All very interesting - thank you. As a wise man once told me ‘only a fool would jump out of a perfectly serviceable aeroplane, but we all know that if it’s painted grey there’s no such thing as a perfectly serviceable aeroplane...’.
Clearly not simple to design or do, and the principle of massing force as quickly as possible on the DZ makes sense. I’ve had frequent discussions with airborne mates over the years about the real utility of massed drops in C21st, especially in the context of any sort of serious opposition, and I remain unconvinced that it’s a serious act of war these days (though of course contexts in which it would certainly be of use) vice, for instance, massing with SH. Either way the vulnerability of the platforms to air defences and the difficulties of ensuring mass on target at the right time - even when we had a lot more platforms - are a significant planning challenge for someone. Not me thankfully! I do wonder, given the evident difficulties with making the A400 suitable for dropping, if Airbus didn’t take it as seriously as other aspects of the design. And given the rather small fleet we’ve purchased and the fact that we seem to be accepting it without too much squealing about the failure to meet Spec, perhaps they had a point - arguably we aren’t really serious about military parachuting beyond very specialised applications.
Interesting debate, and no doubt it will continue. In the meantime, hopefully we won’t be in too much of a hurry to retire the C-130. Still got the Dakota I suppose!