page_title: Cold-weather warfare
section_title: Snow camouflage
hierarchical_section_title: Cold-weather warfare / Land operations / Snow camouflage
caption_attribution_description: English: Austro-Hungarian ski patrol on Italian front in snow camouflage 1915-1918
context_page_description: Cold-weather warfare, also known as Arctic warfare or winter warfare, encompasses military operations affected by snow, ice, thawing conditions or cold, both on land and at sea. Cold-weather conditions occur year-round at high elevation or at high latitudes, and elsewhere materialise seasonally during the winter period. Mountain warfare often takes place in cold weather or on terrain that is affected by ice and snow, such as the Alps and the Himalayas. Historically, most such operations have been during winter in the Northern Hemisphere. Some have occurred above the Arctic Circle where snow, ice and cold may occur throughout the year. At times, cold or its aftermath—thaw—has been a decisive factor in the failure of a campaign, as with French invasion of Russia in 1812, the Soviet invasion of Finland in 1939, and the German invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II.
context_section_description: Armies have made use of improvised and official snow camouflage uniforms and equipment since the First World War, such as in the fighting in the Dolomite Mountains between Austria-Hungary and Italy. Snow camouflage was used far more widely in the Second World War by the Wehrmacht, the Finnish Army, the Soviet Army and others. Since then, snow variants of disruptively patterned camouflage for uniforms have been introduced, sometimes with digital patterns. For example, the Bundeswehr has a Schneetarn (snow) variant of its widely used Flecktarn pattern.
  Soviet Army doctrine emphasized the importance of camouflage over positions and the need to remove telltale signs of artillery actions, such as smoke stains or shell casings. It also cited the usefulness of decoy targets. It describes the establishment of breastworks made from snow 2 to 3 metres (7 to 10 ft) thick, ice 1.5 metres (5 ft) thick or soil and wood 0.9 metres (3 ft) thick.
caption: Austro-Hungarian ski patrol on Italian Front in snow camouflage, 1915-1918[46]
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