U.S. alpine warfare capabilities?

[ganulv]

There was a great amount of public criticism and outright bashing post-Anaconda concerning the 10th Mountain Div and its lack of mountain training area, lack of acclimatisation prior to deployment, lack of alpine expert trainers and so on.

I think (could be wrong) that the Vermont National Guard runs the Army’s mountain warfare school. I’m not clear as to whether any of their units are true alpine warfare units or not.

The area around Watertown is flat as a board, but it’s close enough to the Adirondacks for easy day trips. But to keep acclimated to altitude within U.S. territory a unit would need to be based out west.

[Ken White]

The 10th is now only historically linked to its forebear which was trained for alpine warfare when it formed and trained at Camp Hale Colorado during WW II. It did fight in Italy; in the Appenines and the Alps.

Hale post WW II shifted from unit to individual training and later was closed in the 50s. Mountain and Cold Weather Training was moved to Fort Greeley, Alaska. It was closed post Cold War and the VT ArNG picked up the mountain training mission to include for the Active Army. It is individually focused but the School used to be willing to send out Mobile Training Teams to aid units training, probably still do but certainly could if deemed necessary. People in the Active Army also get sent to other nation's real mountain warfare schools (that's not a knock on the Vt Guard but on the fact that, in Vermont, the available mountains aren't...), to include India's but as Gunlv says, to do units, a western location would be necessary.

Anaconda suffered from more flaws than a lack of training, an overweening bureaucracy being but one. That overly bureaucratic bit and its allied overemphasis on force protection is in part a reaction to our less than stellar training; one cannot expect better than average or even average performance from below average training so one tends to be excessively cautious in employment. The sad thing is that Grenada, Panama, Desert Storm, the Somalia affair and even moving into Bosnia where Rick Sanchez was afraid to have his Engineers bridge a river in an end 1995 non combat situation all were harbinger and examples of how not to do things. Or, more correctly, how to do things wrongly, expensively, cautiously and without achieving the desired effect in a timely fashion while taking and causing unnecessary casualties...

That's what happens when you treat your Army not as a real and existing military force but as a mere holding pool of people, funds and equipment for a mobilization and big war you might not ever see. That attitude BTW, is not totally a post Viet Nam phenomenon but it has grown exponentially and dangerously since VN. I believe that is true due to a -- flawed and failing IMO -- effort to influence US policy. The effort has not done that and has instead done the institution itself and the people in it a grave disservice. Not done well by the nation, either...

As Jon Custis once wrote, it's fortunate that most of the folks we fight are even more screwed up than we are...

[Fuchs]

As Jon Custis once wrote, it's fortunate that most of the folks we fight are even more screwed up than we are...

Did you already give back your U.S. citizenship?

You sound so totally un-American...after all, hooah!!!, Tom Clancy, easy bashing of underdeveloped nations' militaries, huge budgets and so on have convinced MANY U.S. Americans (and others) that all that shines is platinum.

[Rex Brynen]

Pfft, don't think we don't know the real reason the 10th Mountain Division is at Fort Drum.

[Steve Blair]

Pfft, don't think we don't know the real reason the 10th Mountain Division is at Fort Drum.

Naw...now that we have microbreweries we don't need to go north.

[Ken White]

Did you already give back your U.S. citizenship?

With all our flaws, we still do better on more things than do any others of whom I'm aware. Many nations out perform us in specific areas but no one nation is as lucky to have so many fortuitous synergies roll into one acceptable but admittedly not great package.

You sound so totally un-American...after all, hooah!!!, Tom Clancy, easy bashing of underdeveloped nations' militaries, huge budgets and so on have convinced MANY U.S. Americans (and others) that all that shines is platinum.

I think much of that is due to the failings of our media -- that's one area where even the worst in the world are ahead of us. A senior British Officer once said of our news people that their pathetic performance made us look like intemperate and rather ignorant clowns in the eyes of most of the rest of the world -- and he was IMO absolutely right. He added that he was truly shocked in actual interplay to find out that the truth was quite different.

Contrary to what those Squirrels say, show and write, my observation is that most Americans are pretty well aware of our benefits and shortfalls. The problem is that we're individualistic enough to squabble endlessly over what to do about correcting said shortfalls so needed results are agreed to but the routes are subject to almost endless negotiation and argument. Thus correction comes slowly -- though I sense that may be changing. Exasperation with Washington is always present and waxes and wanes but I think it has edge now that I've never seen before. The political crowd, the media, the White House and Congress really need to wake up and smell the coffee.

[Steve Blair]

Anaconda suffered from more flaws than a lack of training, an overweening bureaucracy being but one. That overly bureaucratic bit and its allied overemphasis on force protection is in part a reaction to our less than stellar training; one cannot expect better than average or even average performance from below average training so one tends to be excessively cautious in employment.

Quite. Especially when one considers that the 10th only provided headquarters elements for Anaconda...the combat force (outside of SpecOps) was from the 101st. Mix and match has become one of our other hallmarks, and we never remember that it quite often doesn't go well...

[Ken White]

Mix and match has become one of our other hallmarks, and we never remember that it quite often doesn't go well...

Lacking well trained or experienced troops, the results are predictably really bad -- and thus caution inspiring...

An unfortunate side effect is the creation of a culture of "I want only people I know to work for me." This attitude means eschewing the pipeline (which will be the only source of replacements in a larger war...) and creates sycophants. It also drives many good people out of the forces (plural...)

[Pete]

During World War II the 10th Mountain trained at Dolly Sods, West Virginia, now a wilderness recreation area. It's high plateau country and said to have cliffs that the mountain troops used for training on climbing and rappelling. Never saw the cliffs the time I was there.

A girlfriend and I went camping there in 1986. Before we went there she told me how pristine and untouched it was, just like the way it was when Mother Nature had made it. Therefore imagine my startled reaction when we drove in and there was a big sign in color mounted on two posts saying

EXPLOSIVE ORDNANCE!
IF YOU FIND ONE OF THESE DO NOT TOUCH!

This of course was followed on the sign by images of 81mm, 4.2-inch and 105-mm projectiles. My thought was here I go again.

The main road through the recreation area is straight as an arrow courtesy of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, not a more winding road like civilians or park rangers would have built. Nancy and I had a nice weekend. A local greasy spoon where we ate breakfast had an iron-framed Henry Rifle from the Civil War in fair condition for sale for $700 that I did not buy; today it would be worth about $20-40K, it's hard to say.

[Pete]

When I was at Virginia Tech in 1976 I managed to snag a World War II mountain troops field jacket in unissued condition for a nominal sum. Three hippie-types driving a 1950s station wagon had a breakdown and they were selling their possessions to raise money for repairs.

The jacket was different from the standard WWII one in major ways -- it had a zipper on the front and on its pockets and also a G.I. khaki belt that went through a tunnel around the waist . The buckle was the old-fashioned hollow square kind, not the shiny brass of the dress uniform or the 1950s.

The jacket had a cargo compartment in the back that opened with a zipper, as well as adjustable packstraps inside. I read that the straps were not for carrying cargo in the back, but rather to allow the jacket to be taken off and carried on the back when temperatures in the mountains go from winter at night to summer during the day.

The firm Willis & Geiger is said to have been the company that made these jackets. They were a rich-guys' outfitter based in NYC that sold outdoor stuff to Theodore Roosevelt, Amelia Ehrhart and Earnest Hemingway. W&G designed and made the main Army Air Corps leather jacket of WWII.

W&G went out of business around 10 years ago, Their business model was to sell extremely expensive reproduction military stuff to guys who are legends in their own minds, like the author Tom Clancey. (You can see him on his back covers wearing his Ray-Bans and their flight jackets.) The last owner of W&G, Land's End, let the company go under about 10 years ago because of its financial problems.

[jmm99]

These two deal primarily with training:

Studies in the History of the Army Ground Forces, No. 28, "History of the Tenth Light Division (Alpine)."

Studies in the History of the Army Ground Forces, No. 23, "Training for Mountain and Winter Warfare."

This one covers one regiment's combat history:

History of the 85th Mountain Infantry in Italy

One of the factors giving rise to the division's formation was the relative success of Finnish skiers in the Winter War.

Our neighbor's son (item 8 iii - F.A. Romberg) was a good skier and 100% Finnish, and ended up in the 85th Mountain Infantry (KIA 14 Apr 1945, Castel d'Aiano, Italy - SS citation).

Regards

Mike