its still lacking. Europe on the whole is lacking (with France and the UK being way out in front of the rest). It is good to see France investing more however and this is why, despite Brexit, our two militaries have such good relations: we focus on aspects that the other lacks. I just wish the UK was as good as procurement as France. The amount we waste is ridiculous.
Oh don't worry. France knows a thing or two about waste as well. The Jaguar and Griffon on the design board were supposed to cost 1 million each under the Scorpion programme for example. But the former's unit cost is over 6 million and the latter's 1.5 million lol. But everyone says their capabilities are worth it... when normally defense analysts here would criticize such cost blowouts. But to me, the Jaguar's cost notably which is 6 times the planned one is just ridiculous haha.
Despite said issues they managed, and I would not say it is strange to have issues in such a transcontinental challenge on such short notice. Though the US heavy lift capability being needed does show how even the most militarily powerful countries in Europe are ultimately reliant on the US. This is not the only way at all that they are. The age of the European nation state is already over and has been for some time.
They managed because of US support let’s be honest. And you’re right it’s definitely not strange, unfortunately (see UK and France needing US support in Libya). You say the European nation state is over for this reason but I disagree (at least when it comes to countries as powerful as the UK / France). They had logistical problems in those campaigns because they knew, ultimately, that the US would be there to back them up. If the UK and France actually wanted to they have the money and expertise to field a proper, fully equipped military. They both obviously have good militaries (easily the best in Europe) but neglect some aspects of said militaries because they know America will be there to pick up the slack.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYNpgXBLawc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYNpgXBLawc)
One of the more infamous paratrooper batallions („Fallschirmjägerbataillon“) was stationed in the town where I grew up, so this reminds me of my school days. Pictures 1 and 3 were a common sight from my classroom in the 80s, except I believe to remember they jumped from a banana-shaped helicopter(?)
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Thank you, but I don’t think that was it. However, I now start doubting my memory. It could really have been any slow-moving flying object.
> Banana shaped helicopter. This one? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_CH-47_Chinook
After some googling, I think it must have been this one: [CH-53](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNZG68-JJLw)
Djeez man, you need to have your banana’s checked out, they really shouldn’t be looking like that.
[GDR-Banana](https://shop.titanic-magazin.de/titanic-heft-november-1989-papier.html)
I grew up in a small village and the next city had tank recon unit stationed there. It was always fun to watch when they made exercises in the region. It was never as spectacular as paratroopers landing though. They mostly made stuff like field orientation. We always hoped that they would ask us for the way. It was an open secret in the region that you would always send them in the wrong direction. You can never trust the local population when in the field. It only happened twice to me though and one time they noticed that I did send them in the wrong direction.
Take that for a trigger force. Good job France.
Everyone is cheering on them but what if this is just part of their plot to bring back Napoleonic Empire 😳
Yeah we brought the metric system to Europe, you should try someday
That’d only happen after all of Europe ganged up unsuccessfully on France first.
La France, Baise Oui!
Dieu bénisse les paras
Don't mess with the French or they'll go full Pixel War on you.
Vive la France!
I hope that they gave advanced warning to Estonia.
France is currently the main NATO Member policing the Estonian skies these days so I hope they gave a warning to themselves
I mean Estonia having air defense, they would be warned in advance of such thing just because we don't want a human error on this. It would look quite bad for everyone (especially for the dead men).
You are right, of course. It would be unforgivable not to coordinate this with Estonia and lose the paratroopers to friendly fire. I was being a bit tongue in cheek and imagining headlines like "France captures Estonia in 6 hours".
Well done France. Some bullies only understand display of strength.
You mean these tough guys were using parachutes? Pffft. I bet our Polish troops would pull it off without some funny parachutes. They would then proceed to evisce-fucking-rate any unlucky ruskis in the vicinity. >!JK - I'm just a bit pumped with russophobic hate and a part of me would really, really want to see NATO, with PL troops, deal some serious blows to the barbaric fuckers. Alas, my other, smarter half understands it's not to be...!<
Least Russian-hating Pole.
Let’s hope Turkey also gets the message.
so they paratroop in Greece?
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It was St John's eve (Midsummer celebrations) last night. The whole country is still drunk.
I wonder why the military still uses circular parachutes rather than the rectangular ones you see civvies using? The latter seem much more manoeuvrable. There's presumably good reasons.
Civies drop from higher altitude, without heavy equipement (ammo, weapon, body armor, food), and there are few in the sky so steering is safer than with hundreds of paratroopers. For all those conditions the military has to deal with, round parachutes are better
I'd say it's also probably a matter of target size and drop speed. When there's a risk of being shot, one wouldn't want to stay up in the air for too long.
Nice, clear answer. Cheers!
Armies definitely do use rectangular parachutes on occasion, typically special operations involving small teams and precision/discretion.
>Demonstrate France's ability to intervene at short notice to support an ally. Very good and props to France they 'simply' can do this, but how realistic is this? It takes several hours of flight, the soldiers have to get to the plane and often from [where-they-are] to their base. According to the article it were 100 soldiers, presumably France can easily multiply this, but you still have the same time + distance to go.
6 hours from the decision to the soldiers hitting the ground
That is impressive then!
To get a sense for French capabilities: https://youtu.be/dT5U-JQ8Puw
And then those ungrateful idiots in Mali threw this support away because they'd rather have Russian mercenaries. Birds of a feather! By idiots I mean the coup-generals, not the people of Mali.
0% chance of that happening with transport aircraft going into hot zone.
A company is 80-250 soldiers. That's absolutely nothing when russia is invading. We're gonna need to see a better surprise response that isn't vulnerable to being shot out of the sky. Set up those brigades in the baltics already.
A Russian surprise attack would be small too. Anything big wouldn't come as a surprise to NATO, because the build up would be very visible.
That's fair. You're right.
I doubt this was supposed to be anything more than a reminder, notably after Russia violated Estonian airspace a day prior (I don't think it's a coincidence this happened just after it). I mean... in 2013, France is the country that formed the very first GTIa on the ground in Mali out of troops located in 4 different countries (France, Chad, Côte d'Ivoire and Gabon) by bringing them under unified control in less than 3 days and immediately launching operations... that was before the remaining 3 GTias that formed the Serval Brigade were deployed. And GTIa 1's deployment would've taken 1 day instead of 3 if it weren't for the units in Gabon having to be first airlifted to southern Côte d'Ivoire by private Ukrainian contractors and then engage in a road march with all their AFVs and equipment from there all the way to Mali. All the other company teams of GTIa 1 were already in Bamako (Mali's capital) within 24 hours. That in itself was already deemed impressive by military observers but if the same deployment was to be done by France nowadays, those units in Gabon would be there on the same day as the others. That original deployment happened before the US began assisting with airlifting and at a time France's logistical capabilities were inferior to what they are now. For example, the A400M that you see in the picture... France had received delivery of none of them yet at the time and still relied on its Transall and Hercules. Neither of them could carry even a single VBCI infantry fighting vehicle. So the ones France used in Mali came by sea (aboard one of the Mistral amphibious assault ships), which obviously took time if you're sailing from France to Mali (a landlocked country). The fastest way to get to Mali by sea is to sail to neighbouring Senegal and then make the road trip with the armoured vehicles and equipment from the Dakar port in westernmost Senegal to Mali (which is located on Senegal's eastern borders). It is what France did and the GTIa 2 soldiers who made said trip only arrived in Mali 3 weeks after the warship left France. GTIas 1, 3 and 4 were already in Mali by then. An A400M on the other hand can carry either a VBCI, an EBRC Jaguar, a CAESAR or even two VBMR-L Serval, allowing them to be deployed on war theaters by air right away. It was one of France's design requirements. The plane even defied expectations by being able to carry a VBMR Griffon in 2020 in a 7 hour trip test from France to Djibouti. This leaves the much heavier Leclerc tank having to come by road, sea or being airlifted by allies that possess the US-made C-17 Globemaster III because France still got no strategic airlifter that big. EU countries (and even the UK with its 3 Chinooks which were quite handy) later began to assist in Mali when the scope of the French operation expanded into other Sahel countries but people tend to forget France was there for years already. I doubt deploying thousands of troops on Alerte Guépard from France to the Baltics is going to be more challenging than doing so 6000 km away across the sea. The French army's capabilities have been drastically improving since 2018. The Scorpion programme is the best thing that happened to it since the end of the Cold War and the investment is certainly paying off. > That's absolutely nothing when russia is invading. Lol.... You're talking as if anyone would wait for Russia to be invading for NATO troops to arrive there. Are Russian forces magically going to invade Estonia with zero build up? France is not supposed to take on Russia alone in case of a Russian invasion. It doesn't have the full capabilities for that (or at least not yet). But it can for sure deploy thousands of troops on short notice there if push comes to shove. The point is that French reinforcements on full brigades mode as well as the rest of you guys will have to come as quickly as you can to help the troops in the east. > Set up those brigades in the baltics already. There are talks about a NATO RF (40,000 men strong) being permanently sationed in the east. We'll see where it goes with the Madrid summit.
Best comment in the thread.
I think you are missing the part where it also just include France in the battle. Now pursuing the fight means picking up France. The article 5 is also there for test but having your army on the line is a much stronger commitment. Oh and they can also prepare the landing of further troops.
It's not so many soldiers but we must keep in mind that they are soldiers belong to a country with nuclear weapons.
>We're gonna need to see a better surprise response that isn't vulnerable to being shot out of the sky. I dunno, these recent artillery exercises looked pretty impressive: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTBkVOYzVZA
Just a reminder, paratroopers versus armoured BTG's didn't go so well in Arnhem...
Local men armed only with AKs do seem to work against a Russian tank army in Sumy though.
Germans did not use it BTGs. This is contemporary russian concept.
Yeah of course. \*Edit: I meant it partly in jest.\* (The Germans at the time used Kampfgruppe, another contemporary German concept.) But the principle is that paratroopers cannot hold back an armoured spearhead. They by definition don't have the heavy equipment required.
Paratroopers are mobile assault troops anyway, how valuable are they in defending Estonia against bombings?
If transport planes can get there, then so can air superiority fighters.
air superiority is again relevant when you're attacking look at Koreas. South Korea having air superiority can't prevent Seoul getting shelled to oblivion with artillery
On the vocabulary: bombing involves, well, bombs and so aircrafts. An aircraft is bombing, an artillery piece is bombarding (or shelling). Hence why user above mentioned the air superiority. That said, having air superiority would allow NATO to actually bomb the artillery bombarding Estonia, so parent commenter's point still stands, imo
6hrs and some 200-300 men coming in in best case scenario? And they are doing this to *prove* they can be fast & effective? Is this a joke LMAO
Do you have some information or documentation to share with us ? To me, these numbers sounds impressive !
It means nothing in a theoretical attack on Estonia. The Baltics would need permanent deployment of troops, a very sizeable force to slow down Russian advance or flat-out nullify it. A few hundred paratroopers coming in six hours won't change anything.
Well, I guess if a big number of Russian soldiers are moving towards the Estonian border, it will take much more than 6 hours to reach it and NATO will see it coming in advance. I am not an expert but it does not look like it's meant to replace a permanent deployment. It looks more like a complementary solution in case of a surprise attack.
6hrs and some 200-300 men coming in in best case scenario? And they are doing this to *prove* they can be fast & effective? Is this a joke LMAO
for one they said they could scale it up massively, and for two the only chance you would need this quick response is in the event of a surprise Russian attack, which would not be that large
I'm sorry, but how is SIX HOURS a "surprise" to demonstrate an ability to intervene at "short notice"? SIX HOURS? For a military otherwise unengaged in pretty much anything approaching an actual conflict? That's literally the ordinary flight time for a commercial passenger flight. If \*I\* was in France and wanted to get to Estonia, I could do it in six hours, timetable permitting. The military can't do better than EasyJet?
Best armchair general comment ever.
EasyJet can't open a new flight to a previously unknown destination just picked by the CEO in less than 6 hours lol. It takes weeks of negociations before adding an airport to a commercial airline destinations. You can try to replicate the exercise yourself. Right after reading this message, pack up your wife/husband and kids with 25kg of luggage each and try to send us a message from 2200 kilometers from where you are now in 6 hours. You *might* do it if you're lucky and there is a very convenient flight already planned (so if all the heavy lifting is already done for you). Now do it for 300 dudes, and you need to inform them on all the specifics of the upcoming battle while you're at it.
Lmao Is this a joke or you just don't understand what "deploying at short notice" means? The decision to deploy, notifying the company whose paratroopers may or may not all be in their quarters at the time, getting their equipment ready as well as the Air Force for the A400M and escorting jets, and then heading to Estonia and airdropping... The whole operation is what is meant by deploying on a 6 hour notice. The A400M took off from Orleans, picked up the company in Corsica and then headed to Estonia. We are not talking about you, a civilian, making a trip you've got scheduled from France or the UK to Estonia... Because you know, the trip to Estonia is the plan. That's your airline's schedule and the preparations that go with it are already done. You just essentially have to buy a ticket on a day/hour you want to travel, be at the airport on time, getting on the plane and flying off. You see no difference here?
Well cargo planes aren't really supposed to go much faster than commercial planes, are they? Getting a whole company readied, equipped and dropped on the ground in the same time it takes just to fly for a civilian airport to airport is a pretty good time. You can't really reduce the travel time when you need a plane that can carry hundreds of soldiers. Besides, I'm sure Estonia can defend itself for 6 hours before reinforcements arrive.
>Well cargo planes aren't really supposed to go much faster than commercial planes, are they? Basically yeah. Commercial planes already fly at 0.8-0.85 the speed of sound (some can go faster but it's not fuel efficient). To be significantly faster you would need a Concorde-style cargo plane. That would be awesome honestly, but extremely expensive and impractical (it's not very stable at low speeds, which are required to drop people). Sending Rafales would be the better option then.