Flashback time.
I was messing about on a beach in Cyprus whilst it was being 'assaulted'. A nearby squaddie was idly chucking smashed up bits of pallets onto a fire, to create a smoke trail for 'windage' guidance. A Hercules approached, ramp down, clearly going to drop some kit, so we watched. The drogue came out the back and a field gun slid out down the ramp, operating its static line as it departed from the plane. The main 'chute appeared, but it became immediately apparent that it was not going to open properly.
It flailed aimlessly behind the gun as it hurtled earthwards, straight at the aforementioned squaddie, who discovered how hard is it to run on bone-dry sand. He ended up virtually swimming out of the way, and not by very much, as the gun buried the fire in the sand.
There could be lots of 'fun' with equipment drops. There was a system whereby the load would be dropped fast, with a small 'chute, this gave much more accuracy, but you needed to soften the actual landing more than the small 'chute alone would, so the mounting platform had rockets on that were supposed to fire just before the ground arrived. There is a film somewhere of a failure with a Land Rover drop. It hit the ground hard, with no retro-rocket activity, smashed the suspension of the vehicle and most of the innards, then the rockets went off and fired the whole thing back up in the air, turned it over and dropped it on its roof.
And there was the Fulton Recovery System, definitely one for the thrill-seekers.
"Uncomfortable".....