The Influence of Arctic Environment on Military Mobility

Environmental phenomena peculiar to the Arctic and Sub-Arctic have imposed almost insurmountable obstacles to the improvement of military mobility in the cold regions of the earth. Climatologists and environmental scientists can provide specific information on the physiographic features and the physical and thermal characteristics of the snow cover, floating ice sheets, glacier ice, Arctic soils, muskeg, and taiga. There are extensive sources of useful information on such low temperature atmospheric phenomena as whiteout, ice fogs, supercooled water fogs, blowing snow, and other cold regions' hydrometeors which affect mobility by the imposition of visibility limitations. In spite of the availability of this comprehensive store of knowledge, no vehicle or family of vehicles has been developed which will provide the military with unqualified cross-country tactical mobility in the cold regions. The solution remains a challenge to the design engineer, who can be provided with the environmental criteria but not the materials equal to the problem.