Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to make mountain troops have same status among population as airborne/marine forces. That is elite fighting force. POD of your choosing but preferably 20th century.
Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to make mountain troops have same status among population as airborne/marine forces. That is elite fighting force. POD of your choosing but preferably 20th century.
I don't think anything needs to change. Most people I know would put the US Army's 10th Mountain Division in the same class with the 101st/82nd and the USMC.
The 10th is a mountain division in name only. It's based in Fort Drum, New York, a place distinquished by its flat topography. The division is best known for it's peace keeping specialization prior to the Iraq War. Now a days it's no longer the only unit with lots of peace keeping experience.
This is the fact in most European countries:
Alpini = to italian army what marines are to the americans
Gebirgsjäger = regarded as a elite force in WWII (actually saved the paratroopers on Creta) an to some degree still are
Chasseurs Alpins = same prestige as marine forces in the french army
I don't think I've ever seen reference to specialist Mountain or Alpine troop formations for Britain, the Commonwealth or Empire (in the past). Did we ever have such?
It would be quite neat to have some for NZ - given that we are basically mainly alpine area or mountains. Quite what they'd do while loitering about the mountains I not quite know
I don't think I've ever seen reference to specialist Mountain or Alpine troop formations for Britain, the Commonwealth or Empire (in the past). Did we ever have such?
It would be quite neat to have some for NZ - given that we are basically mainly alpine area or mountains. Quite what they'd do while loitering about the mountains I not quite know
Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to make mountain troops have same status among population as airborne/marine forces. That is elite fighting force. POD of your choosing but preferably 20th century.
I think Senator Bob Dole had alot of influence in Tenth Mountain Division being re born in any form.The 10th is a mountain division in name only. It's based in Fort Drum, New York, a place distinquished by its flat topography. The division is best known for it's peace keeping specialization prior to the Iraq War. Now a days it's no longer the only unit with lots of peace keeping experience.
52. (Lowland) and 60. (Light) Division were earmarked for a potential invasion of Norway and trained with the Free Norwegian Brigade and were re-equipped and trained for mountain warfare.
See this image for Lowlanders in mountain anoraks, manning a 3.7" mountain howitzer.
While the 52. (Lowland) Division was a real combat formation, it seems like the 60. (Light) Division was never fully formed.
The Gurkhas can perhaps be described as mountain troops?
Further to this, am I wrong in recollecting that the Royal Marines were - during the Cold War - assigned to the Scandinavian theatre?
In Belgium, Romania, Yugoslavia, France, Italy, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Bulgaria, Greece, Finland (Jääkari, not mountain troops as such, but in the same mold), Turkey, Norway, Sweden (again, Jägare, but the same concept) mountain troops are the elite of the army.
The 10th is a mountain division in name only. It's based in Fort Drum, New York, a place distinquished by its flat topography. The division is best known for it's peace keeping specialization prior to the Iraq War. Now a days it's no longer the only unit with lots of peace keeping experience.
The Swedish mountain troops, Fjälljägarna, are regarded as our number one elite fighting forces.
I didn't even need a PoD for that.![]()