Tactics and Survival on Mountaineering Training

In addition to the Slovenians and the Hungarians, soldiers from Austria, Switzerland, the Czech Republic, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro and Macedonia also participated in the course in groups of two. The training objectives of the course were to introduce to the soldiers the basic methods of tactics and survival under mountain circumstances, and to introduce the NCOs of NATO member countries to the “NATO NCO Strategy and Recommended NCO Guidelines for the NATO Alliance", the first official document of the Alliance of this kind.

The one-week training comprised classroom sessions and fieldcraft practice. The soldiers learnt and practiced cross-country ski-running in mountainous terrain, the basic methods of survival, the carrying of injured comrades and the search and rescue of persons swept away by avalanches. They had opportunity to test the assault rifles and sniper weapons in use with the Slovenian Armed Forces. The last day closed with a biathlon competition.

Besides the training program, the attendees of the course were taken to the military history museum in the nearby town of Kobarid which houses a lot of Hungarian military relics, since the peaks and ridges in its surroundings were defended by Hungarian military units sent from Oradea during World War I.