John Dzwonczyk and Joel Radunzel
Present-day military strategists tend to cast the Arctic region as a theater in which the naval and air domains will dominate operations.[1] This is not unreasonable. The Arctic’s most obvious geographic feature is its ocean, and the region’s emerging significance is largely due to the fact that for the first time in recorded history it will be open to shipping on a large scale. Thus, most national security discourse concerned with the High North centers around icebreakers, shipping lanes, and so on.[2] However, combat in Arctic conditions offers little new stimulus to naval and airpower practitioners because of the relative global uniformity of their domains.[3] The changing Arctic will have far greater impacts on ground combat by restricting the mobility of units across already-difficult terrain and by exacerbating the logistical and life support needs of these formations.
…combat in Arctic conditions offers little new stimulus to naval and airpower practitioners because of the relative global uniformity of their domains. The changing Arctic will have far greater impacts on ground combat…
The Arctic Ocean is surrounded, in roughly equal proportion, by Russian and NATO territory. As such, there is significant value in studying the largest modern land operation to take place entirely above the Arctic Circle: the Red Army’s Petsamo-Kirkenes offensive of 7-30 October 1944. Though the Soviets ultimately achieved their territorial objectives in this operation, the German forces escaped largely intact, withdrawing westward in good order to occupy the intimidating Lyngen Line in northern Norway.[4] The Soviet operation failed to catch and destroy the withdrawing German forces in large part due to the difficulty of the operating environment. The terrain and weather in the Arctic presented the Soviets with major interlinked difficulties in sustainment, movement and maneuver, and fires that combined to slow their offensive. Many of these conditions remain relevant in the 21st century and climate change will almost certainly exacerbate these difficulties.
The Petsamo-Kirkenes Offensive
The Soviet operation to eject the Germans from the Kola Peninsula was the last in a series of hammer-blow offensives in 1944 that had devastated Nazi Germany’s armies on the Eastern Front.[5] As their southern offensives culminated in the late summer, the Soviets looked north, attacking Finland and forcing the Finns to sue for peace in early September. The peace required the Finns to eject all German forces. The Finnish Army unenthusiastically acquiesced and, under only nominal pressure from their erstwhile allies, the Germans planned a two-stage withdrawal.[6] They would first withdraw their field army from southern Finland into northern Norway, screened by a corps thirty miles west of Murmansk along the Litsa River. They would then withdraw this screening corps into Norway. Before the Germans began their withdrawal, the Soviets attacked west from Murmansk, attempting to encircle all German forces east of the fjord towns of Petsamo (Pechenga) and Kirkenes.
Soviet offensive plan for Petsamo-Petsamo-Kirkenes Operation (Fort Leavenworth Media Support Center/Wikimedia)
Though the Soviet offensive liberated much of Norway’s high north, it failed to destroy the German forces in the theater because of the difficulty the Soviets faced in sustaining a large force in Arctic conditions. This was due to the soggy active layer of soil atop the permafrost, which canalized both sides along the underdeveloped road network. There was only one significant improved east-west road in the Kola Peninsula. By itself, a poor road network can make maneuver difficult, but in this case the topography of the theater of operations compounded the challenges. Most rivers above the Arctic Circle flow generally on a south-north axis, and the single improved road in the area crosses at least five major rivers, each of which provided the Germans with an opportunity to destroy a bridge or establish a blocking position to slow the Soviet advance.
Recognizing this challenge, the Soviets employed a remarkable 29 engineer battalions during the offensive, using them to repair roads and bridges and expand the road network.[7] These engineers did outstanding work, building or repairing more than 700 km of roads and 60 bridges, among other tasks. Further, they breached innumerable German reinforcing obstacles, eventually clearing nearly 50 tons of German mines.[8] However, even these herculean efforts proved insufficient. The immature road network ultimately forced the Red Army to rely on a single main supply route.
The Soviets employed the obvious tactic to overcome German defenses along the main avenue of advance, launching turning movements to gain a positional advantage by maneuvering across the German flanks. At the start of the operation the Germans left their southern flank largely undefended, having decided not to fortify it because of the difficult terrain.[9] This was a prudent risk since the waterlogged soil made off-road maneuver virtually impossible for the heavy, mobile forces the Soviets required to create a breakthrough. The Soviets therefore used dismounted infantry to conduct the majority of their turning movements. However, dismounted Soviet soldiers moved at the same pace as dismounted German soldiers, meaning the Soviets could not achieve significant breakthroughs.
This canalization of maneuver to the roads forced the Soviets to use fire-centric tactics reminiscent of the “bite and hold” method advocated by British General Sir Henry Rawlinson in 1915, in which the attacking force eschewed sweeping advances and instead seized limited objectives they would subsequently fortify against counterattack.[10] Though the various German defensive positions were strongly anchored, the Soviets were able to overcome each in turn using these tactics. However, the Soviet infantry would then usually advance until they moved beyond the range of their artillery, at which point the German defenders often achieved local fire superiority, stopped the advance, and inflicted serious casualties on the attackers.[11] Once the Soviets advanced their artillery, the process would repeat. One representative case took place on the night of October 20-21. A regiment of Soviet infantry maneuvered into the German rear, but having moved by foot and pack animal, had been unable to bring the heavy weapons and artillery necessary to hold their position. A German counterattack the next morning swept aside the isolated Russians, who could not block the German retreat.[12]
Local temperatures hovered near freezing and sleet was common throughout the course of the Soviet operations. These conditions reduced off-road trafficability further and soaked the soldiers to the bone.They furthermore put both sides at great environmental risk, though the risk was probably somewhat less for the Germans who had the occasional benefit of prepared, and therefore warmer and drier, positions.[13] The weather harmed Soviet soldiers so much that the Red Army, notoriously indifferent to the suffering of its soldiers, regularly resupplied them with dry clothes. This additional sustainment requirement added more vehicles to the overtaxed main supply route and slowed the offensive further. When they called a three-day halt on October 15, a little more than a week after the start of the operation, the Soviets had advanced an average of 4-6 km and caused an average of 600-700 German casualties per day. Compared to the Soviet achievements earlier that summer, which averaged an advance of 11-12 km and 8,000 German casualties each day, this was a glacial pace.
With their tactical solutions stymied, the Soviets turned to operational maneuver in an attempt to trap the retreating German forces. The Soviets attempted several such stratagems, using airborne and special operations forces to conduct deep flanking maneuvers to seize Arctic Ocean headlands and cut the German lines of retreat. These missions produced only limited success. Though the Germans diverted forces to contain these Soviet detachments, the operational maneuvers faced the same constraints as the tactical ones: the Soviets lacked the mobility and firepower necessary to pose a major threat. Furthermore, the geography of the German retreat—into a funnel rather than along a broad front—meant that passing troops easily contained the Soviet incursions.
Implications
Though the character of war has changed in many ways in the past eight decades, the physical difficulty of land warfare in the Arctic has not. Indeed, the challenges are growing more acute as the climate warms in the far north. Due to the uniquely restrictive terrain, Arctic warfare heavily favors the defense. Road networks remain primitive—the only major east-west road in the Kola Peninsula and northern Norway today is the same one the Soviets used in 1944, and it still crosses the same rivers and fjords.
Climate change makes this road and its bridges even more critical today than in 1944. One of the effects of climate change in the Arctic is the rapid thawing of permafrost. This, along with an increase in rainfall relative to snowfall, has increased the flow in Arctic rivers.[14] Soviet engineers built 30 fords to support their offensive, but the increased flow today will make fording these rivers more difficult than in 1944.[15] Further, increased rainfall and shorter winters will make the soil wetter and less trafficable in general, and the phenology (seasonality) of Arctic weather is projected to become increasingly unpredictable from year to year.[16] This means that the predictable time periods when the ground will be sufficiently frozen to support off-road movement will constrict. As such, present-day forces will need to employ amphibious and airmobile operations to a greater extent than in other environments to both maneuver and sustain operations, just as the Red Army did in 1944.
Airborne security detachment of US troops exiting CH-47 Chinook helicopter in Afghanistan. (U.S. Army Photo/WIkimedia)
One of the great mobility advantages modern armies have over those of World War II is the helicopter. Helicopters are mobile fire support platforms that enable maneuver of troops and equipment over short distances regardless of the terrain. Unfortunately, the pedestrian facts of Arctic geography and climate will limit their use as well. Thawing permafrost, larger rivers, and increased rainfall will add substantial moisture to the coastal Arctic air which, though warming, remains cool. These changes to Arctic climate are likely to make fog, especially low-altitude evaporation fog, increasingly common in the Arctic.[17] This will limit the use of helicopters, as well as other technology such as night vision, because foggy conditions remain some of the most difficult to operate in. Such conditions will also complicate amphibious operations along the dangerous coastlines that exist in the Arctic.
A Red Army landing party heading for Kirkenes in 1944. (Wikimedia)
Conclusion
Should the Arctic become a theater in a future war, its physical environment will pose great difficulty to armies that try to operate there. Geographic and climate conditions slowed the Soviet offensive in 1944 by restricting the main advance to a single improved road. This restriction created difficulties in sustainment, movement and maneuver, and fires. In the future, the Arctic will be at least as difficult an operational environment as in 1944. Advances in individual cold and wet weather clothing, while significant to individual soldiers, are of limited consequence to operations and campaigns because they only marginally decrease the logistical requirements on the force.
Having begun to train once again in Arctic environments, U.S. forces will regain the individual and small unit competence required to operate in these harsh conditions.[18] Indeed, major exercises such as Trident Juncture and Cold Response have certainly reawakened many of the competencies that U.S. and NATO land forces will require to succeed in the Arctic environment.[19] Appropriately, these exercises emphasize the joint nature of operations necessary in this environment. However, impressive as these tactical exercises are, they may still struggle to fully replicate the operational difficulties inherent in large-scale ground combat operations sustained across the vast distances and primitive infrastructure of the high north. The largest modern operation to be conducted entirely above the Arctic Circle warns us that such operations will be exceedingly challenging.
John Dzwonczyk and Joel Radunzel are U.S. Army officers. Both are former instructors in the Department of Geography and Environmental Engineering at the U.S. Military Academy where they taught courses in both physical and human geography. The views expressed are the authors’ alone and do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Army, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.
Header Image: Norwegian Leopard 1A1 tanks participating in a 1982 NATO exercise. (SSG Rodney Prouty/U.S. Army Photo/Wikimedia)
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[1] Max Brosig, Parker Frawley, Andrew Hill, Molly Jahn, Michael Marsicek, Aubrey Paris, Matthew Rose, Amar Shambaljamts, Nicole Thomas, “Implications of Climate Change for the U.S. Army,” United States Army War College, 2019, 10-11; Jim Garamone, “Changing Environment Means Changing Arctic Strategy,” US Department of Defense, June 4, 2019, https://www.defense.gov/Explore/News/Article/Article/1865978/changing-environment-means-changing-arctic-strategy/
[2] See, among many others, Andreas Kuersten, “Icebreakers and U.S. Power: Separating Fact from Fiction,” War on the Rocks, October 11, 2016, https://warontherocks.com/2016/10/icebreakers-and-u-s-power-separating-fact-from-fiction/; Paul C. Avey, “The Icebreaker Gap Doesn’t Mean America Is Losing in the Arctic,” War on the Rocks, November 28, 2019, https://warontherocks.com/2019/11/the-icebreaker-gap-doesnt-mean-america-is-losing-in-the-arctic/.
[3] Lukas Milevski, “Fortissimus Inter Pares: The Utility of Landpower in Grand Strategy,” Parameters, 2012, 10.
[4] James F. Gebhardt, “Petsamo‐Kirkenes Operation (7–30 October 1944): A Soviet Joint and Combined Arms Operation in Arctic Terrain,” The Journal of Soviet Military Studies 2, no. 1 (March 1989): 49–86, https://doi.org/10.1080/13518048908429933; JG Terry, “Factors Affecting the Military Environment of North Norway: Its History, International Relations, Physical Characteristics, and Balance of Military Forces.” (RAND Corporation, January 1988).
[5] David M. Glantz and Jonathan M. House, When Titans Clashed: How the Red Army Stopped Hitler (University Press of Kansas, 1995). 214-215.
[6] Earl F. Ziemke, The German Northern Theater of Operations, 1940-1945, Department of the Army Pamphlet 20–271 (Department of the Army, 1959).
[7] Gebhardt, “Petsamo‐Kirkenes Operation (7–30 October 1944).”
[8] Ibid.
[9] Ibid.
[10] Christopher M. Deverell, “X. Haig versus Rawlinson – Manoeuvre versus Attrition: The British Army on the Somme, 1916,” Defence Studies 5:1, 2005, 132.
[11] Ibid. The Soviets did not disclose casualty figures for this operation at the time Gebhardt wrote, and the authors have been unable to find a source.
[12] Ibid.
[13] William H. Candler and Michael S. Freedman, “Military Medical Operations in Cold Environments,” in Medical Aspects of Harsh Environments, ed. Kent B. Pandoff and Robert E. Burr, vol. 1, Textbooks of Military Medicine (Office of the Surgeon General, 2002), 14.
[14] Wai Kwok Wong et al., “Gridded 1x1km Climate and Hydrological Projections for Northern Norway” (Oslo, Norway: Norweigan Water Resources and Energy Directorate, December 2016), http://publikasjoner.nve.no/rapport/2016/rapport2016_59.pdf.
[15] Gebhardt, “Petsamo‐Kirkenes Operation (7–30 October 1944).”
[16] Gareth J. Marshall, Rebecca M. Vignols, and W. G. Rees, “Climate Change in the Kola Peninsula, Arctic Russia, during the Last 50 Years from Meteorological Observations,” Journal of Climate 29, no. 18 (September 2016): 6823–40, https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-16-0179.1.
[17] Hengchun Ye, “The influence of air temperature and atmospheric circulation on winter fog frequency over Northern Eurasia,” International Journal of Climatology 29, 2009, 731-732.
[18] Lindsay Rodman, “Baby Steps in the Snow: Getting the Marine Corps Cold-Weather Ready in Norway,” War on the Rocks, December 7, 2017, https://warontherocks.com/2017/12/baby-steps-snow-getting-marine-corps-cold-weather-ready-norway/.
[19] Megan Friedl, “U.S. Joins NATO’s Trident Juncture Exercise,” US Department of Defense, 18 October 2018, https://www.defense.gov/Explore/News/Article/Article/1666272/us-joins-natos-trident-juncture-exercise/; C. Todd Lopez, “Joint Exercise to Test Tactical Forces in Cold-Weather Environment,” DOD News, US Department of Defense, 19 February 2020, https://www.defense.gov/Explore/News/Article/Article/2087607/joint-exercise-to-test-tactical-forces-in-cold-weather-environment/.