Tag Archives: snow camo

The Butgenback Shuffle

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Jan. 13, 1945: a Big Red One Soldier, from the 16th Infantry Regiment, in a protective snowsuit (aka Spok suit) advances toward enemy positions in the Butgenback sector of Belgium during the Battle of the Bulge.

Signal Corps Photo 248311

PFC George Kelly of Philadelphia near Bütgenbach Belgium – January 1945. LIFE Magazine, George Silk Photographer. Kelly was KIA shortly after this picture was snapped, at age 25.

For more on the 16th Infantry’s trip through snow “knee-deep on the level and drifted to two to three times that depth where the wind could get at it,” check out the regimental historical society’s detailed account.

My Future’s so Bright…

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…I gotta wear shades.

Official caption: “A Marine sets his sights on a target during his cold-weather training, 1989.”

Dig the M16A2/M203 combo. Courtesy of the USMC History Division Archives

Happy National Sunglasses Day.

Ivan don’t HALO…or maybe they do

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Deputy Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation, Lt. Gen Evkurov Yunus-Bek , an Ossetian who graduated from the Ryazan Airborne Command school back in 1989– back when it was Soviet– was in the drop zone over the weekend watching a VDV recon unit somewhere in the Arctic hit the silk from a reported 33,000 feet, which is about the upper practical edge of a HALO/HAHO insertion.

About as Red Dawn meets Ice Station Zebra as you can get…

Those AK-12s do look good in an arctic scheme, though

The Russians say it is the first time in their history that they have jumped from that height. Once on the ground, they carried out a simulated direct-action against an “intelligence target.”

Roll that beautiful propaganda footage. Yunus-Bek appears at about the 2:27 mark of the first video.