winter conditions

tootall wrote:Ironic-

We've waited all thru winter for these bits- now
a lot of us are sweltering...
..."discussing" cold.

It's called verbal air conditioning...

Don

n7axw wrote:

tootall wrote:Ironic-

We've waited all thru winter for these bits- now
a lot of us are sweltering...
..."discussing" cold.

It's called verbal air conditioning...

Don

Hi Don,

You know your question was static. What capabilities would groups have with various training? BGV was in Allyntyn all of October, November, and February. He was "Winterizing" his troops and waiting for the arrival of snow lizards and caribou. So, the question should be what would be the capabilities of troops that were taught winter marches in basic training be after a 45 day advanced course. (The last half of November, and February to assure that the training was as cold as the intended actions in March and April.)

James

The answer, as usual, is 'it depends'

Specifically, for the first part, on how cold it is, how deep the snow is and how frozen the ground is. For the second, add type of terrain and vegetation [translation: tell me where you are. it matters]. Remember that northern hemisphere autumn is often really rainy, so ground can be pretty boggy when the snow hits.

Extreme cold will disable just about any machinery if it's shut down, or in some cases not kept in continuous operation, which can be kind of awkward. Deep snow can bog armour, which lets dismounted infantry on snowshoes run rings around it, and worse yet, a good layer of snow can actually keep the ground under it from freezing hard enough to carry the weight. Not a problem for helos, you'd think, but they're slow enough that a good shot can take them down with anti-armour weapons even if your SAM crews are operating at their usual level of efficiency. They're also even more sensitive to low temperatures, and _can't_ be operated continuously for weeks at a time the way you can, at least in principle, run a LAV3 or Stryker.

OTOH, boreal forest can be surprisingly easy to move through. You have to take it slow and easy, but you can do it with the right terrain and tree density - and if either changed abruptly, you would be in deep doo-doo.

EdThomas wrote:Thought/question for those who've done it and Tenshinai ( our resident Finn).
In open country would infantry be able to function? I'm thinking the battle would be largely between armor, helicopter gunships and ground support aircraft like the A10. Would mechanized infantry work?

In the great northern forest belts would anything but infantry be able to operate? Small tracks could probably work but would big tanks and mech artillery be limited to roads and roadside clearings?

JRM wrote:
Hi Don,

You know your question was static. What capabilities would groups have with various training? BGV was in Allyntyn all of October, November, and February. He was "Winterizing" his troops and waiting for the arrival of snow lizards and caribou. So, the question should be what would be the capabilities of troops that were taught winter marches in basic training be after a 45 day advanced course. (The last half of November, and February to assure that the training was as cold as the intended actions in March and April.)

James

Hi James,

You have a very strong point. One can speculate what the troops were doing during that time frame.

What I was doing with my question was taking the text evidence which I understood as saying that while the whole ICA was trained to March under winter conditions, only BGV's 1st corp or about 28,000 men were actually trained to fight under those conditions.

What I was asking was "what was the difference?"

I found the responses quite helpful in helping me understand what sort of training is needed for winter fighting as opposed to winter marching. I would like to thank everyone who responded and helped fill in the picture for me.

Don

EdThomas wrote:Thought/question for those who've done it and Tenshinai ( our resident Finn).
In open country would infantry be able to function? I'm thinking the battle would be largely between armor, helicopter gunships and ground support aircraft like the A10. Would mechanized infantry work?

In the great northern forest belts would anything but infantry be able to operate? Small tracks could probably work but would big tanks and mech artillery be limited to roads and roadside clearings?

Infantry in open country before air power? Yes.

As for the rest you need to be specific. My son is Cdn forces. They routinely do infantry and light mechanized maneuvers in winter. Canada has winter paratroop capability as well. The Rangers in the far north are "mechanized" with good snow machines!

As mentioned above, when you're talking arctic, "it depends" is really an important consideration.

Louis R wrote:The answer, as usual, is 'it depends'
SNIP

Thanks for replying. I did some poking and was surprised to find how narrow the LAV3 and Stryker are. I'd thought they were too big to work in the boreal forest but it seems that's not the case. Also came across the "Hagglund" over the snow vehicle. This seems to be big favorite for arctic operations because of variety of roles it can perform.

jgnfld wrote:Infantry in open country before air power? Yes.

SNIP

Hi,
Thanks for replying. I was thinking infantry, straight leg infantry, even if on skis, wouldn't be able to carry enough support weaponry, machine guns,mortars, anti-armor, etc to survive any contact with a larger unit or installation. Duhh question. does modern arctic infantry pull sleds when they're on skis or snowshoes?
There seem to be a large number of small wheeled or tracked vehicles available but in my mind their use moves the infantry into the "mechanized" class.
It sounds as if your son's picked a good time to be serving in arctic forces. Another of the things I discovered in my "poking around" is the emphasis Canada's putting on arctic operations. I saw a number of large patrol boats are planned but didn't see anything for the Army other than larger and more numerous forward equipment depots.

EdThomas wrote:

jgnfld wrote:Infantry in open country before air power? Yes.

SNIP

Hi,
Thanks for replying. I was thinking infantry, straight leg infantry, even if on skis, wouldn't be able to carry enough support weaponry, machine guns,mortars, anti-armor, etc to survive any contact with a larger unit or installation. Duhh question. does modern arctic infantry pull sleds when they're on skis or snowshoes?
There seem to be a large number of small wheeled or tracked vehicles available but in my mind their use moves the infantry into the "mechanized" class.
It sounds as if your son's picked a good time to be serving in arctic forces. Another of the things I discovered in my "poking around" is the emphasis Canada's putting on arctic operations. I saw a number of large patrol boats are planned but didn't see anything for the Army other than larger and more numerous forward equipment depots.

I'm not in the military, but it seems to me that these days, no infantry moves purely on foot. Mechanized means more than merely using a vehicle; mechanized means using armored and/or armed vehicles.

That's in good part because, really, there isn't a lot of new kit the Army needs for arctic ops, since if it wasn't equipped and trained for them already, it might as well go home for 6 months of the year. I've been in Shilo when it was colder than anywhere in the arctic; Wainwright is as bad, and Petawawa and Valcartier aren't a lot better. Gagetown tends to be warmer, but with 3-4x the snow. When you need full arctic kit just to get from the barracks to the club, infantry tend to take winter warfare pretty seriously

It would help a lot if the kit was being kept in good working order, of course, but that doesn't make very good press.

EdThomas wrote:

jgnfld wrote:Infantry in open country before air power? Yes.

SNIP

Hi,
Thanks for replying. I was thinking infantry, straight leg infantry, even if on skis, wouldn't be able to carry enough support weaponry, machine guns,mortars, anti-armor, etc to survive any contact with a larger unit or installation. Duhh question. does modern arctic infantry pull sleds when they're on skis or snowshoes?
There seem to be a large number of small wheeled or tracked vehicles available but in my mind their use moves the infantry into the "mechanized" class.
It sounds as if your son's picked a good time to be serving in arctic forces. Another of the things I discovered in my "poking around" is the emphasis Canada's putting on arctic operations. I saw a number of large patrol boats are planned but didn't see anything for the Army other than larger and more numerous forward equipment depots.

Again, it depends. As I understand it, yes, when the term was introduced, that was the distinction between 'mechanised' and 'motorised' infantry. I have no idea when the CF dropped the latter designation - it was gone before I joined - but the former hasn't been in formal use since 4CMBG was shut down in the mid-90s. All the battalions are mechanised now. When they need to be. There's still an awful lot of places where they need not to be - and they spend at least as much time training for the dismounted role as they do for mechanised and combined-arms ops.

jgnfld wrote:Infantry in open country before air power? Yes.

SNIP

EdThomas wrote:Hi,
Thanks for replying. I was thinking infantry, straight leg infantry, even if on skis, wouldn't be able to carry enough support weaponry, machine guns,mortars, anti-armor, etc to survive any contact with a larger unit or installation. Duhh question. does modern arctic infantry pull sleds when they're on skis or snowshoes?
There seem to be a large number of small wheeled or tracked vehicles available but in my mind their use moves the infantry into the "mechanized" class.
It sounds as if your son's picked a good time to be serving in arctic forces. Another of the things I discovered in my "poking around" is the emphasis Canada's putting on arctic operations. I saw a number of large patrol boats are planned but didn't see anything for the Army other than larger and more numerous forward equipment depots.

SWM wrote:I'm not in the military, but it seems to me that these days, no infantry moves purely on foot. Mechanized means more than merely using a vehicle; mechanized means using armored and/or armed vehicles.