French Chasseurs Alpins. These guys had no chill when “the Boche” were poking around their mountains

Ski-mounted alpine troops have long been a facet of mountain warfare in Europe, with specialized units such as the French Chasseurs Alpins and Italian Alpini battalions dating as far back as the 19th Century. It was after just such an encounter with the French “Blue Devils” that sparked the formation of German mountain infantry in 1915, modeled after the Austrian Landwehr’s Gebirgstruppe (mountain troops) of the latter country’s Tyrolean region.

Austrian mountain troops, getting friendly with the rope game

The Germans evolved their Gebirgsjäger units over the years until no less than 16 divisions were given the title during WWII– although many were not true “mountain” troops.

Soldiers from the Prinz Eugen Division help each other in climbing a mountain rock in the Dinaric Alps, Croatia in 1943– note the Bergmann MP35 submachine gun

Today, Germany still fields a full three-battalion brigade of high-quality mountain infantry, Gebirgsjägerbrigade 23, which consists of about 5,300 soldiers trained to fight under extreme weather conditions.

And their annual winter training, to include the Polarfuchs (“Arctic Fox”) exercise– which everyone from enlisted to the commanding officer has to complete– and the smaller International Mountain Warfare Patrol, are pretty legit. Basically, take the Winter Olympics’ biathlon and add grenades, Heckler & Koch rifles, and snow camo.

This guy knows what I’m talking about

More in my column at Guns.com.