What lessons does the Russian army study

Almost every new war for Russia begins with a clean sheet. There are a number of reasons that determine such a situation. The main ones are weak knowledge of military history and the inability to use the gained experience of military clashes; Military science, which looks very pale against the background of advanced world developments; insufficient combat and operational training; military equipment constantly unprepared for the beginning of hostilities; The principles of the formation of a military elite incomprehensible to normal people. The listing can be continued, but all other problems are already somewhat secondary in relation to these.

The experience of war

Despite the fact that a significant part of the past century has passed for Russia in wars of various scale, not one of them was generally generalized and implemented in military practice. Irrevocably sunk into oblivion along with Russian officers the invaluable experience of the First World War. The reasons for many failures of the Red Army in the early years of World War II are not at all in the result of the repressions of 1937-1938, but in the fact that the experience of the armed confrontation of the period of 1914–1918 was not rethought.

Not much is better the situation with the Great Patriotic War. There is still no genuine and exact history of this grand military confrontation. The abundance of literature as a whole propaganda was in the meant by serious sources of information and facts about the past war, of course, should not be counted. The military memoirs of the participants in those events are written mainly under dictation and adjusted by political workers. Today, numerous volumes of such memories are dusting on the shelves of libraries of garrison houses of officers. They are unlikely to teach new generations of Russian officers and generals to teach something. However, the memoirs of our opponents - the German generals, as well as the allies in the anti -Hitler coalition - will probably withstand more than one edition. They are written much more honest, more frankly and self -critical. A big loss is the not published memories of ordinary participants in the battles and junior officers of the Great Patriotic War. The VSSR SSR fighters and lieutenants were not supposed to have military memoirs by rank, the political leadership of that time did not want to know the trench truth about the battles. That little of the soldier's memories that appeared in the press in the Soviet period was in full accordance with the official attitudes and views on the past war.

Very little sensible professional works about the Great Patriotic War - descriptions of armed confrontation in terms of strategy, operational art and tactics. As a rule, strategic decisions of the leadership of the USSR in the Great Patriotic War are described for the most part as the only true ones. A mistake made by the headquarters of the supreme commander in the spring of 1942 in determining the direction of the main strike of the enemy is presented, at least, as the latter in the Great Patriotic War.

As for professional descriptions of operations and battles, they constantly lack something today. For example, there is a text, there is no card; There is a text, card, there is no data on losses; There is data on their losses, there is no data on enemy losses, etc. In other words, there are almost always no information that allows analyzing operations or battle in full. By the way, the published Soviet maps of military operations are inaccurate, very approximate, sometimes quite strongly diverge from similar German (we note, German is always more precise). Among other things, on a relatively small printing area, as a rule, data are applied for a very long period of fighting. In other words, the situation is almost never given in development. Therefore, it is very difficult to use the published cards as training aids. Finally, the statistical data extremely necessary for analysis on operations and battles of the Great Patriotic War is just beginning to appear. In such an environment, it is almost impossible to develop your own assessment of the past battles, and, as you know, in strategy and operational art, personal opinion has one of the determining values.

Similarly, the situation has developed with a ten-year Soviet-Afghan war. Fortunately, in 1992 it was possible to take the archive of the headquarters of the Turkestan military district to Russia, in which all directives, reports, reports and reports of the 40th army were located. Thus, the documents have been preserved, however, the detailed history of the Afghan war has still appeared. Of course, something is published in closed military publications and relatively slightly in open sources, but all this is fragmented.

One of the attempts to describe the experience of the Chechen campaign of 1994-1996 by experts of the analytical departments of the Ministry of Defense and the General Staff ended invisible to the public by failure and intra -defense scandal. In good faith and carefully executed, the work caused such a negative reaction of the leaders of the military department that the set of this scientific labor was immediately scattered and destroyed. With such experience in generalizing military operations, the Russian army entered the Second Chechen War in October 1999.

Personnel

All military conflicts, into which the country voluntarily or involuntarily was drawn in the 20th century, caused powerful personnel shocks in the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. Almost from the first days of the war, it suddenly became clear that the previous senior officers were not ready to fulfill their tasks. In particular, not one of the five commanders of the Western border military districts at the beginning of the Great Patriotic War at the height of the demands of the modern war was not a single one. The inability to make decisions, weak operational-strategic training, frank confusion, and even absolute inability to manage-all this fully demonstrated the highest command staff of the Red Army of that tragic period.

About the same personnel disaster, almost sixty years later, the first Chechen campaign began, which the leaders of the Ministry of Defense and the General Staff still refuse to recognize the war. A week after receiving combat missions from the country's leadership (only at the stage of concentration of the necessary forces), it turned out that the commander of the North Caucasus Military District-the head of the united group of troops-was not able to manage units and formations in vigorous qualities. The chief of staff was not on top. For these positions, it was urgent to put forward new generals, and from the center. The results of the first clashes with Chechen militants showed that deep personnel permutations are needed and at the “Connection - Part” level.

Thus, a large -scale crap of a military personnel clip is the most characteristic sign of the beginning of any campaign in Russia. Over the past century, there were no radical solutions in this area, which gives no doubt - any next war will begin again with mass liberation from the posts of peacetime generals and nomination to the liberated posts that have already proved their professional suitability of the new generation commanders.

The fact is that in the domestic armed forces there are no criteria for nomination of officers and generals in higher positions. Say, in the armed forces of developed Western countries, such standards exist. To be put forward to a higher position in the West, it is necessary to meet very strict requirements for education and service. In military personnel policy, the contours of participation for the executive, legislative power and the army public are strictly outlined. In other words, the procedure for selecting and arranging military personnel in the West is not exclusively sole privilege of a higher leader, as historically developed in Russia.

In the domestic army and navy, only one condition for nomination for the subsequent position continues to operate - personal devotion to a direct boss. However, in life, most often it happens that the genuine military leaders and the specialists who know are by no means distinguished by a good character and complaisance, the ability to enjoy the higher chiefs.

The lack of a system of nomination for higher positions is one of the most important shortcomings of the Russian army. The weakest link in the modern Russian army and the Navy is the personnel of senior officers.

Traditions

The organizational and staff policy of Russian aircraft practically does not take into account the fact that the fighting conducts not faceless license plates and divisions, but military groups. The regiment in Russia is a unit rather than spiritual than tactical and administrative-economic. However, the modern generation of Russian military leaders is stubbornly ignored. Parts and formations of the Armed Forces are annually subjected to reinforced pseudo -reforms - the formation, disbandment, and relocation. As a result of this intense administrative activity, all regiments in the domestic army, despite the once assigned honorary names and awards, “gray” in their characteristics, virtues and almost all of one person. They somehow do not develop the traditions on which any army of the world rests, there is practically no continuity, the personnel does not identify itself with its regiment and, by and large, there is no fundamental difference for the Russian army’s military personnel in which part to be used. The value of the regiment is by no means determined by the history, spirit and traditions of the part, not the form of clothing, wretched the same for the entire Russian army, but only by the benefits of a constant deployment - proximity to large cities and cultural centers, railway stations, and road units.

In essence, today there is no fundamental difference between the guards motorized rifle regiment, stationed in the near Moscow Region, and a wretched number of a lifting part in Transbaikalia. The morals and orders are the same everywhere: the traffic staff of the officers who does not know the precedents, the chronic non -membrack of the fighters, the crooking ensigns, the continuous struggle for the existence instead of planned combat training classes. Military discipline is below the level of possible criticism. Most importantly, it is completely incomprehensible who is in the regiments carriers of combat and historical traditions. The officers are in the state of the Brownian movement: they move to the service to other parts, are advanced to higher positions, go to study, on long -term business trips, finally, they simply quit. Ensigners mainly equipped with economic positions, and ordinary fighters, exhausted by the meaninglessness of modern army being and the notorious “grandson”, frankly do not want to smell powder and fulfill their duties in accordance with the authorized requirements, especially since the subsequent civilian life of the soldiers undergoing a call service, absolutely does not depend on the achieved results of the military labor. Sergeants as a class in the Russian army are absent.

Such a negligent picture, unfortunately, is very characteristic of the vast majority of the regiments of the Russian army. And even the upcoming sending to the combat area makes few changes to the life of the unit. To a certain extent, the regiment, which was pulled up before loading into the echelons, after arriving in the North Caucasus, changes the usual lifestyle slightly. Having examined and attended a new atmosphere, the soldiers take the old one again - the "tag" resumes, now with the use of weapons (up to "pocket artillery" - manual grenades), drunkenness, theft of property, weapons and ammunition. As a result, not the combat losses of personnel significantly exceed the combat ones.

After returning to the places of constant deployment from the newly established and rallied military body, soon nothing remains. Having received an invaluable combat experience, the military servicemen, the officers are being dismissed to the places of the new service, and after a few months only one memoirs remain from the once formidable regiment-the new combat campaign of this part will actually have to start from scratch.

The continuous reductions of combat and numerical compositions that have lasted over the past fifteen years led to the fact that all officers and generals are constantly “sitting on suitcases”: if part of them is not disbanded today, this will certainly happen to her tomorrow. Services should not think about the homeland and the army, but about their own family. We can safely talk about the appearance in the mass officer consciousness of the peculiar "complex of the temporary worker" - to live only today. And combat training and education of future fighters are built primarily on many years of tradition. In such conditions, to count on the manifestation in future battles of collectivism, morale and the highest training would hardly be justified.

Combat and operational training

In American charters, the following lines are literally with iron: “The key to success is combat training. It should be in the center of attention of the commanders of all degrees in peacetime and continue in the zones of hostilities and in wartime. With the beginning of hostilities, the personnel of the unit, units and formations will fight as well or badly as they were prepared in the previous period. ” In words, these axioms seem to be recognized in the Russian army, however, there are no similar lines in our charters and instructions.

It should be noted that in the Soviet period of the event of combat and operational training in the Armed Forces, they were carried out with considerable stress. Nevertheless, the beginning of the next military conflict almost constantly set up troops by surprise. It was instantly found out that the formations allegedly ready for the war as a whole and the units were not at all ready for actions in very specific conditions. This is confirmed by any campaign of the last century: from the Soviet-Finnish war (1939–1940) to the Afghan campaign (1979–1988).

All the implicated flaws and defects of such a property that they did not require outstanding military knowledge and some special gift of foresight were not required to prevent them. In particular, in 1939, without great imagination, one could guess that in the winter the forest would require warm and relatively easy uniforms, heating products, non-freezing rifle lubricants, AB 1979. It is not possible to take into account that in the mountainous areas, there is no way to do without special equipment, equipment and appropriately prepared units. And the fighting in Chechnya in conditions of dense urban development became an extremely annoying surprise for the Russian army, as if there were never Stalingrad and assault on many European capitals in domestic military history. Thus, the debut in all armed conflict in any armed conflict is a characteristic feature of the Russian army in the 20th century.

Copying over the past decade, the problems have led to a collapse of the level of operational training of headquarters and combat training of personnel. The emphasis on low -cost forms of training, the savings of resources, and the increase in the share of conditionally ongoing events led to the full incapacity of commanders and headquarters during the organization and conduct of major military exercises and maneuvers. Today's generals of the Russian army do not have skills in the terrain on the terrain of large contingents of troops. No better with the preparation of the link officers "Sighlight - company - battalion." There is no need to talk about the creative rethinking of the existing military experience at all - there is no material base for this.

Weapons and military equipment

Significant misses in equipping the army with weapons and military equipment also became a persistent sign of the beginning of any military conflict. Almost immediately after the first shots, it turned out that there was simply no weapon for conducting a modern warfare or, at best, not at best. I had to state that in the next prewar period, the defense-industrial complex was clearly not producing or far from the required quantity. Finally, the army almost never had enough weapons and equipment for conducting actions in special conditions - in the mountains, forests, deserts, cities. As a rule, the situation was already straightened out of the conflict, and previously made errors were paid by quite expensive price. Many of the deficiencies in the course of both fleeting and long -term campaigns could not be eliminated to the very end of the armed confrontation. For example, the entire World War II of the Air Force of the Red Army did not have the front -quality bombers of the necessary quality and in the right amount. This allowed the German army practically without impact on the part of the Red Army to produce in the immediate vicinity of the combat contact line any regrouping and extension of the troops. Similar examples can be given in dozens.

Но еще более тяжелая ситуация с обеспеченностью армии вооружением и военной техникой сложилась сегодня. Средства, выделяемые бюджетом на их закупку, ремонт и эксплуатацию, составляют всего два-три процента от потребности. Начиная с 1996 года в войска поставляются лишь единичные экземпляры новых образцов вооружения, военной и специальной техники. Помимо этого, недостаточное выделение средств на проведение научно-исследовательских и опытно-конструкторских работ тормозит разработку перспективных образцов вооружения и военной техники.

Образовался своеобразный разрыв между поставленными задачами и способностью ВС их выполнить из-за нехватки техники необходимого уровня. В результате старения парка вооружения и военной техники доля современных образцов ежегодно снижается на 8–10 процентов и в среднем составляет около 20 процентов от общего количества. Между тем в армиях ведущих стран мира этот показатель — не менее 70 процентов.

Особую тревогу вызывает состояние запасов расходных материальных средств, прежде всего по боеприпасам и по номенклатуре тыла. Отсутствие закупок не позволяет осуществлять их накопление до установленных норм и своевременно производить обновление. По отдельным видам боеприпасов запасы составляют не более пятой части от нормы.

В идеале, с учетом естественного обновления вооружения и военной техники, уровни годовых объемов поставок техники в российскую армию и флот сегодня должны составлять: 850 танков, 1300 боевых бронированных машин,800 артиллерийских орудий и минометов, 250 боевых самолетов,120 ударных вертолетов, до15 подводных лодок и надводных кораблей различных классов. Пока эти сравнительно небольшие цифры для державы, претендующей на звание великой, остаются недостижимой мечтой военных и представителей оборонно-промышленного комплекса.

Военная наука

Невольно складывается впечатление, что последней общепризнанной разработкой отечественных ученых стала теория глубокой операции Владимира Триандафиллова, относящаяся к концу 1920-х годов. А из видных теоретиков на слуху только имя генерала Александра Свечина, трагически погибшего в 1938 году. После него весьма трудно назвать хотя бы несколько ярких имен, которые можно было бы отнести к отечественным военным светилам.

К такому печальному состоянию отечественную военную науку привели по крайней мере две основные причины — ведомственная зависимость и деперсонификация. Первое означает, что теоретики, сгруппированные под крылом того или иного руководителя (главнокомандующего видом ВС, начальника главного управления Минобороны и Генштаба и пр.), всю свою творческую работу вынуждены осуществлять только в рамках существующих корпоративных принципов. Если же военные исследователи дерзнут выйти за предписанные им границы ведомственного творчества, они рискуют навлечь на себя громы и молнии.

Не менее существенен и второй недостаток. Значительным тормозом в разработке передовых военных теорий является пресловутый коллективизм. Для анализа какой-либо проблемы обязательно собирается группа исполнителей под руководством высокого начальника. В подобных авторских коллективах любые неортодоксальные идеи, яркие, дерзкие и свежие мысли гасятся на самых ранних стадиях исследований. В конечном итоге на выходе вместо ожидаемой передовой разработки получается очередная военная «жвачка».

Общий итог деятельности военных ученых и теоретиков, заказчиков, разработчиков и производителей вооружения и военной техники до определенной степени можно проиллюстрировать следующими цифрами. В середине 1980-х на оснащении ВС находились 62 основных типа артиллерийского и стрелкового оружия (в США — 7), 60 марок бронетанковой техники (в США — 16), из них 5 типов танков (в США — 1), 26 типов вооружения ПВО (в США — 3), 10 типов космических средств разведки (в США — 5), 26 систем связи (в США — 4), 8 типов фронтовых самолетов (в США — 5), 10 типов космических средств разведки (в США — 5), 5 типов атомных подводных лодок (в США— 2), 9 проектов крупных надводных кораблей (в США — 4).

Если завтра война?

Двадцатому веку не суждено стать в отечественной военной истории «свидетелем славы россиян». За немногие победы приходилось платить неимоверно большую цену.

Несмотря на бурный рост количественных показателей отечественных ВС в тот период, уже сегодня этот отрезок истории можно охарактеризовать как время стагнации военной науки, значительных концептуальных ошибок, заблуждений и метаний. Истоки многих сегодняшних бед российской армии находятся именно в этом, на первый взгляд сравнительно благополучном, времени.

Что касается современного состояния российской армии и флота, то оно более чем удручающе. Даже краткий анализ показывает, что сегодня на приемлемом уровне обеспечивается только решение задач ядерного сдерживания и миротворческой деятельности. Имеющимися силами и средствами противоракетной и противовоздушной обороны от ударов средств воздушного нападения противника обеспечивается прикрытие только наиболее важных объектов государственного управления, экономики страны и ВС. Группировки сил общего назначения составом мирного времени во взаимодействии с соединениями и частями войск пограничной службы и внутренних войск МВД способны выполнить только задачи по локализации возможных приграничных и внутренних вооруженных конфликтов малого масштаба.

Для успешного решения задач в ходе локальной войны в дополнение к соединениям и частям постоянной готовности необходимо наращивать состав боеготовых войск соединениями и воинскими частями, имеющими более низкие сроки готовности, т. е. провести частичное отмобилизование Вооруженных сил России. И только при условии проведения полного стратегического развертывания возможно создание группировки сил общего назначения, способной выполнить основные задачи в одном регионе.

Тем не менее основания для осторожных надежд сегодня все же есть. Сами по себе россияне — одни из лучших солдат в мире. Это факт является общепризнанным. В годы военных испытаний из офицерской массы выдвигаются полководцы и вожди, победам которых впоследствии рукоплещет страна и мир. Иными словами, российская армия начинает немедленно побеждать, как только получает достойных командиров. Поэтому самое главное, что нужно сделать в ближайшее время в военной организации государства, — максимально устранить возможности проявления субъективизма и злой воли отдельно взятой личности в строительстве и подготовке отечественных вооруженных сил. И тогда можно не сомневаться, что через десять-пятнадцать лет наступит блестящая эпоха российского военного ренессанса, сравнимого с громкими победами XVIII века. Исходные данные для этого пока имеются.