The end of May is rich in military holidays, immediately after the Day of the Border Guard, which is celebrated in our country on May 28, the Day of the Military Motorist is celebrated in Russia. This holiday is celebrated annually on May 29. At the same time, the holiday is relatively young, in Russia it was established by order of the Minister of Defense on February 24, 2000. The date of the celebration was not chosen by chance, it was on May 29, 1910 that the first training automobile company was formed in the Russian army. Over the next 108 years, domestic military vehicles have gone a long way of development from the modernized Russo-Balta-S24-40 to the modern Typhoon and Tiger vehicles.
The Day of the Military Motorist is a professional holiday for all military personnel, as well as civilian personnel of the automobile troops of the Russian Federation, as well as all servicemen and conscripts who, due to their duty, have or had to drive various vehicles. Today, motorists in the army are not only drivers, but also repairmen, chiefs of the automobile service, commanders of automobile divisions, as well as specialists from various research organizations of the Russian Ministry of Defense. All these people are related to the development of requirements for new military equipment, verification of compliance with these requirements by Russian industrial enterprises, the repair and operation of both general transport vehicles and automobile chassis, which are used as carriers of various types of weapons, as well as special and military equipment.
The combat chronicle of Russian motorists is directly related to the history of our country. They took part in all military conflicts since the First World War. Separately, one can single out the heroic deeds of warriors-motorists during the Great Patriotic War, which is only one "Road of Life" to besieged Leningrad. After the end of the war, the warriors-motorists took a direct part in the restoration of the national economy, participated in the development of the Virgin lands, drove the dangerous roads of Afghanistan, took part in other local conflicts, participated in the elimination of the consequences of emergencies, including the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.
It all started with one training automobile company, formed in St. Petersburg on May 29, 1910. It was the first car unit in the Russian imperial army. Its main task was to train driver mechanics for the automotive units of the Russian army. For a fairly short period of time, this company has turned into a real center for the automotive and technical support of the troops. The company was headed by Captain Pyotr Sekretov, who is rightfully considered the creator of the automobile troops of Russia.
He led a training company from 1910 to 1915. In 1915, the company was transformed into the country's first military automobile school, which was also headed by Colonel Pyotr Ivanovich Sekretov. It is worth noting that the school headed by Secret did not limit themselves to training only drivers. Here, full-fledged research was carried out on the suitability of certain vehicles for the needs of the armed forces, the first requirements for military vehicles were formed. Here, the formation of the foundations of military automotive science and pedagogy began. All this contributed to the widespread use of vehicles in the Aria. If by the beginning of the First World War the troops had only 711 cars, by the end of the war their fleet was already more than 10 thousand cars. In the turbulent year of 1917, Pyotr Ivanovich was already the commander of the automotive units of the Russian army. At the same time, Major General Pyotr Sekretov did not accept the militarized dictatorship of Soviet power and in the fall of 1919 left the country forever, emigrating abroad.
However, even without Sekretov, the motorization of the army could no longer be stopped. During the Civil War in Russia, both white and red vehicles were actively used. Moreover, both sides of the conflict experienced very serious difficulties in providing their cars with fuel and lubricants and spare parts, the country's industry was in serious decline and was disorganized by the war. In 1920, the car park of the Red Army consisted of approximately 7, 5 thousand vehicles, mainly foreign-made equipment.
At the end of the 1920s, the formation of the first automobile battalions of district subordination began in the country, and they were being manned with new domestic vehicles. By the mid-1930s, there were already 40 thousand different cars in the Red Army. At the same time, Soviet military theorists already consider road transport as the main means of motorizing the infantry, which is ordered to follow tanks as part of a deep offensive operation.
By June 22, 1941 in the Red Army there were already more than 272 thousand vehicles of all types, the basis of the park was made up of GAZ-M1 cars, the famous GAZ-AA and three-ton cars - ZIS-5. Already in the first months of the Great Patriotic War, the motor transport units of the Red Army suffered catastrophic losses, they were partially replenished by the mobilization of motor vehicles from the national economy and, to some extent, by the production of new cars. However, until the very end of the war, the Soviet automobile industry was not able to reach the figures of 1941. A very important role at this moment was played by the supply of American trucks and jeeps. By the summer of 1945, there were 664,000 vehicles in the Red Army, a third of them were vehicles obtained under the Lend-Lease program, and about 10 percent were captured vehicles.
During the Great Patriotic War, various automotive equipment was widely used on all fronts for organizing operational and supply transportation of soldiers and cargo, towing artillery systems of different caliber, assembling and moving rocket artillery and other purposes. Automobiles have become the main mode of transport in almost all operational links. The role of this type of transport was determined not only by the huge scale of transportation, but also by the fact that the vehicles delivered ammunition, food, fuel to the fighting units, often directly to the battlefield. Warriors motorists, delivering goods in an extremely difficult combat situation, night and day, in muddy roads and in difficult conditions of a snowy winter, showed massive heroism and courage.
After the war, in the early 1950s, Soviet car builders faced a very important task - to ensure the mobility of the country's nuclear missile shield. This task was successfully solved by domestic engineers and designers, who developed special multi-axle wheeled chassis for the installation of Strategic Missile Forces complexes, many of them have no analogues in the world.
In modern conditions, military vehicles occupy a special position in the general system of the RF Armed Forces, being the main means of ensuring the mobility of troops and the main means of ensuring all their combat activities. The most important task of the automobile troops was not just the transportation of personnel and various cargoes, but also the transportation of mobile systems of weapons and equipment, military vehicles themselves became carriers of various types of weapons, successfully coping with the new task.
For more than a century of development, military vehicles in our country have gone a long way from the first self-propelled carts to vehicles that have absorbed all the achievements of modern science and are a fusion of innovations and advanced technologies. A qualitative change in the purpose of military vehicles was largely predetermined by the intensive development of means of destruction and detection from a potential enemy, all this predetermines a significant tightening and expansion of the tactical and technical requirements for models of military vehicles on the part of various types of the Armed Forces and combat arms.
For the first time in our history, based on the modern requirements of troops and special forces, the Russian Ministry of Defense begins to consider highly mobile vehicles with low carrying capacity (buggies, snowmobiles, ATVs) as possible means of ensuring mobility. They have already become widespread in some armies of the world and appear in the power structures of our country.
Speaking about the performance characteristics of modern models of military automotive equipment, one can single out high indicators of bullet and mine protection, indicators of mobility (maneuverability, speed), indicators of reliability. Modern military vehicles in fact prove their right to exist, saving the lives of servicemen, being a means of ensuring the mobility of different weapons systems, delivering different cargoes. At the same time, the protection of the crew and equipment is becoming a key requirement for military vehicles of the 21st century. In recent years, Russia has managed to reduce the gap in this area from the leading foreign models, which was outlined at the end of the 20th century. Today, a lot of work is being done in this direction, an example is the Typhoon project, in which strict requirements for ensuring mine and bulletproof protection are embodied in hardware.
Nowadays in Russia, the Omsk Automobile and Armored Institute is engaged in the training of motorist officers. In addition, numerous civilian universities, as well as their military departments, train specialists for the automotive industry. After graduation, graduates can go to serve on a contract or become an officer-motorist. Drivers for the needs of the army are trained at the Driver Training Center in Ostrogozhsk, located in the Voronezh Region, as well as at the Emergency Training Center in Solnechnogorsk. In addition, drivers are trained by training centers for military districts, types and branches of the armed forces, as well as in DOSAAF throughout the country.
Today warriors-motorists are a real example of responsibility and professionalism, a conscientious and honest attitude towards fulfilling their sacred duty to the Motherland. At the same time, military vehicles have become the most massive type of military equipment in the modern Russian army. This technique permeates all its formations from battalion to army. So in the modern combined arms (motorized rifle) brigade of a new look, the number of motorists-soldiers reaches 20 percent of the total personnel, according to the official website of the Russian Ministry of Defense.
Nowadays, in the RF Armed Forces, the number of military vehicles as a whole is many times greater than the total number of all other types of equipment. At present, in the Ground Forces, the Navy, the Airborne Forces, the Aerospace Forces and the Strategic Missile Forces, almost all ground weapons are mounted on automobile base chassis, and for the Armed Forces this figure is more than 95 percent. At the same time, samples of military vehicles carry more than 1,500 different types of weapons. At the same time, the total fleet of military vehicles in the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation totals more than 410 thousand units.
On the Day of the Military Motorist, "Voennoye Obozreniye" congratulates all active and former military servicemen of the automobile troops, veteran motorists, as well as all those who previously had to drive various automobiles on their duty, on their professional holiday!
