Product Code Database
Military gliders (an offshoot of common gliders) have been used by the militaries of various countries for carrying troops (glider infantry) and heavy equipment to a combat zone, mainly during the Second World War. These engineless aircraft were towed into the air and most of the way to their target by military transport planes, e.g., C-47 Skytrain or Dakota, or bombers relegated to secondary activities, e.g., Short Stirling. Most military gliders do not soar, although there were attempts to build military sailplanes as well, such as the DFS 228.
Once released from the tow craft near the front, they were to land on any convenient open terrain close to the target, hopefully with as little damage to the cargo and crew as possible, as most landing zones (LZ) were far from ideal. The one-way nature of the missions meant that they were treated as semi-expendable leading to construction from common and inexpensive materials such as wood. Most nations seriously attempted to recover as many as possible, to re-use them, so they were not originally intended to be disposable, although resource-rich nations like the US sometimes used them as if they were, since it was easier than recovering them.
Troops landing by glider were referred to as air-landing as opposed to . Landing by parachute caused the troops to be spread over a large drop-zone and separated from other airdropped equipment, such as vehicles and anti-tank guns. Gliders, on the other hand, could land troops and ancillaries in greater concentrations precisely at the target landing area. Furthermore, the glider, once released at some distance from the actual target, was effectively silent and difficult for the enemy to identify. Larger gliders were developed to land heavy equipment like , anti-aircraft guns, small vehicles, such as Willys Jeep, and also light tanks (e.g., the Tetrarch tank). This heavier equipment made otherwise lightly armed paratroop forces a much more capable force. The Soviet Union also experimented with ways to deliver light tanks by air, including the Antonov A-40, a gliding tank with detachable wings.
By the time of the Korean War, helicopters had largely replaced gliders. Helicopters have the advantage of being able to extract soldiers, in addition to delivering them to the battlefield with more precision. Also, advances in powered transport aircraft had been made, to the extent that even light tanks could be dropped by parachute. And after the widespread use of radar in the military, silence in the air is no longer sufficient for concealment.
The early sporting objectives of gliders were quickly overtaken in the Soviet Union and in Germany by military applications, mainly the training of pilots. By 1934, the Soviet Union had ten gliding schools and 57,000 glider pilots had gained licences.
In 1932, the Soviet Union demonstrated the TsK Komsula, a four-place glider, designed by GF Groschev that could also be used for cargo. Larger gliders were then developed culminating in an 18-seater at the military institute in Leningrad in 1935. Luftwaffe Colonel Kurt Student visited Moscow as part of the military collaboration programme with the Soviet Union. He reported back to his superiors in Berlin details of a 1,500 man parachute drop and the large transport gliders that he had seen. The Luftwaffe opened a parachute school as a result in 1937. Further field testing convinced Student that a vehicle was needed to deliver the heavy weapons for the lightly armed parachute troops. This idea was dismissed until October 1938 by which time Student had risen to major-general and was appointed Inspector of Airborne Forces. Development of a troop-carrying glider was assigned to Hans Jacobs of the Deutsche Forschungsanstalt für Segelflug to develop the DFS 230 which could carry 9–10 fully equipped troops or 1,200 kg (2,800 pounds).
Development then began of even larger gliders such as the Gotha Go 242 (23 trooper) and Messerschmitt Me 321 (130 trooper) to transport heavy armaments in anticipation of Operation Sea Lion and Operation Barbarossa.
Gliders were also used by Germany in Greece in 1941. On April 26, 1941, the troops from six DFS 230 gliders captured the bridge over the Corinth Canal accompanied by 40 plane-loads of German paratroopers. (Fortuitously, the British were able to demolish the bridge a few hours later.) Next, General Student then convinced Hitler that Crete could be captured using only airborne troops. Consequently, on May 20, 1941, 500 German transport aircraft carrying paratroopers and 74 DFS 230 gliders took off from the Greek mainland. During the capture of the island, 5,140 German airborne troops were either killed or wounded out of the 13,000 sent. Among the 350 German planes destroyed in the operation, half had been Ju 52s, which seriously depleted the force needed for the invasion of the Soviet Union shortly after. As a result, Hitler vowed never to use his airborne force in such large numbers again.
Some German glider operations continued later in the war, some examples being the rescue operation of Benito Mussolini at Gran Sasso and emergency re-supply operations in Russia, North Africa and Eastern Europe towards the end of the war. The Junkers Ju 322 Mammut ("Mammoth") was the largest such glider ever built, but it was never used operationally. Not all military gliders were planned for transport. The Blohm & Voss BV 40 was a German glider fighter aircraft designed to attack Allied bomber formations but was not used.
The most famous British actions using gliders included the unsuccessful Operation Freshman, against a German heavy water plant in Norway in 1942; and the capture of the Caen canal and Orne river bridges in a coup-de-main operation at the very start of the invasion of Normandy. Other glider actions included Operation Dragoon (the invasion of southern France), Operation Market Garden (the landing at Arnhem Bridge to try and seize a bridgehead over the lower Rhine) and Operation Varsity (crossing of the Rhine). Out of the 2,596 gliders dispatched for Operation Market Garden, 2,239 were effective in delivering men and equipment to their designated landing zones.
Although gliders are still used in the Royal Air Force in the Royal Air Force Gliding & Soaring Association and for cadet training by the Air Training Corps, they are not used in combat operations. No troop-carrying gliders have been in British service since 1957.
The most widely used type was the Waco CG-4A, which was first used in the invasion of Sicily in July 1943 and participated in the D-Day assault on France on 6 June 1944, and in other important airborne operations in Europe, including Operation Market Garden in September 1944 and the crossing the Rhine in March 1945, and in the China-Burma-India Theater. The CG-4A was constructed of a metal and wood frame covered with fabric, manned by a crew of two and with an allowable normal cargo load of 3,710 lb, allowing it to carry 13 combat-equipped troops or a jeep or small artillery piece. The CG-10 could hold 10,850 lb of cargo, such as two , at a time. The final glider mission of the war was at Luzon on 23 June 1945. By the end of the war, the United States had built 14,612 gliders of all types and had trained over 6,000 glider pilots. The designs of the Waco Aircraft Company were also produced by a wide variety of manufacturers including Ford Motor Company and Cessna Aircraft Company as well as furniture, piano and coffin manufacturers..
Following World War II, the United States maintained only one regiment of gliders. Gliders were used in military exercises in 1949, but glider operations were deleted from the United States Army's capabilities on 1 January 1953. However, the United States Air Force continues to use at the United States Air Force Academy to train cadets in the fundamentals of flight..
No twin-hulled glider was built, but each company constructed the prototype of a single-hulled amphibious glider, the XLRA-1 by Allied Aviation and the Bristol XLRQ by Bristol Aeronautical. The two prototypes made their first flights in early 1943, but by the time they did the Navy and Marine Corps already had concluded that the use of gliders to deliver Marines to beachheads was impractical. No further examples of the two glider types were built, and the Navy officially terminated the amphibious glider program on 27 September 1943. Testing of the two prototypes continued until early December 1943, apparently in connection with the development of a glider bomb.
The Marine Corps established a glider training unit in early 1942 at Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island, South Carolina, using non-amphibious Pratt-Read LNE and Schweizer LNS gliders. In addition, the Navy took delivery during World War II of 15 U.S. Army Air Forces Waco CG-4A non-amphibious gliders for evaluation under the Navy designation LRW-1. Neither of these initiatives resulted in operational use of gliders by the U.S. Navy or Marine Corps.
The Soviet Union maintained three glider infantry regiments until 1965. However, Soviet Air Force transport gliders were gradually withdrawn from service with the arrival of turboprop transports like the Antonov An-12 and Antonov An-24, which entered service in the late 1950s.
Soviet military gliders
The Soviet Union built the world's first military gliders starting in 1932, including the 16-seat Grokhovski G63, though no glider was built in quantity until World War II. During the war, there were only two light gliders built in series: Antonov A-7 and Gribovski G-11 – about 1,000 altogether. A medium glider, the KC-20, was built in a small series. They were used mostly for providing Soviet partisans in Belarus with supplies and armament in 1942–1943. On 21 September 1943, 35 gliders were used in the Dnepr crossing. Later, other types of gliders were built: the Cybin C-25 (25 trooper) in 1944, the Yakovlev Yak-14 (35 trooper) in 1948, and the Ilyushin Il-32 (60 trooper) also in 1948. In 1950, a Yak-14 became the first glider to fly over the North Pole.Gunston, Bill. Yakovlev Aircraft since 1924. London, UK: Putnam Aeronautical Books, 1997. .
See also
Notes
External links
|
|
