US Airborne Rangers parachute in to seize a Pacific airbase, preparing for war with China
Britain nowadays has Rangers as part of its newly formed Ranger Regiment, but they are more focused on partnering with allied forces around the world – their nearest US equivalent is probably the Green Berets. The British equivalent of the US Rangers, meanwhile, would be 1st Battalion, the Parachute Regiment – permanently assigned to the UK Special Forces as the Special Forces Support Group, and with a different and arduous entry and training pipeline via the other, regular Para battalions.
Meanwhile in the Pacific it seems the US Rangers parachuted onto the airfield, simulating its capture. In actual practice, such a battle would probably be furious – and costly for the attackers. The German Fallschirmjager paratroops, who pioneered parachute-borne airfield seizures during World War II, suffered 44 per cent casualties capturing Allied air bases in Crete in 1941 and subsequently abandoned the idea. British paras jumping in to seize El Gamil airfield during the Suez crisis did so easily, but the Egyptian defenders were scarcely world-class opposition. Russian VDV airborne troops attempting to seize Hostomel airbase in Ukraine at the start of the 2022 invasion were bloodily repulsed.
Where it’s possible, air assault forces today tend to prefer the use of helicopters or tiltrotors to parachutes. Rotary wing aircraft deliver troops as formed units, rather than scattering and mixing them up as mass parachute operations do. They also offer fire support and an option for retreat.
But even relatively long-ranging tiltrotors could struggle to cover the huge distances of a Pacific war; helicopters even more so. Many missions that might arise in the Island Chains could only be carried out by long-ranging C-17s or other jet transports – and that would mean parachutes, unless the planes were able to land by surprise.
What happened after the parachute assault in Palau represents a new wrinkle in airfield-seizure tactics. A C-17 landed at Roman Tmetuchl International Airport and disgorged a wheeled High-Mobility Artillery Rocket System launcher from the Army’s 17th Field Artillery Brigade.
HIMARS, which the Ukrainian army has been using to devastating effect against invading Russian forces, can fire an array of guided rockets against targets on land and at sea hundreds of miles away. With the help of some US Space Force communications specialists who apparently fed the HIMARS crews targeting data via satellite, the launcher in Palau fired six rockets – and then rolled back onto the C-17 for the long trip back to Hawaii via Guam.
The Army frequently rehearses airfield seizures. The Army and the US Marine Corps also frequently rehearse the rapid insertion of HIMARS to remote bases. It’s rarer for the services to combine these operations. But it also makes sense for precision rocket launchers to join in the airfield assaults.
That’s because, in a major war with China, the Chinese almost certainly would move fast to recapture any of their airfields the Americans seize. The counterattacks could come by air, land or sea. A HIMARS is powerless to intervene in an aerial assault, but it can smash up incoming overland and amphibious attacks with aplomb.
Just one of the HIMARS’ Army Tactical Missile System rockets can range 190 miles and scatter nearly a thousand grenade-size bomblets, any one of which could kill a soldier, immobilize a vehicle or punch a hole in the topside of a ship. Ukraine often aims its ATACMS at Russian training bases near the front line, peppering the assembled trainees with lethal fragments.
The Palau exercise points the way forward for base-hungry American forces in the Pacific. Rangers seize an airfield; HIMARS helps the Rangers defend the airfield until heavier reinforcements can fly in.
The addition of HIMARS to the traditional airfield op addresses a worrying lack of real-world evidence that lightly-armed infantry can capture and hold an airstrip all on their own against a determined foe. “Since World War II, the use of parachute forces has been in increasingly permissive environments against … ill-equipped and poorly-organized opponents,” R F M. Williams wrote in a 2021 article in Military Review.
It should go without saying the Chinese military is neither ill-equipped nor poorly-organized. It might take some serious firepower to permanently wrest control of a front-line base from Chinese forces. Especially a base as valuable as an air base.
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GUNS N GEAR
Airfields are few and far between across the vast reaches of the western Pacific Ocean. Every strip of concrete capable of launching and landing military aircraft is precious. And that’s why, in October, the US Army practiced seizing a Pacific airfield.
During, say, a war with China over Taiwan, the Army might try to capture Chinese airfields on reclaimed reefs in the China Seas and turn them over to the US Air Force or, at the very least, deny them to Chinese forces. But the Army clearly expects the Chinese to fight for every square foot of concrete – and to swiftly counterattack in an attempt to retake any runways they lose.
The war game in Palau – a tiny island country 1,400 miles southeast of Taiwan – began with five USAF Boeing C-17 airlifters and one Australian air force C-17 flying to Palau’s Roman Tmetuchl International Airport apparently from Guam, 800 miles to the east. Inside some of the four-engine C-17s: US Army Airborne Rangers from the elite 75th Ranger Regiment.
US Rangers are a so-called “Tier Two” special operations force like most US spec-ops forces including the majority of the Navy SEAL teams, Army Green Berets etc. “Tier One” – nowadays aka “Special Mission Units” – are small elites within the Tier Two elites: a handful of units including the Naval Special Warfare Development Group (aka DevGru or SEAL Team Six), Army 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment – Delta (Delta Force) and others.