I Stood In The Door
I think your figure of 80 paras could be wrong, I am sure that the C17 can carry about a platoon more troops. (But still a fairly low number for its size) The Yanks have enough C17's to airdrop a Division of troops in one go, so they dont need to pack them in. They have a global reach, and the meatbombs are rested by the time they have to do the job. Talking to the guys at Fort Brag, the C17 is the way to travel and also has a swept up HALO and SF fit. If they packed any more guys in I guess they would also need a really long DZ and have too many eggs in one basket.
There was a 1000man airdrop from C17's during the war, and many more less publicised insertions. Previously they staged a round-trip (with AAR) from the US to SE Asia dropping a full Batallion, Ammo & vehicles just for fun!
The C17's true srtength is in Cargo airdop, with loads ranging from Long Range Insertion Craft to heavy Armour. You would not believe some of the things that they have thrown out of the back...
We can only just dream about using ours for Airdrop, as there is no will for it to happen yet as the airforce need them for Strat work. Lets hope we get a few more, so that we can all be as happy as charliesbar.
