 because after you jumped out of the low-flying, slow-moving plane with little practice and a bunch of stuff, there was a real chance you'd get tangled in the net and die or be injured. The size and nature of these extraordinary burdens, which nearly doubled a man's weight with the stuff that you had to carry, and required, for assumption, something like the assistance of a knight in armor, which you would receive from esquires, tells us a great deal about the nature of the airborne operations.