Quote Originally Posted by Rifleman View Post
Understood, I didn't mean to suggest that the air cav operated exactly like the fire force. I'm sure the tactical situations and operational requirments faced by each unit were unique to time and place.

It just stuck me that there was a similarity in that both deployed (and redeployed) rapidly, often making multiple combat assaults the same day.

Understood again. I also tried to point out that in the U.S. sense the air cavalry squadrons were unique from the airmobile infantry battalions, even though the airmobile infantry battalions were also sometimes called air cavalry when they were part of the 1st Cavalry Division.

The air cav sometimes reacted to information from LRRPs. Other times they found the enemy (picked a fight) themselves. If it developed into a big enough fight infantry took over. If infantry units lost contact they could request combat tracker teams to help them regain contact.

I've enjoyed your comments about the RLI and the fire force. I hope you don't mind a curiosity question: How many operational parachute jumps did you make?
No offence meant. Just wanted to make sure that we were all aware of the difference. I would also say that the fire force worked on irregular troops of about up to 30 odd. Where we knew they were in prepared positions we took a more convention approach.

Don't have my Rhodesian log book anymore. It was 8 or 9 so lets say 8. Add to that one into Angola when with the South African paras. We had a Corporal (Des Archer) who did a staggering 73 Op jumps (a world record I believe). Also had a youngster in my troop who had only ever flown in a Dak. By the end of his service had taken off 30 odd times but never landed in an aircraft.

Archer and some guys from 1 Commando did 3 Op jumps in one day. We had a problem with parachutes. We had to recover them and send them back for repacking in Salisbury. If we had chutes that had be fitted a few times but not used we used to jump them anyway as a safety precaution using guys who hadn't jumped for a while.