Brigada de Infantaria Paraquedista

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As VDV já fizeram isso antes e acharam que o risco era demasiado grande. Se eles agora vão receber material novo que eles acham que dá-lhes garantias que não vão ter problemas... mesmo assim EU não confiava! Vi demasiadas coisas acontecerem neste tipo de actividades para confiar.

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In good company

Outgoing Paratroopers Brigade commander Col. Nimrod Aloni has instituted a quiet revolution designed to make the paratroopers more effective • What soldiers see in Judea and Samaria "is Mars. A war will be Venus, something totally different," he says.

Yoav Limor


Paratroopers Brigade head Col. Nimrod Aloni prepares for a practice jump Photo credit: Jonathan Shaul

Military forces, like other large organizations, are conservative by nature and do not tend toward revolution. Most changes in the military come about because of necessity, the results of a war or budget cuts, and only a few are voluntarily initiated.

But just such a revolution -- albeit a limited, quiet one -- has been carried out in the IDF Paratroopers Brigade this past year. It entails not only a change to the structure, but also a fundamental change in outlook. Preparations are no longer being made for "major wars," which are unlikely in the foreseeable future, but to adjust to the reality in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon.

"Until now, we were structured in the same ratios that we were taught as young soldiers, three to one, so a company would defeat a platoon, a battalion would defeat a company, a brigade would defeat a battalion. Always tripled, at every level, three companies to a battalion, three battalions to a brigade, and so on," outgoing Paratroopers Brigade Commander Col. Nimrod Aloni tells Israel Hayom.

"But this tripling up is no longer relevant to the new battlefield. It's very clear that the wars to come will look like our recent battles. No submarines will suddenly show up in a desert gully. Still, we hadn't changed and we had kept the same structure."

The result, Aloni says, was proven inefficiency.

"Take a company of 92 soldiers and throw it into a constricted space. Since you're talking about an urban area, it can handle five or six houses at most. Beyond that, it falls apart. But the enemy positions three or four terrorists facing us, causing us to be very inefficient because we are operating a large force in a small area against a tiny number of terrorists in every one of these sectors."

Of course, the IDF was victorious in these encounters (Aloni says that is nothing special: "Lebron James would beat my daughter in every face-off, too, even if here and there she went under his arm to make a shot"), but the big picture is problematic. Since the enemy is deployed in hundreds of tiny cells like these throughout the territory, it has to be fought from point to point every time, without any kind of systemic solution.

"There used to be big fires. We would bring a big blanket and take care of them. Today, the fires are little ones. A lot of little fires, and we're only managing to put some of them out, because we are deployed clumsily and with limitations, and the rest stay active and burn us," Aloni says.

This lack of an efficient use of force is only one aspect of the issue. The other is that large forces sometimes turn into an Achilles heel.

"A platoon leader commands using his most basic senses," Aloni says. "In open territory, he sees his soldiers alongside him, behind him, but in urban territory, it's dirty, he can't see, so what does he do? He gathers everyone close. The result is that if a force like that sustains a hit, for example inside a house, as we've seen in Gaza or Lebanon, we have a multi-casualty event."

Q: So what has changed?

"The change is simple: shrinking the companies, so we can establish more of them, which will give us greater operational maneuverability."

In other words, each company has been reduced from 90 to 60 soldiers, and in effect has started operating as a department of teams, each one of which is a "weapons team." This means that the old battalion-level hold from the moment the battalion launches an offensive in an urban area is no longer relevant. Now each company has its own firepower, including mounted machine guns, MAG guns, and mortars, that goes with it and gives it a strong firepower base.

This change supposedly gives the paratroopers an advantage, advancing more quickly and winning more tactical battles. In the next war, victory in tactical battles will be very important. The revolution is also expected to generate more intelligence that will enable strikes on more targets.

Another advantage to the changes is the possibility of a farther reach. Since paratroopers train to fight deep in enemy territory and are supposed to arrive in helicopters or parachute in, large contingents are actually a disadvantage. The entire force cannot board a helicopter at once, so about a third remains behind. The new structure will allow the full use of a given contingent, including significant backup. This is mainly relevant to the scenarios of a war in the north in which the IDF will need to take action against Hezbollah targets deep in Lebanon.

'Day-to-day operations are Mars, war will be Venus'

In a brigade with battalions named after snakes -- Viper, Adder, Mamba -- it is no surprise that the name chosen for the new model is "Cobra." The change has recently been implemented in all the paratrooper battalions (other than the reconnaissance battalion, which is already structured differently) and tried out in training, with great success. Aloni, who led the process with the backing of IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gadi Eizenkot, GOC Army Headquarters Maj. Gen. Guy Tzur and GOC Central Command Maj. Gen. Roni Numa, says the only real concern was that a major hit to any given contingent could paralyze it because of its small size.

"But even if that were to happen, our experience in Lebanon and Gaza has led us to the conclusion that it doesn't matter if we're talking about a force of 60 or 90 soldiers. The moment it sustains a serious strike, it's out of commission, so I prefer that as few soldiers as possible be out of commission so we can keep operating," Aloni says.

At this stage, the change is being implemented in the Paratroopers Brigade only. The Golani, Givati, and Nahal brigades move on armored vehicles, while paratroopers advance on foot, and also fight deep in enemy territory.

"Now we have more maneuverable parts that can fight in more places at the same time and win more battles. That allows us to play the same cards differently, be much more efficient," Aloni says.

Q: You mentioned parachuting in to the enemy's rear. Is that a scenario that has a chance of succeeding, or are you just sanctifying the paratroopers' legacy?

"Parachute drops are a fantastic way of getting a large contingent into a lot of places quickly, including distant spots. It hasn't been widely used because there wasn't a need for it, but the Americans employed parachute drops in Iraq in 2003, and I can definitely see us parachuting in here, too, especially given the threats in the field that limit helicopters' ability to operate," Aloni says.

Aloni, 44, lives on Kibbutz Kfar Blum in the Upper Galilee. He is married and the father of four daughters. He enlisted in the IDF in 1991, and over the course of his career has commanded the Orev anti-tank company and the reconnaissance company, which under his leadership was awarded a commendation for its performance in Operation Protective Edge in the summer of 2014. Aloni was also awarded a personal commendation from the GOC Central Command after a battle in which he killed a terrorist at close range. In the 2006 Second Lebanon War, he commanded the brigade's reconnaissance battalion, and went on to lead the elite Maglan Unit and the Samaria Brigade. Next week, he will finish his time as commander of the Paratroopers Brigade after a little more than two years, and will be promoted to brigadier general and appointed commander of the Depth Corps in the GOC Army Headquarters.

Aloni is a member of "Generation Lebanon," which grew up in the period of Israel's security buffer zone in southern Lebanon and fight against Hezbollah. His soldiers today belong to a completely different generation. The main operational challenge with which they are familiar is actions inside Judea and Samaria. The IDF is trying to bridge the gap between this day-to-day confrontation and what would be demanded of them in a war through training.

"We used to train in the Golan Heights or in the Jordan Valley, and that was it. Today, the training is tailored to the region, to the battle framework, to what is expected of them. We practice people being wounded, actually take the company commander or the platoon leader out of the drill, and tell the forces, 'Now deal with it yourselves.'"

Aloni says the idea is to make the training as "violent and confusing" as possible and teach soldiers personal and group techniques that will help them to contend with such situations.

"What they see in Judea and Samaria is nothing," he warns. "That's Mars. A war will be Venus, something totally different."

In one recent drill, a platoon commander was "killed" and a company commander took over and was told to occupy a nearby house.

"I can't, I don't have any soldiers," he responded. Aloni, who happened to be on the scene, says the problem was not physical -- the officer could have taken soldiers and occupied the house -- but mental. He was broken.

The paratroopers' commander described this as "a success."

Q: Why a success?

"So he'd feel that blow to the gut, and not encounter it for the first time in war, facing the enemy."

Aloni takes care to refer to the current enemies -- Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon -- as "armies," and warns against the military resting on the laurels of its past victories.

"Anyone who takes [Operation] Defensive Shield [in 2002] as an example is mistaken and misleading others," he says.

Q: What do you mean?

"In Defensive Shield, the enemy was weak," he says, adding that the enemy is Gaza is "strong" and in Lebanon it is "stronger, and in certain places will pose a major challenge to us."

Q: Such as?

"The thinking that every IDF unit that encounters a Hezbollah unit will win is arrogant, in my opinion. I'm arguing that there will be places where we will lose, and we need to be ready for that: for the enemy knowing how to launch attacks on us and occupy territory, and for there to be casualties and wounded and for it to take a while to get them evacuated. Eventually, we'll bring in more forces and win, but anyone who thinks it will be a nice day out is mistaken and misleading."

Q: When you were a soldier in Lebanon, the message was 'Defend the northern communities.' What is the message to soldiers now?

"Defending the Israeli public, and the soldiers understand that very well. They don't live in a fantasy. In Judea and Samaria I don't need to convince anyone. The terrorists do that work for us, and in other areas you need to train and maintain operational tension, which is a lot of work for the commanders."

Q: That's not easy.

"Right. When I was a soldier, serving in Judea and Samaria was a curse. We wanted action, Lebanon. Today it's the opposite: Soldiers want to defend their home, so everyone wants [to serve in] Judea and Samaria and won't forgo it on any account, because their work there has complete justification, clear and immediate."

Of course, this isn't the only change. As head of the Paratroopers Brigade, Aloni had to deal with a new generation, both better informed and more demanding, and a different environment that includes parental intervention, social media networks, and external influences.

"I actually see a number of positive things. When I enlisted, the brigade was very homogenous. Today, we have an integrated army where everyone serves -- Ethiopians, Russians, people from the center of Israel, people from the periphery, secular, religious. The other side of the coin is that we have a lot more cases of special service conditions. A lot more soldiers need help.

"This generation is much more disciplined than past ones. More conformist. It makes the brigade more orderly, of course, but on the other hand soldiers exhibit less initiative and creativity. We, the commanders, have to insist on that. Not long ago, I held an emergency meeting of company commanders after one of them failed to confront a terrorist as I would have expected during an incident in Nablus," Aloni says.

Q: Did you remove him from duty?

"No. I explained. We held an open discussion. There were officers who thought I was wrong, but it was important to make my expectations clear."

Q: And what do you do about parental intervention?

"There's what appears to be happening, and what goes on behind the scenes. We need to acknowledge the reality and know where to intervene and which soldier to help, because the truth is that we have soldiers with tough problems at home. And we also need to involve the home as much as possible, for example, though the parents, and introduce them to their children's commanders so they'll trust them and be our ambassadors outside the army. But behind the scenes, we need to be careful.

Q: Of what?

"For example, that the commanders aren't in a WhatsApp group with the parents and the soldiers. That can create pressure, problems, hurt feelings. Let's say some mother writes that the commander gave her son the runaround. What is he supposed to do about that? It's better if he's not there, if he's just the commander, and nothing more."

Q: There's also another kind of intervention. We saw it in the case of Hebron shooter Elor Azaria.

"That demands that we talk about in depth with our soldiers make things clear. This isn't some lesson about something that happened 30 years ago, it's a current event everyone has an opinion about. Everyone is exposed to what is being said, so our message was, 'Talk about it, open up.'

Some of the soldiers had criticism of the case itself: that a soldier who killed a terrorist was tried in court. Aloni is amazed that there is still discussion on the matter, and not only because the matter has already been decided in court.

"I told my soldiers, and I'm saying now, you don't shoot a terrorist after he no longer poses a danger. Every enemy has the right to be treated by us, even if four minutes earlier we wanted and tried to kill him. It used to be obvious: You launch an ambush, and later, our wounded and the enemy's would be lying together back at the base, and everyone would be treated. It's part of the values we grew up with."

Q: So what changed?

"Maybe the wars changed, and maybe there is more anger toward a terrorist than there was in the past toward an Egyptian or Syrian soldier. But that shouldn't change us. I tell my soldiers that even if I don't completely convince them, these are the rules of the game. Being a member of Israel's defensive forces is a privilege that carries obligations, certainly in a volunteer unit like the paratroopers. This is no militia. We have rules and proper behavior, and we act in accordance."

Nine months ago, a new company called Arrow was established in the Paratroopers Brigade for ultra-Orthodox soldiers. The first recruits have finished basic training and are operating in the Gaza periphery. Over 100 more haredi soldiers have joined up in the most recent draft round.

"I can't say they're poor, pathetic guys. This company is expected to fight as part of the 202nd Paratroopers Battalion. They're great soldiers, and our role is to help them deal with the pressure from home. There is huge potential here," Aloni says.

http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newslet ... p?id=44565

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Na visita do PR ao Regimento de Pára-quedistas já apareceram capacetes novos nos BIParas. Fotos do Facebook do SMOR Fernando Rosa.





E só para comparar, os Precursores tem outros equipamentos.

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Pista de infiltração...a.k.a. "vale escuro":



Fonte: Mário Ferreira

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Clube de Sargentos Do Regimento Paraquedista:











Fonte: Serrano Rosa

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Esta militar começou como Praça no actual Regimento de Paraquedistas. Fez a recruta, Curso de Combate e Curso de Paraquedismo. Posteriormente fez o CFS e continuo a servir em unidades Paraquedistas. Decidiu fazer carreira e entrou para a Academia Militar. Hoje em dia é Oficial da Arma de Artilharia e serve no RA4 (GAC/BrigRR). Para fins de padronização o comandante decidiu que todos deviam usar a Boina Castanha, fossem eles Paraquedistas, Comandos ou Rangers.

Sem...



Com...





Afinal a GAC não é uma sub-unidade da BrigRR? Qual é o problema de um Paraquedista usar a sua Boina Verde?!

[Frederico Vitor]

Briga entre Paraquedistas militares franceses e belgas destrói bar na África



Os paraquedistas franceses, em especial os da Legião Estrangeira, são famosos no mundo por não fugirem de qualquer tipo de briga seja com quem for. A história é repleta de relatos de situações polêmicas aonde ocorrem encontro com seus rivais de outras nações, e, esses encontros acabam em brigas monumentais que deixam um rastro de destruição aonde ocorre a briga, mesmo que essa briga seja com militares de nações amigas. O local da rixa mais recente foi um bar na cidade de Libreville, a capital do Gabão, uma república da África que é ex-colônia francesa, e atualmente aproveita da parceria com a França e outros países da região em um esforço para combater militantes do ISIS/DAESH e Boko Haram na região.



De acordo com a imprensa local, a briga ocorreu em um dos bares mais famosos da capital (nome não revelado), e envolveu militares belgas do "3e Bataillon de Parachutistes de Tielen" e militares franceses que inicialmente não foram identificados, mas a suspeita é de que sejam do "2éme REP" da Legião Estrangeira, porém a comunicação social da Armée de Terre (Exército Francês) não deu maiores detalhes sobre o ocorrido. Quanto aos paraquedistas belgas, todos foram mandados de volta para a Bélgica, e a informação oficial é de que o retorno dos mesmos nada tem a ver com a ocorrência e que o retorno se deu devido ao fim da missão do regimento deles no Gabão. O fato ocorreu na noite do dia 30 de setembro para 1º de outubro, mas só a poucos dias veio a conhecimento público devido aos esforços de ambos os lados para minimizar o ocorrido, porém a única foto que foi publicada pela imprensa local mostra o interior da Boite em um estado de destruição absurda, inclusive com mobiliário quebrado e queimado!

Apesar dos esforços de ambos os lados (Belgas e Franceses) minimizar o fato, a imprensa local deu grande destaque ao ocorrido pois de acordo com relatos, o bar ficou semi-destruído e houve vários feridos entre outros civis que estavam no local. A briga teve tal dimensão que a Polícia local teve que pedir reforço para a Polícia Militar (equivalente da Polícia do Exército no âmbito da OTAN) para poder conter e deter os brigões de ambos os lados. Apesar do serviço de comunicação social de ambas as Forças Militares envolvidas na briga continuarem a minimizar o ocorrido nos 1°s dias do fato vir a conhecimento público, a Polícia do Gabão já confirmou que o ocorrido está sob investigação de um Inquérito Policial Militar por parte dos Exércitos Belgas e Francês, e, que existe pelo menos uma centena de militares já detidos nos quartéis de ambas as Forças.



Brigas entre militares estrangeiros (em especial da Legião Estrangeira) já são tão frequentes nos bares de Libreville que fomentou a criação de uma "taxa de paz" para militares que queiram frequentar os bares e casas noturnas da cidade, pois com o pagamento antecipado de uma "taxa calção" de garantia para que assim os eventuais custos de reparos e danos a terceiros seja minimizado em caso de brigas no interior dos estabelecimentos. Os paraquedistas belgas e franceses participam do Exercício "Tropical Storm", que reúne 800 militares belgas e 350 militares franceses no Gabão desde o dia 15 de setembro desse ano.

Fonte: France Press/ Generation Opéx France/24x24Belgique/
Traduzido e adaptado por Yam Wanders para Orbis Defense.
https://orbisdefense.blogspot.com.br/20 ... tares.html

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Nada de anormal, eu tive os Pára-Comandos Belgas à minha beira, sei o que a casa gasta. O meu Alferes também esteve lado a lado com os Legionários do 2º REP e também contou-nos umas quantas histórias. Isto começa sempre com uma troca de galhardetes, e começa a escalar rapidamente. Nunca mais esqueço-me de uma cena que aconteceu com uns PE e nós no combóio... acabou muito mal... para eles.

[FCarvalho]

Brigas entre militares são tão naturais quanto a corrupção no Brasil. Se com a mesma bandeira, ou diferentes, pouco importa.

Junte-se bebida farta, mulher, uns trocados no bolso e um bando de marmanjos meio estressados de farda, já viu...

Isso vale da África à Oceania passando por Londres e Montevidéu. Aqui temos vários colegas de farda que com certeza tem várias histórias para nos contar.

Faz parte do brio castrense.

abs.

[Ilya Ehrenburg]

Quem ganhou na porrada, os belgas, ou os legionários?

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Quem ganhou na porrada, os belgas, ou os legionários?

Isso depende... com quem falares!

[Ilya Ehrenburg]

Quem ganhou na porrada, os belgas, ou os legionários?

Isso depende... com quem falares!

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Novos equipamentos do 1º BIPara em aprontamento para a missão na Republica Centro Africana.

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