Actually, while you might like to say it that way,
you and I both know they did okay under Luftwaffe command and real good under Army command. Rotterdam was a fair operation, Crete, even though they won, was a disaster for them; they never made another jump. :(
They later occasionally outperformed other Wehrmacht light infantry (but not the Gebirgsjaegers) under Army command in France, Italy and Holland. That decline in performance late in the war was due to putting non-jumpers in the units and just hanging the title on 'em -- an Air Force decision. :D
Hope all's going well. Been there. Fortunately mine worked out okay, she bounced back and is again meaner'n a Water Moccasin... :wry:
Not really, Student did also.
You're thinking of the Kampfgruppe which the army formed out of Fallschirmjager and any other types of unit; sort of like a Task Force, they usually named them after the commander. Kampfgruppe Ramke did a goo job in Normandy IIRC.
'Fraid not on the Army loading up ersatz parachure units; it was the Luftwaffe that did it:
Quote:
"The formation of the two parachute corps was only one part of a grand scheme devised by Göring for the formation of two parachute armies with a total strength of 100,000 men. The plan was approved by Hitler. Despite the fact that the days of large airborne operations were over, the various parachute units could still be classed as élites. Composed entirely of young volunteers from the draft (the average age of enlisted men in the 6th Parachute Regiment, for example, was 17 and a half), they were well armed and highly motivated."
LINK.
Not to muddy the waters too much
but, one of the better German armored formations in WWII was the Hermann Goering Division in Italy, a Luftwaffe formation. It later went on to become a Luftwaffe armored corps, fighting very successfully on the Eastern front along the Vistula and in the Courland/Kurland Pocket.
BTW, I suspect Luftwaffe Field Marshall Albert Kesselring may have been the best commander the Germans had at the strategic-operational level.
Of course, none of the guys in those units jumped out of perfectly good airplanes after the units were created. They were probably manned with troops who had washed out of jump school during ground or tower week. :D
As the old story goes:
Jump school is a three weeks long. The first week is Ground Week, when they separate the men from the boys. The second week is Tower Week when they separate the men from the fools. The third week the fools jump out of the airplanes. :D
It's not the planes, they're okay.
It's the pilots... :D
I thought what we were doing was splitting unnecessary hairs??? On a base level, the whole discussion is an exercise in alternative historical fiction. :)
I think you'll find the Heavy Parachute Company was the equivalent of our Weapons Companies, it was in the regular Fallschirmjager Battalions and thus was AF, not Army.
Yeah, they had glider troops; my point was that the later "Airborne" Divisions weren't really airborne and that was a Goring, not an Army, decision. Not that it made much difference in the end...