The Evolution of the Mountain Hunter

Unfortunately I know next to nothing about climbing equipment (I know however a thing or two about skiing), but I think that basically the climbing gear couldnt have changed too much in the last few decades. We're not talking here about Everest-category gear, there's no military use that I can think of for it with the Romanian VM.
On the other hand - as suggested by virtually all the officers interviewed in the presamil.ro article - in the winter it's paramount to have proper touring (all-round) modern ski gear. As I said, alpine gear (for going downhill only) is cumbersome and unpractical for practical military purposes, and the traditional wooden skis+cable bindings can prove exceptionally troublesome for even the most skilled skiers. What is the use of such equipment if after a 500 meters descent on a natural terrain all the men are looking for parts of their equipment in the snow or are disabled with fractures or sprained knees/ankles?
I remember seeing a winter VM training back in the 80s at Ranca in the Parang mountains, the VM recruits - they said it was their 2nd month of ski training while usually with proper equipment it takes no more than 12-24 hours of practice to ski well enough - they were going on an easy/average ski slope with compacted snow (no trees, no tree stumps, no hidden holes or bumps in their way) and more than half of them were falling like bowling pins at each turn they attempted! I really can't think of the reason to equip the VM troops with such equipment, perhaps the idea was to emulate the film footage of the glorious Red Army winter troops charging on skis.... but the Red Army was charging on such skis on open fields, in my mind it would have been much better to train the VM to go only on winter raquettes!

This post has been edited by valachus on February 03, 2005 06:29 pm

If you can read Romanian!