I'm not sure why large-scale para drops have been dismissed as ancient history in this thread. If you need to insert troops at scale over larger distances and where simply landing isn't an option you quickly find yourself looking at para. Clearly this tactic is not new but it has its place in warfare.
From the UK perspective a number of Herc crews became spectators and then manned evacuation aircraft when Turkey undertook a massed para drop to seize a good chunk of Cyprus in 1974. By 1982 the weather limits curtailed the planned static-line para insertions for the Falklands Islands but SF and stores insertions were used extensively, including drops into very uninviting seas. The planned but clearly ridiculous drop in 1991 was successfully avoided when the (US-directed) UK AoR became so localised that the joint event with the USAF would have taken troops further away from their objective than they already were and with less kit and logistics. By 2001 the UK found itself conducting warfare over strategic distance where parachute insertion was the only option until FoBs were established - very much an SF event for sure but it drew crews from across the TacAT squadrons that worked at or beyond human endurance levels with repeated 24hr+ crew days in unforgiving terrain, weather and by night with almost zero support. When the requirement for a low-level static line mass drop hit the planning table in 2001 it was clear that the RAF TacAT fleet would have no ability to support the task with everything already committed. Likewise with the tasking for massed static-line para in 2003, with the US objective now so far away from the UK AoR and the mistakes made in UK assumptions pre-conflict (seemingly focused on a certain FJ basing option that was not asked for or needed by the US vs actually planning for the one the US had actually asked for and did need... but involved "that aircraft with propellers").
From the US (and our principal war fighting partners) perspective, they did conduct operational massed-para drops through the '50s, '60s and '70s. By the '80s massed static-line drops were used less frequently but did include US Rangers into Panama in late 1989, with further drops that continued into early 1990. The operational drops for Gulf War 1 followed and by later that year a force was massed from late '91 to early '92 with the 82nd Airborne Division for contingency ops in Haiti. In 1994 the US were at it again, this time launching on the largest para insertion since MARKET GARDEN on objectives across Haiti. 2 hours into the mission with 60+ aircraft en-route an agreement was made for Cedras to leave power and the troops conducted an administrative landing in Haiti, complete with all their unused chutes. By 2001 the US had a new conflict with the UK as its principal partner in Afghanistan and in Oct 2001 the US conducted a massed para drop into Objective Rhino to start the ground offensive (the small UK element of this is often forgotten). 2003 was clearly the next major conflict to use massed-para insertion and did so on a few occasions. The most significant of which was the large-scale drop, primarily by C-17s, mounting in Italy for a low-level (400ft & 600ft) drop near the bottom of a large valley complex in horrendous weather on a pitch-black night in northern Iraq. Starting from 30,000ft+ with a rather rapid descent, on SKE, to drop height, surrounded by an unhealthy mix of cumulonimbus and cumulogranite. Respect.
No doubt I've missed quite a few but these are the ones that standout in my (rapidly failing) memory. I do not claim to be an expert in such things and easily dismissed as an ex-FJ dude, who knows nothing of the other realms, but I did serve on 47 Sqn, albeit for the smallest sliver of my career. I got to do amazing things, with amazing people in the most demanding of environments. My skin crawls when those around me who know nothing of that world dismiss it so readily. They do not know what they do not know.