00:00We are here in the heart of the French Alps to spend 24 hours with the French
00:28Army's Chasseur Alpana. This is a unit of elite infantry who's trained specifically for combat
00:35at high altitudes and in wintry conditions.
00:38What does it take to survive in the mountains? Up here, breathing is hard. Walking is hard.
01:01Military operations are almost impossible. Unless you're the French Army's elite mountain
01:07troops, the Chasseurs Alpana. That's Alpine Hunters in English.
01:13For these soldiers, the steep crags of the French Alps are home. To find out how they
01:17not only survive, but thrive in these conditions, I joined them in the field for 24 hours.
01:24I thought I was ready, but I had no idea.
01:31So I was just told by our guide that the section we're on now is 300 meters and I said, that's
01:36not too bad. Then he indicated that it was 300 meters straight up. So, yeah.
01:43Okay, so it's the platoon leader Benoit, Lieutenant Benoit.
01:58Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you as well.
02:04Just setting up igloos. What they're doing right now is digging a trench and we're going
02:10to sleep in that trench, which seems a little counterintuitive because the snow is cold.
02:14If you dig a deep trench in the snow and you dig little cubby holes in that, it turns out
02:19you will be quite warm at night because snow is a great insulator. It traps heat.
02:22It's going to be about minus 20 up here at night, but inside those cubby holes, it's going
02:27to be level zero degrees. From this corridor, we're going to dig several foxholes as rooms,
02:44basically. But probably here will be between two and three people for each room.
02:50How's Rob doing so far? It's pretty good. Did you see a soldat de l'armée du terre?
02:56Yeah, almost. Can you tell us what these guys are doing?
03:00So we are sending them snow that we are digging so that they make the roof, actually it will
03:07be the roof of your room. So they make it strong with their weight. So they make it stronger.
03:20Just spent the past four hours digging out our igloo and it's just ridiculously hard work
03:36because all that snow that you pack down is incredibly hard to just punch into.
03:41I'm looking forward to tucking into some chow and sleeping in the hotel chasseur.
03:47It's a delicious puree of pommes de terre and fromage based on the fish.
03:54It's very delicious.
03:56There's pate in the French amari. Salted biscuits, and then a lot of coffee.
04:09Raggedy is a good term to qualify French amari in general, especially the mountain troops,
04:15a chasseur alpine. As you see here, we are facing cold. We are alone, digging holes.
04:23And I think, yeah, we need to be very resilient and rugged.
04:28You, of course, you have fear, but you try to master it.
04:34Cozied up inside the igloo. Got the little candle here.
04:41Thought it was for ambiance, but I suspect it might be to detect carbon monoxide poisoning.
04:46C'est tout. Bonne nuit.
04:48Morning, Rob. Good morning.
05:01Bonjour tout le monde. Good morning, everybody.
05:04May I recommend sleeping in an igloo? Because I feel like a new man.
05:08With caffeine in my bloodstream, I was ready to join the chasseur for a day of tactical maneuvers and target practice.
05:14But first, I visited a remote radio relay to see how the chasseurs communicate in a difficult mountain terrain.
05:21One of the most important things in military operations isn't just moving and shooting, it's communicating.
05:27Therefore, if you really want to be able to communicate well, you need to be able to get the strongest signal to the highest place.
05:33And this is an area where the chasseurs alpine are uniquely excellent, because they are very good at reaching high places.
05:40So, the big problems of communication on the mountain, in fact, are the masks.
05:44So, everything that is rocks, trees, forests.
05:46And that's why we need to go as high as possible to communicate with the units in the bottom.
05:50Gabriel, here. Papa Unite. Control Radio. Speak.
05:52I think the first main difficulty is the terrain.
05:58You can't console yourself very easily. A lot of elevation.
06:03It takes a lot of time to be good in that type of terrain. That's why we train.
06:07We're going to be following Lieutenant Benoit. They're just firing blanks, but everything they're doing right now is exactly as they would do it in an actual combat situation.
06:16Right now, they're switching out from skis to snowshoes. They're not as fast as skis, but, you know, you can move in one direction, which is good when you're in combat.
06:28This is where you see the Chassiers Alpen really come into their element, because fighting in the snow is extremely difficult.
06:35And if you haven't trained for it...
06:38Oh, here we go. Let's move.
06:40Let's move. Let's move. Let's move.
06:55That happened faster than I could keep track of. Those guys charged down that mountain on snowshoes so quickly, and I had a hard enough time staying on my feet.
07:05I think that's part of the idea, right? The Chassiers Alpen leverage their skills in mountain fighting to quickly overwhelm the enemy on difficult terrain.
07:14I think the specificity of the Chassiers Alpen is to fight and evolve in a particular environment. I think it's a real good asset for France and, of course, for NATO.
07:26We intervened in Kosovo, Afghanistan, where elevation is high, so we are special in that type of terrain. And we are maintaining those assets for France and for the coalition.
07:37This is a kind of environment that does not take all comers. If you're not prepared, the mountains are going to chew you up and spit you out.
07:47It took getting up to the top of the mountain with them to really understand that.
07:51And we've seen over the past 24 hours exactly how France's elite mountain infantry prepare for this kind of environment and ensure that, should the time come, they'll be ready.
08:00Then you get to play the last month.
08:03And you'll be back, then you'll тысячers for more of the last year.
08:07Then, let's find all the past 24 hours with no memory of our second month to this project.
08:12And then you have, at the moment, you'll set your house in pukeap.
08:16But, you're getting worse at 20, you'll get better.
08:18diy.
08:20Let's autoflex this plant into the next year.
08:24This week, Spain, also take your hand.
08:25Now, it's episode 19.
08:2607.
08:27quel!
08:28Left Galaxy你就 isý't tysięcy!
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