r/theydidthemath • u/Fizzerolli • 3d ago

[request] Assuming fresh powdery snow, how deep would it have to be for the paratrooper to survive, if possible?

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My son sent me this. My immediate thought based on nothing is that it’s unsurvivable regardless of the depth.

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u/duru93 3d ago

Idk how to do the math, but context for those who do most US airborne operations drop at 1,000 feet, but depending on clouds that can be higher or lower.

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u/Karma1913 2d ago

Soviet airborne concepts from that era were crude. The nazis and the failed airborne invasion of Crete were very similar to the soviet state of the art but better resourced: Nazis observed soviet airborne development and as a result moved along the same lines. They both had a very similar shitty parachute harness design with a single connection to the parachute instead of two as we did/do. They also deployed by sliding off the wings of bombers.

Anyways, both choices meant dudes couldn't carry shit, like not even a rifle in early trials and operations (including Crete) so they relied on drops of weapons and ammo that preceded the soldiers.

Basically every soviet and nazi airborne concept started with dudes doing some barn stormer shit, face planting somewhere, and then looking for a loot box. That was as good as it got.

The soviets realized this was a bad idea worth pursuing but got distracted by a worse idea: invading Finland. The nazis thought it was a great idea until a bunch of fellas in Crete got to the loot boxes first and the fallschimjaeger had such a bad time there were no more nazi airborne operations.