Where did the Soviet mountain arrows come from?
Units of the 7th Guards Airborne Assault Mountain Division of the Airborne Forces are honorably fulfilling their tasks in Syria. One brigade is in the North Caucasus. This is all we know about the mountain troops of the modern Russian army. Meanwhile, they have a rich history, and their most widespread use fell on the Great Patriotic War.
The Mountain, Ski and Physical Training Directorate of the Red Army was responsible for the training of mountain rifle and mountain cavalry formations. Unlike similar German units, focused on a specific war in the highlands, ours trained at the foothills, only occasionally making hikes to the passes and storming the peaks. Mountaineering in the Red Army developed more as a sport of the elite than as an integral part of combat training.
The climbers themselves
In the 30s, mass ascents to Elbrus, called alpiniads, were undertaken. These were propaganda actions.
The Alpiniad of the Red Army was accompanied by planes making pirouettes over the slopes of Elbrus. A kind of sports festival, not much like the combat training of troops. It was during the alpiniad that test pilot M. Lipkin climbed in a light U-2 over the top of Elbrus, much blocking the ceiling accessible to the machine. It was a kind of record popularizing the power of the Red Army.
In September-October 1935, several high-altitude campaigns of formations and units of the Transcaucasian Military District took place. The personnel had to be trained in firing from all types of weapons, tactics of action day and night, techniques for overcoming various obstacles. But, like the alpiniads, the hikes were primarily propaganda actions.
To train mountain troops under the Directorate of the then simply physical training of the Red Army, a mountaineering department was formed in the 30s, and training bases of the Central House of the Red Army were created on the ground, where campaigns to the tops of military groups and units were organized year-round. However, they were few in number, and the command wanted new records to increase its prestige.
The mass mountaineering movement developed more intensively. In 1936, by decision of the Secretariat of the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions, voluntary sports societies were formed under the trade unions, under the jurisdiction of which all educational and sports mountaineering camps were transferred. An alpinist section was established under the All-Union Committee for Physical Culture and Sports. The results were not slow to appear. By 1940, in the Soviet Union, there were more than 50 thousand people who passed the sports standards for the badge "Mountaineer of the USSR" of the 1st stage. In the Caucasus, all the largest peaks were conquered, including in winter. Back in 1937, the USSR came out on top in the world in terms of the number of athletes who climbed the seven-thousanders. But when athletes-climbers turned to the Office of Mountain, Ski and Physical Training of the Red Army with a proposal to use their experience, they usually heard in response: "We will not fight on Elbrus."
According to military officials, operations in conditions requiring special mountaineering training were unlikely. The low qualifications of commanders and fighters were supposed to be compensated for by conscripts living in mountainous areas, and the enemy was suppressed with a mass, putting up against four German divisions, of which two Jaeger (light infantry) divisions were considered mountainous with a very big stretch, 23 Soviet.
Adjarian weapons
Orientation, reconnaissance, the use of weapons, the rules of firing - everything in the mountains has its own specifics. Special knowledge allows to reduce losses from natural hazards: frost, avalanches, rockfalls, closed cracks. Operations in the mountains in winter conditions are especially difficult. To be successful, you need to own downhill skiing, snowshoeing. The fighters and commanders of the Soviet mountain formations were not able to do either one or the other.
Already during the war, our climbers drew attention to the Adjarian stepping skis - thelamuri. Their rims, made of split tree branches and bent in the form of an irregular oval, were intertwined with tight bundles of cherry laurel branches, and therefore were very convenient for driving in deep snow. In a dense forest or bush, as well as with a steep ascent, the thelamuri had a clear advantage over alpine skiing. The command purchased several pairs, the mountain shooters learned to use them. Later, when hostilities unfolded on the Main Caucasian ridge, these skis and similar snowshoes were made in large quantities at the direction of the front headquarters, they were supplied to units that fought in the highlands. The Tkhelamuri turned out to be much more comfortable than snowshoes, but they had to be made manually, which took time. Subsequently, both stepping and alpine skis were included in the equipment set of our special units. The enemy used exactly the same set of equipment in the winter. But the German snowshoes were worse than the Adjarian ones.
Most of the military commanders were convinced that the boots were versatile. However, such shoes are of little use for skiing. Boots are also uncomfortable on high-mountainous terrain, as they slide not only over melted snow and ice, but also over stones. For the same reason, army boots are not suitable. Alpine shoes with special spikes are needed here. And on steep snow and ice slopes, in addition to them, special "crampons" are required, which cannot be fixed either on boots or on ordinary boots. By the way, the greatcoat is also uncomfortable in the mountains.
Mountain shoes last incomparably longer than usual. But its main advantage lies elsewhere. Made of thick leather with special padding in vulnerable areas of the foot, it saves feet from injuries inevitable when hitting stones, rock ledges and uneven ice.
There were a sufficient number of mountain boots in warehouses in the Transcaucasus, but many fighters, including at the training camp, refused them, citing the heaviness of these boots. However, the very first lessons forced the commanders and the Red Army men to change their minds. And above all, it was associated with skiing.
The universal army mounts installed on them were supposed to be reequipped in case of war with the help of special brackets, to make them more rigid. Skiing with such bindings (at that time they were called kandahar) was possible only in mountain boots. Alpine skiing was then considered exotic, even the instructor did not know the technique of downhill skiing. But in the mountains in deep snow, a fighter without skis is helpless, he can neither actively attack nor effectively defend himself. During the exercises, those who could not resist and fell were agreed to be considered out of action.
With battles - to the Caucasus
By mid-June 1941, the Red Army had 19 mountain rifle divisions and four mountain cavalry divisions. According to the state road police number 4/140, approved on April 5, 1941, the number of the compound was established at 8829 people. The basis of the division was made up of four mountain rifle regiments, in which there were no battalions - they were divided directly into companies.
With the outbreak of war and the advance of the enemy, the attitude towards the preparation of mountain formations began to change. Those who were part of the Kiev Special Military District of the State Forces were either destroyed, or were actively used in battles as ordinary infantry. Only divisions of non-belligerent districts and the Far Eastern Front could undergo reorganization.
Already in July 1941, a group of athletes turned to the General Staff of the Red Army with a proposal to use experienced climbers in the relevant sectors of the front or to train soldiers of units and formations stationed in the mountainous regions of the country. The list of volunteers was compiled from memory. The fact is that by the beginning of the war, climbers were not registered in a special military accounting specialty. Therefore, only a few athletes, and then by chance, were at that time in mountain formations.
Mountain units from the rear districts were sent to the front in the summer of 1941. The 21st cd as part of the 67th Red Banner, 17th and 112th Mountain Cavalry Regiments, 22nd Cavalry Artillery and 23rd Armored Divisions participated in the Battle of Smolensk, and in October 1941 it was part of the operational group of the Bryansk Front. However, in the future, the main task was still to participate in the war in the mountains. But this happened a little later - on July 25, 1942, the battle for the Caucasus began.
