Ops Core kit helps SOF jump in full battle rattle
In years past, HALO jumping was done almost administratively. There was a wind arrow during the day and flares on the Drop Zone at night. Soldiers generally jumped without combat equipment, regulations sometimes mandating it. It wasn’t without reason; If you’ve been deployed for half a year, you don’t want your first jump to be in full kit, so a few “Hollywood” jumps will help troops get back into the flow of things. Still, there were valid criticisms that HALO teams were just skydiving rather than conducting true Military Free Fall operations during training. The War on Terror has shown that combat HALO jumps are not only possible, but highly practical in today’s unconventional warfare setting.
I was going to keep some of the latest and greatest TTP’s to myself, but than a Kit Up! reader turned me onto this Army produced video for the Military Free Fall Advanced Tactical Infiltration Course:
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With free fall qualified SOF troops jumping in full kit and ready to hit the objective the moment they hit the ground, some new gear has been developed to help streamline the process. Take for instance the Ops-Core helmet above. In the past, soldiers would jump in Gentex helmets, which had no ballistic protection or tactical application, but they were all we had for mounting the lugs that fix an oxygen mask in place. Today, jumpers can fix their 02 mask right onto their combat helmet without any need for two sets of headgear.
Navboard for HAHO operations
High Altitude, High Opening (HAHO) is a technique in which jumpers breathing off oxygen jump from an aircraft somewhere in the neighborhood of 30,000 ft and almost immediately deploy their parachutes. In this manner, SOF teams are able to use the forward glide of their parachutes to cross long distances and infiltrate behind enemy lines in a clandestine manner. At these altitudes there is really no such thing as terrain association, necessitating the use of Navigation Boards such as the one seen above from S&S Precision.
These Nav Boards are worn by the jump master who guides his team through the clouds and down to their intended drop zone using the compass, altitude meter, and GPS system. The various types of Nav Boards made by S&S Precision can be strung into the parachute rigging so that it is in front of the jump master, or can be worked into the PALS webbing in a jumpable plate carrier.
Stay tuned and I will have more from both Ops-Core and S&S Precision for you shortly!
Kit Up! contributor Jack Murphy is a former Ranger, Special Forces Soldier and is the author of the military thriller Reflexive Fire.
{ 24 comments… read them below or add one }
good article & great vid!
Nicely timed. The SEAL team that sprung those two NGO workers apparently inserted via parachute. So yeah. Relevant.
Really? The press was reporting that it was a HAF (Helicopter Assault Force) mission but we know that those initial reports can go one way or the other…
My Cool-O-Meter just melted. Awesome!
Looks fun and I like the cool helmets.
Jack can you please tell us the truth about who did the rescue, i trust you far more then the press or if you don’t know please ask Brandon.The press never gets it right and many of us don’t trust the press on bit when it comes to the military. Once again thanks pluse nice article i never knew about stuff like this so it’s good to learn.yes an old broken down dog can still learn things and you all at kit up teach me allot of new things.Brandon runs a great site with great guys like you jack.
To me it looks like the precise work of Somali Nat’l Guard along with the help of some brave locals. Just my proffesional opinion.
Jake, I have no idea. Some of the details will come out with time. I’d advise people to be skeptical of initial reports. If we find out anything that we are able to share I’m sure Brandon or I will write it up.
If you are going to do more on Ops Core I would love to see and read more about that new law enforcement helmet!
Didn’t see that one…
Here is SSD’s coverage. Not much yet.
http://soldiersystems.net/2012/01/17/ops-core-introduces-new-le-helmet/
Are the rails from Crye?
Oops sorry, Crye licensed the rails from Ops Core…
Yeah, they are from Ops-Core. I talked to the industrial designer. He was a cool guy and seemed to really value what the end-users thought and wanted.
Question about the NavBoard. I understand its attached to the chestrig so the jumper just needs to look down at it with no other moovement required?
That’s correct Robert.
$400 for a bent piece of plastic that doesn’t even come with any of the pictured items on it? Way overpriced piece of kit that roughly half of the guys who used it didn’t care for over the other nav boards out there. You can’t adjust the viewing angle, so for some guys, they couldn’t get it into a position that was ideal for them to see the screens clearly. S&S would be wise to lower their pricing on this family of items as it’s a niche product and not one that really stands out over the ones already out there.
I’ve seen the computerized unit that hooked directly into the webbing without any need for a Nav Board at all but what are some of the other alternatives?
You’ve got the oldies, chest strap pillow platforms, Wilcox and Bonehead NAV boards and some “in house” made ones out there. All of which are made of Aluminum and or Carbon fiber ,can be adjusted for angle and require a lot more craftsmanship than the S&S board and they cost less. The Wilcox board used to be the way overpriced board out there but S&S has taken that spot.
A lot of the guys are running modified versions of ADMIN pouches that house what you see in the pictures above that unzip to give you the platform once under canopy. The Europeans are big on aluminum consoles boxes that house everything, to include heating, and they are quiet bulky and a pain in the *** to use, but it works for them apparently, it also helps addresses the temperature issue somewhat. The NAVAID you mentioned is an awesome piece of kit but even it requires a means of attachment and thermal protection. What people tend to forget is that at 30k-25k feet of altitude it is typically in the double digit minuses and electronics, especially ones with LCD screens, stop working or displaying info on the screen until they reach their operating temperature range and need some form of thermal barrier/protection. Typically what happens is that when the tailgate drops and or the jumper exits, the electronics stop working. Chem lites stop glowing/working at -20, they look like dead chem lites until they warm up, then they start glowing again, same goes for the electronics LCD screens. I know this from first hand experience.
The S&S boards have their place and its always good to see something new in this area but for something that simple and at their selling price, they are grossly overpriced. As it is, the average Joe can buy the materials himself and make what you see with a heat gun, hacksaw/dremel tool and some free time. If it was priced closer to what it costs S&S in materials and time, it would be way more tolerable of a price and they would probably sell a lot more.
Wow, thanks for the insights, that is very illuminating. I was a MFF jumper when I was in 5th SFG but was never a JM so I don’t consider myself an expert on this particular subject. The NAVAID I got a class on (but didn’t use during an actual HAHO as our TM SGT was the JM) was pretty cool. It actually calculated the wind cone that you needed to stay in to hit the DZ. I’m pretty sure that it was just rigged through the waist strap of the MC-5 parachute but I bet that someone like yourself has figured out better ways to do it. If you ever get the chance, I’d love to see some pictures of the home made Nav Boards, that’s pretty cool!
Where should I send the photos to?
Pliner, you can hit me up at reflexivefire at yahoo dot com Thanks!
You should also check out http://glidelinesystems.com/, it is glider software converted for SoF and works great for HAHO Nav.
It’s not glider software, never has been. This is the NAVAID I and jack were referring to above. I’ve personally been involved with the development of the Glideline software since it’s first iteration when it was first evaluated, it’s come a very long way. The guy who writes the software,myself and my coworker spent a good deal of time with him over the years helping make it so any SF guy could pick it up and it would make sense to them. I’ve also jumped this system in just about every weather condition you could expect to encounter. It is rock solid kit in its current form but I can honestly say that I hated it in its very first version compared to another system we had been evaluating. The cool part is when we all sat down and they asked what was wrong with it, the software writer actually listened and made the changes we recommended. I had to actually sit down and teach HALO/HAHO Jumpmaster wind calculations to the software guy so that what the HARP the computer spit out would jive with a HARP that a JM had hand jammed. The current product looks nothing like it did back in the day and thats because it was constantly being jumped by team guys and the feedback was on the spot to the SW writer, who could sometimes make changes in a few hours while guys were packing. Truly a bad *** piece of kit for HAHO/HALO but it suffers the same issues I mentioned above about cold temperatures, actually the hardware/MR1 computer does, the software works as long as the hardware does.