From missile defenses to parachutes…you never know where Defense Tech will take you.
It sort of jibes with Noonan’s last video post — which I’m still wiping the tears off my face from laughing so hard — but the Army has begun fielding — for the first time in 50 years — a new parachute for its general purpose airborne forces. By that I mean, it’s a replacement for the 1950s-era T-10 “mass tactical, non-maneuverable parachute system.”
The new parachute — developed by Natick — takes up a bunch more surface area than the T-10 and slows the decent of a Soldier by nearly 50 percent, PEO Soldier says. One Soldier was quoted as saying it looks like you’re floating down on a fitted bed sheet, since instead of the old-school rounded canopy, the T-11 sports a more squared off one.
Now, officials say this new chute is designed for today’s heaver Soldier with more gear and helps increase the Soldier’s effectiveness in the field by giving him a much less jarring ride to the ground.
The T-11 Parachute : Soldiers Speak from PEO Soldier on Vimeo.
Check out the PEO Soldier video — I don’t know about you, but I might feel a bit like a sitting duck floating down into enemy territory so slowly like that. But then again, I’ve never jumped out of a perfectly good airplane.
– Christian
{ 23 comments… read them below or add one }
my grandpa said “dont fix whats not broken”.
aside that todays airborne is heavier than 30 years ago. mostly.
Wouldn’t it have made more sense to have banned McDonalds from military bases?
About time honestly. There have been better chutes than the T-10 around for a long long time. Hell even cargo has gotten new chutes while the grunts still use that knee killer.
How many air borne/ parachute opperation are launched in todays battles?
I’m an inch shorter than I was before my 50+ jumps with that T-10. Glad to see they’re making improvements.
There have been better chutes than the T-10 around for a long long time.–
well.. it is still the one of the bests. simple, cheap and efective for the massive airborne lading.
–Wouldn’t it have made more sense to have banned McDonalds from military bases?—
lol. nice idea but it will never work unless you start to teach your soldiers how to feed themselfes. because todays parents are bunch of idiots who give a shit about good and selfmade food its only matter of hours until some other weaboo MCdonald will start to push into free place in the base.
–How many air borne/ parachute opperation are launched in todays battles?–
parachute ops? many
airborne ops? not many.
It has nothing to do with McDonald’s on base or soldiers being fatter. The fact is that our soldiers including our airborne forces are carrying more stuff than they used to. Even your regular rifleman has up to 35 pounds of body armor, and several new items he wouldn’t have had 15 years ago. And when it comes to weapon crews like Javelin teams, they have always been carrying plenty of weight.
Love to try both the WW2-Cold War era T10 & the new T11 chute.,
Sound radical.
The T11 is ideal for Skydiving market alone.
or Xtreme sports.
Can PR via 007 or GI Joe 2 movie.
Radical.
Must use for Night Ops due to slow decent speed
Leading up to my (so far) one and only parachute jump back in the early 90′ies, with a civilian “Jump Club”, our instructor gave us a safety briefing. Amongst other things he told us that they [the club] had completely stopped using the old, round T-10 type chute, even as back-up.
The reason, in the instructors words, was that “All you can control with a round chute is whether you want to land hard or REALLY hard”.
It’s a different situation in military jump, of course. If there are bad people on the ground trying to kill you, you don’t want to dangle under a piece of canvas any longer than necessary. On the other hand, you don’t want to reach the ground too fast either.
Regards & all,
Thomas L. Nielsen
Denmark
Maybe it’s well past time Big Green replaced the T-10, but let’s not forget that we’ve also been using the MC series (particularly, the MC1-1B) for decades, and SOF has been jumping with squares for about as long. It’s not like the T-10′s been all we’ve had.
Slower descent – handles heavier loads – smaller opening shock and less occillation.
4 ft per second slower hitting the ground means fewer broken legs and spines.
Ah, so that is what ACU is for!
“Sky cammo” as you descend by parachute!
Well if the loads are getting heavier, and McDonalds are not to blame for ‘heavier soldiers’, then why did they have to decrease the decent speed of the chutes to only 50% of the T-10? Why is it that the T-11 could not be designed to give the same rate of descent (factoring in all the extra gear and the ‘slim’ soldiers) that the T-10 had when it was first introduced. Sounds like justification for the fact that soldiers are getting thier chutes designed by Col.Sanders and Mr Ronald McDonald to me. Whats next, larger turret hatches for M-1s due to all the ‘extra’ gear the troopers wear? Never see many pictures of fat Taliban.
I suppose it’s back that line in Apocalypse Now where the US troops need the PX and three-square and the VC fight with “a bowl of rice and a piece of fish”.
Someone needs to do a statistical test where they airdrop a plane-load of dummies with the old chutes, and then ones with the new chutes, and then shoot at them and compare how many are riddled with holes. Of course, the test is very limited in what it can say, but it still says something about whether or not reduced descent speed makes it that much easier to kill/incapacitate airborne troops.
If this thing is steerable, could troops be conceivably dropped from lower altitudes and farther away, and then “steered” towards the DZ? or perhaps aid in dispersion instead of dropping in large drop zones?
Actually the commander’s hatch on an M1 is quite snug. Pretty much just big enough to allow you to squeeze your head and shoulders up into it to use the umbrella position. The size of the loader’s hatch was determined by the size of the 120mm M256′s breechring which has to be moved through it to be replaced without removing the turret. The driver’s hatch is sized to allow various sizable electronic components to be moved through it as well.
I had a chance to watch this hump and I was impressed. I am 76″, 240 lbs, add the body armor and a 80lbs pack and I was always the last one out and first one down. As for getting shot at while coming down slower it is the same theory as before, “Big sky, little bullet.”
Oh by the way, I have 12 years on jump status and have never jumped from a “Perfectly good airplane.”
When was the last time the US military dropped airborne troops into a contested, hot DZ fully expecting to have some of it’s personnel not make it to the ground? Operation Market Garden? This is not how we do business. This is what helicopters are for, the sticky stuff. Any airborne commander that would allow a mass daylight jump into fire would and should be relieved for cause.
I’m not a jumper, just a Gyrene so I don’t know from parachutes. It seems to me that the slower you descend the more likely you can be hit from some guy already on the ground and waiting for you. That bedsheet looks like a big target to me.
You jumpers are to be admired but what about that descent speed.
I’m not a jumper, just a Gyrene so I don’t know from parachutes. It seems to me that the slower you descend the more likely you can be hit from some guy already on the ground and waiting for you. That bedsheet looks like a big target to me.
You jumpers are to be admired but what about that descent speed.
I’m not a jumper, just a Gyrene so I don’t know from parachutes. It seems to me that the slower you descend the more likely you can be hit by some guy already on the ground and waiting for you. That bedsheet looks like a big target to me.
You jumpers are to be admired for courage but how about a little more common sense about that descent speed.
Slows the decent of a soldier?
I thought we wanted decent soldiers?
There is no such thing as a PERFECTLY good
airplane-why do you think parachutes were
invented? Also ejection seats-which have
parachutes….
They need to fly the planes lower to the ground other wise were going to be floating up there forever.