Over several days, the Israeli Air Force has dropped seven tons of water supplies to IDF troops on the ground in Gaza using its special operations “Shimshon” C-130s.
The Israel Defense Force released a video of one of the aircraft executing a night-time parachute-drop of water supplies on Monday. The IDF says a series of drops “were made by the ‘Shimshon’ aircraft of the 103rd Squadron in a joint operation with the Technology and Logistics Division and the aerial supply unit of the Marom Brigade”.
“Shimshon” is the biblical figure known as Samson in English translations of the Bible, known for his immense strength and his efforts fighting the enemies of Israel. The Shimshon aircraft are Lockheed Martin
LMT
The first was turned over to the Israeli Air Force (IAF) in the U.S. in 2013 and subsequent aircraft were delivered to IAF’s 103rd squadron at Nevatim Air Base in southern Israel. As of 2019 the IAF had received seven of the extended-fuselage C-130J-30s (15 feet/4.6 m longer than legacy C-130 models) from an order for up to nine of the aircraft. It’s not clear whether the full order option was taken up by Israel.
According to the IDF, the water supplies were dropped in an area of Khan Yunis, the largest city in the southern portion of the Gaza Strip and a major stronghold for Hamas terrorists. An officer of the IDF 98th Division’s Logistics Array alluded to the difficulty of resupplying IDF Commandos in Khan Yunis with water. The City’s location and heavy fighting therein makes resupply by surface means impractical at best.
The airdrops saw the use of a Guided Supply system which the IDF described as “an advanced operational system that enables parachuting equipment to ground forces using precise navigational capabilities”. No details on the system were provided but it may be similar to GPS-assisted cargo parachute kits used by U.S. Air Force and Marine Corps units known as the Joint Precision Airdrop System (JPADS).
JPADS is reportedly capable of getting a load within 164-246 feet (50 to 75 meters) of programmed target coordinates. JPADS bundles can apparently glide via parachute to drop zones up to approximately 15 and-a-half miles (25 kilometers) away when dropped from high altitudes. The Guided Supply System may have very similar range.
The system was apparently Israeli-provided equipment installed in C-130J-30s at Lockheed Martin’s Marietta, Georgia assembly line. A release from the IAF’s 103 squadron in 2014 affirmed that, “The Israeli systems installed in the ‘Shimshon’ make it a leading aircraft in its field…”
The IDF said this week’s airdrops are the first operational use of the Guided Supply system and the first airdrops carried out since the Second Lebanon War. The video footage, shot with a thermal imaging camera, shows one of the 103rd’s Super Hercules at what appears to be relatively low altitude with its rear cargo ramp open.
It cuts to a shot showing pallets with boxes presumably containing water supplies rolling on tracks toward and off the C-130’s rear ramp, their parachute straps in evidence. Following sequences, shot from another manned aircraft or a UAV, show the guided parachute cargo dropping from the aircraft and descending over the City to what look like carefully chosen landing zones at a street intersection.
Given that seven tons roughly equates to 5,236 gallons of water, a number of pallets would likely have been dropped. Making the drops at night was surely safer for the C-130s but possibly more dangerous for the IDF troops who recovered them given Hamas’ possible ability to move on the surface after dark.
The scarcity of potable water in the Gaza Strip and in Khan Younis would make the pallets highly prized by both the IDF and Hamas though the latter likely prepositioned its own stores underground before the conflict.
The IAF’s airdrops are not the only such recent operations. According to The Jordan Times, the Royal Jordanian Air Force (RJAF) airdropped boxes of vital medical supplies to the Jordanian field hospital in Khan Yunis last week, marking the fourth such airdrop of humanitarian supplies by Jordan. These were likely executed by RJAF C-130E Hercules’ possibly using the U.S. JPADS system.
While Israel wages war on Hamas, further Shimshon precision water drops will probably continue.
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