Over the last ten years, the U.S. military has placed a renewed focus on the Arctic as an area of responsibility (AOR) in which soldiers may have to fight future conflicts. The extremely cold temperatures, rugged terrain, and the "tyranny of distance" (long distances that make logistics difficult) most likely preclude a large scale war in the Arctic.
That said, in the past, there have been infantry engagements in the Arctic and today soldiers train to conduct conventional and special operations there, as well as search and rescue.
With the publication of the Army's arctic warfare strategy, and the creation of the 11th Airborne Division in Alaska in 2022, the unit was given the mission, "to not just survive but thrive in [extreme cold weather] and mountainous terrain."
Unit leadership recently discussed a number of tests that the 11th Airborne Division is conducting in order to improve their arctic mobility techniques, and experiments they are conducting to help troops better operate in the world's most hostile environment. Permafrost is almost impossible to move across even with snow mobiles, arctic snow is dry and powdery making it difficult to walk across, and during the summer months, the thaw creates a bog-like environment that even off-road vehicles cannot traverse.
But being an Airborne Division has its advantages, with soldiers able to parachute into austere locations that cannot be reached by roads. One concept being looked at is using frozen lakes as drop zones. To study the feasibility of this tactic, the division worked with the 1-52 General Support Aviation Battalion, 212th Rescue Squadron, Cold Region Research and Engineering Laboratory researchers, and the U.S. Coast Guard’s Ice Rescue Team.
To figure out the thickness of the ice required to use a frozen lake as a drop zone, the test team dropped replica paratroopers and resupply bundles from helicopters over the ice. The study determined that frozen lakes would make an adequate drop zone for paratroopers.
Another novel technique that was tested was the construction of an ice bridge. When the weather is warmer, the ice may not be thick enough to support military vehicles so this technique can be used to harden the ice. "The bridge is created through a process of pumping water from underneath an ice sheet back onto the top of the ice sheet, keeping the water in place with small snow berms, and allowing the ice to harden in lifts," 11th Airborne Division leaders Lt. Col. Joshua P. Bost, Lt. Col. Elizabeth A. Knox, and Chief Warrant Officer 2 Jomar R. Perez write.
Other studies the unit conducted looked at using packed snow as defensive fortifications. It might sound like the snow fort you made as a kid, but the division learned by firing various munitions as walls of compacted snow that even a .50 caliber round could be halted, if not ricocheted, by 1.5 meters of snow.
These tactics, techniques, and procedures matter not just for the defense of the American frontier in Alaska, but may also play a role in overseas combat operations in the future. "Russia, China, and North Korea all have climates that meet, if not exceed, those of interior Alaska," the authors point out.