Marine Corps Conducts 2025 Winter Cold Weather Training... 500 Soldiers Participate

Enhancing Deep Reconnaissance Operational Capabilities
Fifty Volunteers from Infantry and Artillery Units Also Join the Training

The Marine Corps announced on the 12th that the Special Reconnaissance Battalion and the 1st and 2nd Division Reconnaissance Battalions will sequentially conduct the 2025 Winter Cold Weather Training at the Gangwon Pyeongchang Mountain Comprehensive Training Center and the Hwangbyeongsan area until the 28th. This year’s training is divided into ▲Winter Specialty Training ▲Snow Mobility Training ▲Battalion Tactical Training, with about 500 soldiers from the reconnaissance battalions participating.

The winter cold weather training is an essential annual exercise designed to enhance the reconnaissance battalion’s unique mission capability of deep reconnaissance operations in enemy operational environments during wartime. Prior to the full-scale training, the units intensively practiced individual and unit-level tasks such as equipment and tactical parachuting, infiltration and casualty treatment, first aid and survival skills, communication, and reconnaissance/surveillance.

Snow mobility training is a crucial exercise to ensure covert and rapid mobility in winter snowy regions. Soldiers began by mastering skiing skills according to individual distances and slopes, then practiced maintaining formations as a team, evacuating casualties, and maneuvering in rough terrain using snowshoes, cultivating the ability to overcome extreme situations that may occur during wartime. More than 50 Marines selected from those serving in infantry and artillery units who wished to receive training also participated in this snow mobility training.

Following the snow mobility training, the battalion comprehensive tactical training applied wartime reconnaissance unit combat models to practice operational procedures such as infiltration into specific areas, establishing hideouts, base activities, and special reconnaissance. Lieutenant Colonel Lee Dae-cheol, commander of the Marine Corps 1st Division Reconnaissance Battalion, stated, “Even in uncertain battlefield environments, providing swift and accurate information and securing military strategic superiority makes the reconnaissance battalion’s mission and role extremely important.” He added, “We will continue to devote ourselves to education and training to become a strong Marine Corps that the public can always trust.”

Meanwhile, the Pyeongchang Mountain Comprehensive Training Center operated by the Marine Corps is the only training ground in the entire military capable of specialized winter training such as snow mobility. It is used not only for the reconnaissance battalion’s own training but also for training support according to the needs of each military branch.