10 Tips for Snow Ops

Exchange the techniques and skills needed to walk the shadows. Post your guides and how-tos here.
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Wind
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10 Tips for Snow Ops

Post by Wind » Fri Feb 19, 2021 10:07 pm

10 Quick Tips for Snow Ops

1. Dress in layers. As mentioned in other people's posts, you will get hot from moving around. Take off layers to avoid sweating because sweating will make you very cold, possibly dangerously cold.
2. Mittens are way warmer than gloves in cold weather. However, mittens have huge grip disadvantages. One trick to use your gloves in the cold is to pull your fingers out of the fingers of the glove to form a fist in the palm of your glove. This works nearly as well as mittens. When you need to use your fingers for grip, simply slip your fingers back into the fingers of your gloves. Of course, you could also use hand warmers, which might be necessary if your mission involves using a high degree of dexterity with your fingers, like locking picking for instance.
3. As I mentioned in another post, choose nights for your missions that it is snowing heavily and expected to snow the rest of the night. Then your tracks will be covered with the newly falling snow. Do not rely on this method alone because if it doesn’t snow as much your tracks could still be visible.
4. Walk with deeply bent knees if you are crossing an area of deep snow cover. This will protect you from most unseen dips or holes in the ground that are obscured by the snow. It will also give you a lower center of gravity and make falling safer if you slip.
5. Consider incorporating other options to obscure your tracks. These include using carpet (as I remember reading in another person's post on a different topic -- that was brilliant by the way!) or other material to cover your treads. If you are really serious, consider adding a sole from an old shoe to the sole of your boots in such a way that it looks like you are walking in the opposite direction (put the heel where the toe is and switch left to right, etc). I did this once years ago. It ruined the shoes obviously and took lots of shoe glue (there are probably better adhesives to use than that). If you do this, be sure to walk toe to heel so that the treads hit heel to toe like people normally walk.
6. Use cleared sidewalks and roads to make your tracks end, not unlike how rivers can be used to obscure your tracks and scent. Much deception can be used in this practice to make it look like you are going one way with your tracks in the snow, and, then, once you get to a cleared sidewalk or street, doubleback in another direction.
7. Think differently in snow. Tactics that work in normal weather will not always work in the snow. For example, most of us, if we think we have been heard or seen, will stop and try to hide behind something nearby. If someone is looking for you in the snow and you are in an area that only has your footprints, your tracks will give away exactly where you are hiding. Therefore, you may need to opt for speed to get to an area that you can use tip #4 or to use social camouflage.
8. Investigate and practice the Tummo breathing practice. It is an ancient breathing practice that Tibetan monks use to stay warm in the bitter cold of the Himalayan mountains. I have found it surprisingly effective.
9. A very cheap option for concealment in snow is an old white sheet. You can even find these at thrift stores or garage sales for next to nothing. Cut it to a size that works best for you. If you need to go through an area using social camouflage, wrap the sheet around you under your winter coat. Don’t wrap yourself like a mummy, though. You want to be able to get out your concealment cloth quickly.
10. Lastly, and most importantly, do night ops in the snow. Why? Because in the event you need to use your stealth skills in winter, you do not want that emergency to be the first time you try operating in snow. Also, it makes you think differently, especially being more aware of your tracks. This can translate to non-snow missions and help you become better at anti-tracking skills. Plus, there is just something cool about operating in conditions that most wouldn’t.
11. Bonus tip: If you are going to climb a building in the snow, if at all possible, consider ascending where a door is. This will make it look like you went inside the building since your footprints end at the door.

****Use this thread to add any techniques, tactics, or gear that you find helpful for NO in the snow.****

Necrogue
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Re: 10 Tips for Snow Ops

Post by Necrogue » Sat Feb 20, 2021 4:03 pm

Lots of great food for thought here Wind, thanks for sharing and for starting a discussion on this! By the by, the irony of a user named ‘Wind’ starting a thread on another weather condition (snow) is not lost on me 😉

Okay, but seriously.... I would like to humbly add three additional points/comments for what it may be worth:

1. Fresh snow absorbs sound, lowering ambient noise over a landscape because the air trapped between snowflakes attenuates vibration. This is why it gets so quiet when it snows. Knowing/understanding this can be used to operational advantage in many ways.

2. I agree fully with point three in the original post above, but would add — It’s a good thing to know and understand that the compression of snow caused by footsteps will re-freeze and leave a semi-solid footprint. If heavy snowfall obscures your tracks they can still be found by using a probe to feel the ground beneath the snow. Developing the skill to accurately identify covered tracks does require a modicum of practice, but is definitely a skill worth having (IMHO). This skill/information can be valuable because:
• In some cases it may become necessary/desirable to track/follow others.
• It cultivates an understanding that you can be tracked, which will better inform your overall OPSEC decisions.
• Snowfall can obscure and/or change the aesthetics of a given environment dramatically, should you become lost or disoriented you can employ this valuable skill to retrace your own footsteps during egress.

3. With regard to point five above, a few additional options and/or techniques include (but should not be limited to):
• Walking Backwards to make it appear you were traveling in the opposite direction you actually were. (This can be awkward and/or impractical; use with discretion).
• Use a sidewise gait. By moving left to right and/or right to left instead of backwards and forwards it makes it difficult to discern in which direction you are traveling.
• When snowfall is insufficient to effectively and literally cover your tracks, one option is to walk back in your own footprints. There are many variations to how this can be done and I won’t belabor the point by enumerating them here; get out and experiment!
“For a while they stood there, like men on the edge of a sleep where nightmare lurks, holding it off, though they know that they can only come to morning through shadows.” —J.R.R. Tolkien, ‘The Passage of the Marshes’, The Two Towers

Wind
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Re: 10 Tips for Snow Ops

Post by Wind » Sat Feb 20, 2021 5:47 pm

@Necrogue, thanks for adding to the discussion. Great points!

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