Hi, sorry for the slow reply. Been a bit busy.

Well, the role of the US Airborne was to secure the western flank of the invasion; to hold up/hamper/delay any counter-attack by German forces on the troops landing on Utah & Omaha. The British Airborne were doing the same thing on the eastern flank. Both suffered from scattered drops, with many troops missing their landing zones for a number of reasons, including navigational problems and mis-dropped pathfinder units. But the core problem was inexperience. Air transport pilot training was good… right up to the moment they found themselves in poor weather, at night, and facing intense flak. Many pilots lost track of where they were and what they were meant to be doing. Many failed to slow down to let their stick of troopers jump, resulting in wider dispersion and loss of equipment (paratroopers rifles and equipment were ripped away in the slipstream) and, dare I say it, many felt a compelling need to ‘dump & run’. One other factor that affected gliders more than paratroopers, was the tendency to overload, thus making flying unbalanced and difficult. If you were a trooper, wouldn’t you want to take that extra clip of ammo or grenade? Added up, it made flying difficult for pilots!