The US Army has its moments......of clarity and reason....but they are rare, short, and usually of no impact. The rest of the time......
We were tasked with moving empty CONEX containers from some place at the northern end of our Area of Operations back kto the Long Binh Logistical base.
Empty CONEX containers are aerodynamic loads. When they lash four of the things together they make one very large aerodynamic load.
It was real fun making those runs loaded.....take off...accelerate to 35 knots....decelerate to a near hover....wait for the strop to unwind....accelerate to 35 knots.....when the strop looked like it would snap.....back to a near hover....wait for the strop to unwind....get the picture?
There was no forward airspeed above maybe ten knots that would work....and fuel endurance meant having to push the airspeed to be able to make it to the destination without running out of fuel.
After two loads were donated to the Bad Guys for bunker material....the Army finally decided putting the things on empty flat bed trucks was more efficient, cheaper, but no where as sexy.
The load was so wide it could be seen from the cockpit.....usually almost a blur from the way it spun around.
I have also seen a pallet of lumber flying in front of the nose....almost like an Anti-Gravity machine in operation.....slack strop....and a bunch of 2x4's hanging in mid-air.
On one occasion we rained Pierced Steel Planking (PSP) from the Heavens.....oh the gyrations that stuff makes on its way down! There's several sheets in an 8,000 pound Stack of the stuff.