S
safetysOff
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I love eating food from a cold paper pouch :threat:
Kat Stevens said:I didn't follow the Nld story too closely, but I'm sure they did well. There is however a huge difference between a daylight build on a prepared site and a tactical bridge build when it's darker than the inside of a cow.
PuckChaser said:My unit ran a winter warfare course last year.... it amounted to 2 days outside (one was improvised shelters which was awesome). Calling it "warfare" though is an insult, weapons were carried because that's the habit, and the troops only had 30 rounds of blank a piece.
Old Sweat said:Look, we, okay, you have got to start somewhere, and Square One seems as good as place as any. If that is a two day winter indoctrination course, so be it. It is two days more than the unit would have had if it had been decided that it was too difficult. It may take time, but the skills and corporate knowledge will be developed. Why not bring in a few of the old arctic foxes that are out there and pick their brains either sitting around a table or in a more formal setting?
The same thing could be said about all sorts of things that went by the wayside in the last couple of decades. The modern officers and troops aren't stupid, and with a bit of help can start to rebuild the lost skill sets.
One last thought. Our little army which was widely believed by outsiders to have concentrated on peacekeeping "somehow" managed to make the transition to war pretty well despite not having fought for two generations. By the logic I see in much of this thread, we should not have been able to do so. The behind the scenes concentration of fighting skills year after year after year was much of the reason. There is no reason today's army can't do the same with winter ops or amphibious ops or jungle ops or whatever; it will just take some time and some mistakes will be made. In the end, the effort will be bear fruit. It's like making sausages. The process is really frigging ugly, but the result is well worth the effort.
I will now crawl back in my hole and keep quiet.
Jim Seggie said:I concur with OS......it may be ugly, but the "end state" desired is to have an Army that can function in the cold. You don't HAVE to go to the Arctic to be cold. Try Shilo.
If anyone is interested, contact 38 Bde WRT Northern Bison.
daftandbarmy said:There may be some here who will disagree, but in terms of arctic operations, the 'skill fade' will have the biggest impact on operational effectiveness in the A & B Echelons, plus other more complex support needs...
You can train up and equip a rifle company pretty quick to do what's required in the cold. It's harder to make sure that you can exist longer than a week or so, which is where the echelon being equipped and trained properly comes in. E.g., the helicopters, my Gawd, the things you need to do to keep those things flying at mega sub-zero temps just isn't worth thinking about (for an infantryrman that is, it hurts my brain).