Mountain Warfare—the need for specialized training

Military Review, Sept-Oct, 2004 by Muhammad Asim Malik

Once trainees understand mountainous terrain and its effects on combat, the next step is to conduct small exercises involving patrolling, raids, and ambushes. These exercises should incorporate mountaineering skills in situations that tests trainees' abilities to modify traditional tactics to mountainous terrain. These exercises build leadership skills, initiative, flexibility, and team spirit. Although no opposing force (OPFOR) exists in the Pakistan Army's High-Altitude School or at the U.S. Army Mountain Warfare School, an OPFOR is necessary for creating a realistic environment and developing mountain warfare skills.

U.S. Army Mountain Warfare School instructors are topnotch mountaineers. However, most do not have actual mountain-combat experience. (44) Posting officers who served in Afghanistan to the Mountain Warfare School might address this problem.

Collective training. Collective training is an opportunity to test units and formations in actual mountainous environments, reinforcing and building on skills gained through acclimatization and individual training and allowing commanders to check the viability of their assumptions and plans in a realistic setting. Synchronization and coordination between fighting and supporting arms and among all the battlefield operating systems are also key elements of this training.

Collective training in winter and summer environments is a regular part of the Pakistan Army's mountain training. Because altitude is an important consideration, reserve units train at heights equivalent to those at which they are expected to fight. Training is primarily mission-centric, based on the nature of tasks assigned to the units, and includes offensive and defensive tasks and small-unit actions.

The U.S. Army does not conduct collective training in mountain warfare; it focuses more on survival training rather than high-altitude combat. (45) The USMC conducts infantry battalion training, but the training does not include artillery, engineers, aviation, or other supporting arms. (46) Considering the unique requirements of mountainous and high-altitude environments, these can be serious limiting factors for coordinating and synchronizing the combined arms fight and can easily lead to faulty planning and wrong assumptions about each other's capabilities and limitations.

Operation Anaconda demonstrated that fighting in the mountains is not a special operation or exclusively an infantry domain. (47) Mountain warfare involves logistics, aviation, artillery, communications, and air assets. With the level of sophistication in these branches and services, there is an even greater need for collective training in order to use their unique characteristics fully.

Branch-specific training. All branches and services need to train for mountain combat to understand the capabilities and limitations of their equipment. Aviation is critical to mobility, timely logistics, and precision firepower. Pilots should be well trained in mountain flying and in understanding an infantryman's problems in mountainous terrain. The Pakistan Army's 8th Aviation Squadron supports operations in Kashmir. Pilots have hundreds of hours of combat flying experience and understand the mountainous environment.