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Being part of a Forlorn Hope sounds pretty sucky.

Also, the guys at Cannae whose job was to get pushed back and possibly killed to lure the Roman forces forward so the cavalry could do the double envelopment.

 Easy E wrote:
Being part of a Forlorn Hope sounds pretty sucky.

Also, the guys at Cannae whose job was to get pushed back and possibly killed to lure the Roman forces forward so the cavalry could do the double envelopment.

Your comment reminded me of an excellent novel called 'the forlorn hope" written by david drake that is a really excellent SF military novel. I do recommend it to people here. I honestly think a lot of folks here would enjoy it.

Think most of the ones I have thought of has already been mentioned

After watching Das Boot, definitely a sub-mariner
In the trenches in WW1
Probably Eastern front WW2 (on either side)
The Foreign Legion, I forget how many times different units of them have been wiped out
Child soldier as mentioned is an awful one - or any of those internecine wars taking place on the African continent


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Matt Swain wrote:

 Easy E wrote:
Being part of a Forlorn Hope sounds pretty sucky.

Also, the guys at Cannae whose job was to get pushed back and possibly killed to lure the Roman forces forward so the cavalry could do the double envelopment.

Your comment reminded me of an excellent novel called 'the forlorn hope" written by david drake that is a really excellent SF military novel. I do recommend it to people here.

That looks interesting, I'll have a read.

At the risk of de-railing the thread, have you read the Forever War? One of my favourite sci-fi novels (there is a pretty good graphic novel of it too). Believe the author Joe Hadleman was a Vietnam vet.

 Pacific wrote:
Think most of the ones I have thought of has already been mentioned

After watching Das Boot, definitely a sub-mariner
In the trenches in WW1
Probably Eastern front WW2 (on either side)
The Foreign Legion, I forget how many times different units of them have been wiped out
Child soldier as mentioned is an awful one - or any of those internecine wars taking place on the African continent

Ok I have to say that I have an issue with lumping the french foreign legion in with child soldiers.

Child soldiers are victims of humanity's worst aspects.

The french foreign legion was generally comprised of criminals who were facing a long stretch, either in prison or on a gallows from countries other than france. Service in the legion was harsh and dangerous but also protected them from countries that wanted to hang them or put them in prison for life. People who managed to survive their terms in the FFL were given french citizenship and a fresh start.

I just feel it's wrong to lump them in with draftees, especially child kidnap victims. For those who joined the legion, it was often preferable to what awaited them otherwise.

Just my two teef there...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Pacific wrote:
Think most of the ones I have thought of has already been mentioned

After watching Das Boot, definitely a sub-mariner
In the trenches in WW1
Probably Eastern front WW2 (on either side)
The Foreign Legion, I forget how many times different units of them have been wiped out
Child soldier as mentioned is an awful one - or any of those internecine wars taking place on the African continent


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Matt Swain wrote:

 Easy E wrote:
Being part of a Forlorn Hope sounds pretty sucky.

Also, the guys at Cannae whose job was to get pushed back and possibly killed to lure the Roman forces forward so the cavalry could do the double envelopment.

Your comment reminded me of an excellent novel called 'the forlorn hope" written by david drake that is a really excellent SF military novel. I do recommend it to people here.

That looks interesting, I'll have a read.

At the risk of de-railing the thread, have you read the Forever War? One of my favourite sci-fi novels (there is a pretty good graphic novel of it too). Believe the author Joe Hadleman was a Vietnam vet.

Oh yes, he was. I knw that when I read TFW. Only an american drafted into the vietnam cluster could write with such cold yet passionate hatred of the military industrial complex.And yes it was a great novel,. tho I prefer the originally published version (We are all very happy here) to the author's original version.

 Matt Swain wrote:

 Pacific wrote:
Think most of the ones I have thought of has already been mentioned

After watching Das Boot, definitely a sub-mariner
In the trenches in WW1
Probably Eastern front WW2 (on either side)
The Foreign Legion, I forget how many times different units of them have been wiped out
Child soldier as mentioned is an awful one - or any of those internecine wars taking place on the African continent

Ok I have to say that I have an issue with lumping the french foreign legion in with child soldiers.

Child soldiers are victims of humanity's worst aspects.

The french foreign legion was generally comprised of criminals who were facing a long stretch, either in prison or on a gallows from countries other than france. Service in the legion was harsh and dangerous but also protected them from countries that wanted to hang them or put them in prison for life. People who managed to survive their terms in the FFL were given french citizenship and a fresh start.

I just feel it's wrong to lump them in with draftees, especially child kidnap victims. For those who joined the legion, it was often preferable to what awaited them otherwise.

Just my two teef there...

This is such utter nonsense that i just have to point it out.
The French foreign legion is cannonfodder, it's inception is to achieve USEFULL cannonfodder, it's recruits are used to protect frenchies from doing the dirty work, they are MAYBEE criminals but also just adventurers and people in search of the exotic, yes that is how they played Rattenfänger in switzerland.
The Legion etrangere is also an attack on sovereignity of switzerland by ignoring the stipulation of the swiss mercenary ban and protecting clear violations of law.
It is and ought to be regarded as a criminal institution, having been also used to do the dirty work in brutal colonial conflicts, with warcrimes beeing commonplace and torture just aswell.

And they CARE gak for their veterans, ask how many end up f.e. back in switzerland with massive psychological issues.

So no, THEY are not above childsoldiers in my opinion and they and everyone enabling that institution can .....

Not Online!!! wrote:

 Matt Swain wrote:

 Pacific wrote:
Think most of the ones I have thought of has already been mentioned

After watching Das Boot, definitely a sub-mariner
In the trenches in WW1
Probably Eastern front WW2 (on either side)
The Foreign Legion, I forget how many times different units of them have been wiped out
Child soldier as mentioned is an awful one - or any of those internecine wars taking place on the African continent

Ok I have to say that I have an issue with lumping the french foreign legion in with child soldiers.

Child soldiers are victims of humanity's worst aspects.

The french foreign legion was generally comprised of criminals who were facing a long stretch, either in prison or on a gallows from countries other than france. Service in the legion was harsh and dangerous but also protected them from countries that wanted to hang them or put them in prison for life. People who managed to survive their terms in the FFL were given french citizenship and a fresh start.

I just feel it's wrong to lump them in with draftees, especially child kidnap victims. For those who joined the legion, it was often preferable to what awaited them otherwise.

Just my two teef there...

This is such utter nonsense that i just have to point it out.
The French foreign legion is cannonfodder, it's inception is to achieve USEFULL cannonfodder, it's recruits are used to protect frenchies from doing the dirty work, they are MAYBEE criminals but also just adventurers and people in search of the exotic, yes that is how they played Rattenfänger in switzerland.
The Legion etrangere is also an attack on sovereignity of switzerland by ignoring the stipulation of the swiss mercenary ban and protecting clear violations of law.
It is and ought to be regarded as a criminal institution, having been also used to do the dirty work in brutal colonial conflicts, with warcrimes beeing commonplace and torture just aswell.

And they CARE gak for their veterans, ask how many end up f.e. back in switzerland with massive psychological issues.

So no, THEY are not above childsoldiers in my opinion and they and everyone enabling that institution can .....

Well, you clearly have your view, and if you are from switzerland it's possible your history makes you familiar with aspects of the FFL I am not, so I won't contest your views, and you may very well be right.

I will stand my ground on the issue that the FFL was made up of consenting adults who chose to join it and thus are in a totally different class from children who are often kidnapped or 'legally' forced into the military.

And since the topic is worst jobs in the military, I do agree the FFL qualifies, with the provision that many of them were better off in it than out of it and had something good, a new life, waiting for them in exchange for their service. Child soldier kidnapees had little choice or anything good awaiting them.

the fact it is made up of consenting adults is about the only "improvement", the capability of excluding them from collective responsibilty for france immediatly removes that.

Sorry man I wasn't attempting to say they were comparable in any way or any kind of order to it - just a list of rubbish military jobs to be in.

I know child soldiers are probably one of the worst examples possible, as it combines the hardship to children with conscription.

 Matt Swain wrote:


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_Witches

Thank you for sharing this. It doesn't sound that bad. They didn't take that many casualties. I had never heard of them before. They had guts to spare. It's amazing that so many women saw combat for the USSR during WWII and some people today still wring their hands over female fighter pilots for example.

Thinking about it life on old ships of war wasn't all that nice. We talk about the risks of being in a submarine, what about on the ships of old when sailing the high seas could take months. Risks of scurvy, food and water shortages, lack of proper hygiene, monotonous tasks just to keep you busy etc.. The constant risk of storms or a loss of the wind or wind in the wrong direction. All coupled with vast stretches of ocean.

To say nothing of some of the old methods of discipline and the vast social differences enforced on some ships during some ages - eg you'd have your captain and his officers dining on fine food in the rear whilst the main crew ate far lower grades of food.

We should bear in mind however that those same crewmen were better fed than their civilian counterparts with steady pay and better hygiene, at least until the cannonballs start flying. Indeed for most of them the Navy/Army life was their first chance for 3 square meals a day and their own bed/hammock.

I served on the USS Ohio as part of her conversion crew from SSBN to SSGN in 2004-2008. It wasn't bad but you always had that thought in the back of your head that you were a split second away from death from some leak or burst pipe or something. There was always the comfort, though, that if there was explosive decompression it would be over before you knew what happened.

Of course the fear of flooding or somehow bottoming the boat and not being able to get out.

I would say the worst for me though was the first time we took her to test depth after the conversion. The first time I walked on the boat was through a hole cut in the side, through a screen door, directly into the galley. So you can imagine this thing was pretty cut up before being put back together and going back to sea.

We were out somewhere in the Pacific and did our first dive to test depth. There wasn't so much croaking and moaning as in the movies, but it was certainly audible. I was still a NUB at this point so I was walking around machinery 2 and getting my learn on when one of the A-gangers showed me their depth gauge on the ladder well (aka stairs). When at depth the boat compresses so much that the stairs will move forward or backwards, depending on the depth. At test depth were talking inches of movement. They would basically run up to control, see what the depth was, and then mark it on the stairs with a sharpie. Was pretty smart so they weren't constantly calling up to control for the current depth when they needed it.

They also had us NUBs walk around as a bucket brigade to find slow leaks to report later and of course any fast leaks for an emergency surface. Found a few drips but nothing at sea pressure thankfully, since at that depth the water pressure acts like one of those water CNC machines and can cut metal with relative ease if the stream is a beam and not a fan.

What really had me changing my skivvies though was when I was in the torpedo room with my bucket and, because of the boat compressing, the floor panels popped. Sounded like a gunshot going off right next to me and scared the ever living gak out of me.

The big boomer subs are a lot larger inside than the smaller SSN boats (they draft roughly the same amount of water as the smaller aircraft carriers), which I was on for about 2 weeks before they shipped me off to the Ohio. SSBNs are like being in the machinery room of a building basement for 3 months. The SSNs are much smaller and you have to make a decision of which part of you that you want to rub past someone when you pass each other in a passageway lol

I will say that in my time in the shipyard I got to tour one of the old diesel boats that was waiting to be scrapped and that gets a big ol nope from me. Those weren't made for someone of my size (6'4")

In regards to the child soldiers & conscripts line of discussion; I feel like for the purposes of this discussion and the spirit of the original question those are not considered 'jobs' as by nature they aren't voluntary. While the exact definition may vary, generally speaking when people talk about a "job" they mean a position the person chose to go and get. Also a child or conscript would be a type of soldier, not even a job to start with. The job would be what that person is doing, and I think we can all agree that any given military job is simply made worse if the person is not there willingly.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 trexmeyer wrote:

 Matt Swain wrote:


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_Witches

Thank you for sharing this. It doesn't sound that bad. They didn't take that many casualties. I had never heard of them before. They had guts to spare. It's amazing that so many women saw combat for the USSR during WWII and some people today still wring their hands over female fighter pilots for example.

I don't understand what is so difficult about applying the same standards to both genders, personally. There are numerous tests, exercises, drills, and all manner of other means designed not only to train but to weed out those unfit for service--even when that service is exclusively male. The military has essentially decided that if a person can pass those they are good enough to be there, and if they cannot pass those they are not.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 trexmeyer wrote:

 Matt Swain wrote:


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_Witches

Thank you for sharing this. It doesn't sound that bad. They didn't take that many casualties. I had never heard of them before. They had guts to spare. It's amazing that so many women saw combat for the USSR during WWII and some people today still wring their hands over female fighter pilots for example.

I don't understand what is so difficult about applying the same standards to both genders, personally. There are numerous tests, exercises, drills, and all manner of other means designed not only to train but to weed out those unfit for service--even when that service is exclusively male. The military has essentially decided that if a person can pass those they are good enough to be there, and if they cannot pass those they are not.

A big part of the issue is political and there's some concern about lowering standards to get female numbers up in certain MOSs. How much of that concern is genuine I don't know.

What I do know is that the USMC at least, and possibly the US Army, has behavioral issues amongst its young male Marines that does extend upward somewhat. There are also some isolated cases of female Marines having things like OnlyFans or premium Snapchats. In short, young people are stupid and horny and that isn't good for unit cohesion. A secondary issue is that the women capable of performing in say, infantry roles, are also fit enough to earn full ride athletic scholarships or go down a less dangerous career path in some form of athletics. For example, Annie Thorisdottir undoubtedly has the strength and endurance to make it through SOI (I know much weaker males that have gotten through), but she's making much more money as an upper echelon Crossfit athlete. Where's the motivation to switch?

Women worked well as snipers for the USSR, but modern US Military doctrine is much different.

I absolutely understand those factors, you raise some very valid issues. That the discussion instead focuses on entry standards is what I find absurd.

Well, if we want to play the 'superior gender" card it's a scieitific fact woman are better fighter pilots than men, and they can function better and longer under G stress than men.

So, why aren't we fielding all female fighter pilots? Because men are too insecure for that.

Seriously, the fact women can handle g stress better than men is a priven fact, sowell know it ever made it into an episode of the G.I. Joe cartoon where one of the female Joes was dogfight a cobra pilot, and said out loud "I know cobra pilots are surgically altered to make them better pilots, but women can take G forces better than men!"

She beat him by pulling into a high g maneuver.

To this day i still wonder A. Why cobra didn't use female jet pilots and B. WTF did she mean by "surgically altered to make them better pilots"?

 Matt Swain wrote:
Well, if we want to play the 'superior gender" card it's a scieitific fact woman are better fighter pilots than men, and they can function better and longer under G stress than men.

So, why aren't we fielding all female fighter pilots? Because men are too insecure for that.

Seriously, the fact women can handle g stress better than men is a priven fact, sowell know it ever made it into an episode of the G.I. Joe cartoon where one of the female Joes was dogfight a cobra pilot, and said out loud "I know cobra pilots are surgically altered to make them better pilots, but women can take G forces better than men!"

She beat him by pulling into a high g maneuver.

To this day i still wonder A. Why cobra didn't use female jet pilots and B. WTF did she mean by "surgically altered to make them better pilots"?

Where did anyone play that card?

Being able to handle g is not the sole qualifier to being a fighter pilot. There are a whole bunch of other tests that need to be passed, and other qualities the candidate needs to have. And this is outside of the fact that there will likely always be less female candidates than men due to socio-economic factors. It's irrelevant anyway, women are allowed to apply to become pilots, at least here in the UK. That's all there is to it.

 Matt Swain wrote:
Well, if we want to play the 'superior gender" card it's a scieitific fact woman are better fighter pilots than men, and they can function better and longer under G stress than men.

Please show where that card was played and provide a source for that claim. The first thing I found was that women's g tolerance was not a reason to disqualify them. I haven't seen any studies that claim women handle it better. I also wouldn't be surprised. Women have lower rates of colorblindness so based off solely that a higher percentage of women would qualify to be fighter pilots.

Edit: Also, referencing a bloody cartoon as source because the fact is so well-known is completely absurd. There is a whole host of well-known facts that make it into media that aren't remotely factual. Particularly when it comes to the military or depictions of the military.

Slaves on Roman galleys. I suppose you could say slaves forced into warfare in any situation but being forced to row on a primitive boat just makes it worse in my eyes.

Most galleys in the ancient world were maned by freemen and often well paid - Galleys in later periods - esp under certain French Kings were slaves

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
I absolutely understand those factors, you raise some very valid issues. That the discussion instead focuses on entry standards is what I find absurd.

recruitment practices..

another "sucks to do" job I think was Messerschmidt Me 163 pilot in WW2. So this ugly SoB here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messerschmitt_Me_163_Komet

Basically you take a seat in what is basically a rocket with wings, with explosive, flammable and as far as I read pretty corrosive fuel. Then you had to fly it towards the american bomber squadrons who were pretty well armed and usually had fighter support, full knowing that there were few points at your aircraft that could take a hit. Also at the speeds you were operating there was little time to react or even score a hit at the enemy. But the worst part was the landing. While the Me 163 seemed to have behaved quite well in the air (being derived from a glider), it had no conventional landing gear but some kind of "sleigh". So landing was temperamential at best and more than once lead to the fuel exploding, burning or (due to its corrosive nature) dissolving the pilot.

I guess test pilot in general can really suck. I remember reading about some of the first testpilots testing the ejection seats in the Dornier Do 335. The pilots did not survive and when they found them they realized that their arms had been teared of when the canope was blasted away. I don't remember if they ever found out if it was that they grapped the handles at the canope and then were dismembered when it flew away or if it was the explosive load being too strong.

Testpilot, aye, don't forget the slefdeconstructing HE 162...

Storming the Theodosian walls was notoriously pointless (though attempted on many occasions). I can imagine it must have been quite disheartening to get across the moat, over the low wall and beyond the outer wall only to find yourself in another kill zone in front of the inner wall. It took the invention of the world's largest cannon by the Turks to eventually get into Constantinople.

 trexmeyer wrote:

 Matt Swain wrote:


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_Witches

Thank you for sharing this. It doesn't sound that bad. They didn't take that many casualties. I had never heard of them before. They had guts to spare. It's amazing that so many women saw combat for the USSR during WWII and some people today still wring their hands over female fighter pilots for example.

I really don't see anyone complaining about Female pilots...like ever. The only times I hear my buddies talk about this is when they are referencing ground pounders. IE Infantry and support forces who are routinely unmounted, (Translation: Walking) into combat. The issue being related to

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

There are numerous tests, exercises, drills, and all manner of other means designed not only to train but to weed out those unfit for service--even when that service is exclusively male. The military has essentially decided that if a person can pass those they are good enough to be there, and if they cannot pass those they are not.

And the fact that the tests/drills/exercises and other means of weeding out people are incredibly biased and are not a test for fitness rather than a test for fitness based on gender.

When I was in, the run time for a perfect 3 Miles was 18 minutes. For females it was 21. Instead of pullups they did flex arm hang, and it got significantly worse as they transferred that over to pullups like the men.

Men get 5pts per pullup with a max score of 100pts, likewise females got a max score of 100, the difference was their 1st pullup was worth 75pts and the next 5 were worth 5pts each. Put that in perspective, for me to earn as many points as a female doing 1 pullup I had to do 15.

Now to get into the grittier stuff like humping packs on ruck marches. Routinely my unit was attached to grunts so we had to ruck a lot. When we would go on 9-12 mile marches it was not at all uncommon for the female members to fall out and/or have their packs picked up by men or by the safety vehicle. Now, don't get me wrong, there were a couple females who were more physically fit than a lot of the guys, but for every 1 female who fell into that category there was at least 5-6 who were literally worse than any guy in the battalion.

When we finally went to war, we lost about 10-20% to unexpected pregnancies before we deployed. So some poor SOB with no unit training/cohesion got shoved into the fray to fill the gap. Notably, this was the case for our Collections manager. The guy responsible for using air assets, we stuck a Cpl into the billet with zero training because our 2 females who were supposed to be the primary and backup both got pregnant and couldn't deploy.

Now, take all of that and team it with the massive study the USMC did relating to women in combat. They found that male only units dominated in basically every category and that integrated units only won a pair or so of events, and when you looked into it, it was because the teams were all men except for 1 female. They also found that women were several times more likely to sustain non-combat related injuries, usually from the fact that a combat load was almost as heavy as they were, which caused severe injuries to knees/backs and hips.

Which is why those separate standards shouldn't be a thing. They decided the male standards were what was needed for -soldiers- and if someone wants to be a male or female -soldier- that is the standard they should meet. I'd go on but we're getting a bit off topic.

 trexmeyer wrote:

 Matt Swain wrote:


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_Witches

Thank you for sharing this. It doesn't sound that bad. They didn't take that many casualties. I had never heard of them before. They had guts to spare. It's amazing that so many women saw combat for the USSR during WWII and some people today still wring their hands over female fighter pilots for example.

"It doesn't sound that bad"?

They were subjected to deliberate abuse, disrespect and virtual sabotage by their own side. They were denied important equipment because "Women were too dumb to know how to use it." They operated alone, behind enemy lines, in cold night in russian winter, they had zero chance of survival if their planes were hit, they didn;t even carry parachutes because bombs were more important and they were likely better off dying in a crash than being taken alive by the nazis.

Also, while 32 of the 261 people in the unit died, it is likely that the casualties were mostly the pilots, and not so much among the ground staff, but " It doesn't sound that bad"?

While most of the russian military disdained and disrespect them in the end it took the monstrously evil joe stalin to finally show them the respect they'd earned. But at least they got it it even if was from someone probably more evil than the devil.

 Matt Swain wrote:

 trexmeyer wrote:

 Matt Swain wrote:


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_Witches

Thank you for sharing this. It doesn't sound that bad. They didn't take that many casualties. I had never heard of them before. They had guts to spare. It's amazing that so many women saw combat for the USSR during WWII and some people today still wring their hands over female fighter pilots for example.

"It doesn't sound that bad"?

They were subjected to deliberate abuse, disrespect and virtual sabotage by their own side. They were denied important equipment because "Women were too dumb to know how to use it." They operated alone, behind enemy lines, in cold night in russian winter, they had zero chance of survival if their planes were hit, they didn;t even carry parachutes because bombs were more important and they were likely better off dying in a crash than being taken alive by the nazis.

Also, while 32 of the 261 people in the unit died, it is likely that the casualties were mostly the pilots, and not so much among the ground staff, but " It doesn't sound that bad"?

While most of the russian military disdained and disrespect them in the end it took the monstrously evil joe stalin to finally show them the respect they'd earned. But at least they got it it even if was from someone probably more evil than the devil.

In comparison to a lot of other potential military jobs throughout history, yes, it doesn't sound that bad. I don't think the disrespect from their male counterparts factors in to it.

In total, 261 people served in the regiment, of whom 32 died of various causes including plane crashes, combat deaths and tuberculosis. 28 aircraft were written off.

Not even all of the 32 deaths were combat deaths. The list provided at http://samsv.narod.ru/Polk/Ap/gvnbap046/spisok.html has about 120~ in aviation positions. Even if all 32 were pilots, that's a pretty low casualty count considering all factors.

What I've read about the primary Soviet Air Forces during WW2 suggest that they initially faired much worse than the Night Witches, hence the grotesque victory counts Luftwaffe pilots racked up on the Eastern Front.

 trexmeyer wrote:


What I've read about the primary Soviet Air Forces during WW2 suggest that they initially faired much worse than the Night Witches, hence the grotesque victory counts Luftwaffe pilots racked up on the Eastern Front.

The Soviet air arm was caught very much off guard by the Luftwaffe's tactical developments in the interwar years. While Nazi Germany's military brilliance is often overstated, the air war is an area where it's probably not. The Soviets had a real problem developing practical combat doctrine for their air force in the interwar years and officer purges heavily crippled their training programs and logistics, resulting in barely trained pilots and ground crews who could rarely get things done even if they knew what to do. The initial rapid advance of Operation Barbarossa also caught thousands of planes on the ground. The Soviet Air Force wouldn't get its gak together until late 1942, after Alexander Novikov spent a whole year putting it back together from scraps.

I'd also point out that the entire Soviet Air Force often went without parachutes early in the war. They didn't have enough and fatality rates for pilots so rarely came back there were at times attitudes that it was a waste to issue them. I know little of the Night Witches but I'd question if the issue was really sexism or logistic in nature. More often than not, the Soviets actually experimented with simply jumping out of the plane. Many of the aircraft they used could move very slow when needed without stalling, and they conducted experiments in the interwar years on simply jumping out of the plane at low altitude and landing in the snow, which isn't that fatal when your plan is going as slow as 50 mph. You get banged up, maybe break a bone if the snow is shallow or hiding a rock, but it was what they had.

I'm actually not sure how often pilots did this. I know transport planes did it with cargo. They'd fly low, slow down, and just dump the supplies out the back. Snow was enough to break the fall and keep the supplies from being too damaged. Early on I'm not sure enough pilots were surviving for it to matter and parachutes started becoming available by 1943.

The OP mentioned Tunnel Rats in Vietnam; earlier this year I actually met someone who had that job and he said it was pretty scary. He said he only got shot at a handful of times, but it still sucked. I have a lot of respect for any war veteran, but guys who do dangerous gak like that deserve extra kudos.

The person whose job it was to carry the King's Colours/Imperial Eagle/Roman Eagle/etc.

Yes, what an honour to be the person without a weapon and is also target number one for anyone looking for a bit of glory and to really stick it to their foe by stealing such a prized trophy.