On February 8, Russia celebrates the Day of the Military Topographer - a professional holiday for military and civil servants, without whom it is difficult to imagine a full-fledged conduct of hostilities, reconnaissance, and command and control of troops. Surveyors and topographers are called "the eyes of the army." Their service is less dangerous than the service of scouts or paratroopers, but the army needs no less. A lot depends on the results of the service of military topographers - both the effective actions of the army, and, accordingly, the number of losses, and the equipment of positions and fortifications. Over the centuries, military topographers and surveyors have made and are making a huge contribution to strengthening the defense capability of our country.
The history of military topography is rooted in pre-revolutionary Russia. In 1797, His Imperial Majesty's own Map Depot was created, renamed in 1812 into the Military Topographic Depot, under which the Corps of Topographers functioned since 1822. After the revolution, the military topographic service retained many military specialists, in particular, the first head of the Corps of Military Topographers of the Red Army was Colonel of the Imperial Army Andrejs Auzans. One of the most glorious and difficult pages in the history of military topographic service was the Great Patriotic War. Military topographers prepared more than 900 million sheets of topographic maps for the needs of the fighting army. Many topographers and surveyors died in battles, being at the most advanced edge of the front as part of the active armies.
During the second half of the twentieth century, the military topographic service in the Soviet Union was constantly strengthened and improved. Special attention was paid to the issues of professional training of military topographers. Unlike many other services and branches of the military, the military topographic service was lucky with an educational institution - the military topographic school in Leningrad maintained continuity in relation to the pre-revolutionary School of topographers (1822-1866) and the Military topographic cadet school (1867-1917). In 1968, due to the large-scale development of military affairs, the Leningrad Military Topographic School was transformed into the Leningrad Higher Military Topographic School. This unique educational institution was able to "survive" after the collapse of the Soviet Union, but in 2011 it was transformed into a faculty of the A. F. Mozhaisky.
The difficult years for the domestic military-topographic service began in 1991, with the collapse of the Soviet state and the end of the existence of the powerful Soviet Army. In the first half of the 1990s, a distinct anti-war line prevailed in the country, which was also manifested in the state's inattention to the problems of the army and military service. Naturally, the crisis also affected the military topographic service. Many true masters of their craft, professionals with a capital letter, were forced to leave for civilian life. But, nevertheless, for many officers, warrant officers, sergeants and soldiers, the service continued. The consequences of an inattentive attitude to the needs of the military topographic service had to be sorted out soon after the collapse of the Soviet Union - in 1994-1996, when the First Chechen War was underway. And it was terrible to disentangle it - with the blood of Russian soldiers and officers.
Since the topographic maps have not been updated for a long time, many of them did not reflect the real changes that have occurred in the area during this time. Professionals - topographers say that maps of busy areas - urban and rural settlements - need to be updated at least once every three to four years, in extreme cases - once every five years, at least. Indeed, during this time, a variety of changes take place - some buildings and structures are being built, some are being demolished, the transport infrastructure may change. Therefore, during the Chechen campaign, in which military topographers who were part of the group of Russian troops also participated, many maps had to be corrected already on the ground. While the troops were fighting, the topographers studied the terrain and made changes to the maps, and then immediately handed over the "fresh" sheets to the commanders and officers of the belligerent units and subunits.
By the way, the Russian troops, which operated in 2008 in the combat zone in Georgia and South Ossetia, also faced this problem. Here, in the post-Soviet period, many settlements have changed their names, which seriously complicated the tasks of the Russian military. Therefore, topographers, as in Chechnya, had to promptly correct old maps and transfer them to the units.
Modern conflicts require the use of more and more high-precision weapons, and this, in turn, increases the requirements for the quality of topographic and geodetic information with which the military topographic service supplies the troops. Even during the hostilities in Chechnya, analog topographic maps began to be used for the first time, which made it possible to significantly facilitate the tasks of using a number of units. Helicopter pilots and commanders of border guards showed particular interest in 3D terrain models, as the surveyors later emphasized.
By the end of the 1990s. the country's leadership nevertheless realized that even in the changed world political situation, Russia would not be able to exist without a strong army. Moreover, the "overseas partners" were not going to abandon their aggressive policy - they launched an attack on Yugoslavia and started further expansion of NATO to the east. At the same time, the risks of local conflicts increased, including against terrorist groups that have become active on the southern borders of the country and on the territory of the republics of the North Caucasus. Therefore, the state embarked on a course towards the gradual strengthening of the armed forces.
This also applied to the military topographic service. By the beginning of the second campaign in Chechnya, the military topographers were much better prepared than for the first. It was possible to produce new special maps, to update the provision of troops with topographic maps, including electronic ones, which made it possible to more accurately determine the coordinates of targets, the location of terrorists and their bases.
Throughout the 1990s, from 1992 to 2002, Lieutenant General, Candidate of Technical Sciences Vitaly Vladimirovich Khvostov (pictured), an experienced topographer who graduated from the Leningrad Military Topographic School and Military Engineering Academy, who had experience of participating in hostilities in Afghanistan. In the 1980s, Khvostov was in charge of the topographic service of the Turkestan Military District, which gave him invaluable experience. It was during the years when Vitaly Khvostov was in charge of the Topographic Service of the RF Armed Forces that military topographers had to take part in the first and second Chechen campaigns.
In 2002, a new chief of the VTU General Staff was appointed - Lieutenant General, Doctor of Military Sciences Valery Nikolayevich Filatov. Like his predecessor, General Khvostov, General Filatov was a professional military topographer - he graduated with honors from the Leningrad Higher Military Topographic School, then the Military Engineering Academy and higher courses for the training of leading personnel in the field of defense and security of the Russian Federation at the Military Academy of the General Staff. In 1996-1998. he headed the geodetic faculty of the V. V. Kuibyshev, and then in 1998-2002 was the deputy chief of the Military Topographic Directorate of the General Staff. Under the leadership of General Filatov, a large-scale improvement of the country's military topographic service continued, topographers and surveyors received new equipment, and topographic and geodetic information was updated.
In 2008-2010 The topographic service of the RF Armed Forces was headed by Major General Stanislav Aleksandrovich Ryltsov, a graduate of the Omsk Higher Combined Arms Command School, who served in the Main Operations Directorate of the General Staff, and then was appointed head of the VTU.
In 2010, he was replaced as head of the department by Rear Admiral Sergei Viktorovich Kozlov, a career naval officer, a graduate of the navigational faculty of the M. V. Frunze.
From 1981 to 2010, for almost thirty years, Sergei Viktorovich Kozlov served in the Navy of the USSR and the Russian Federation, going from an engineer of the electronic navigation service to the chief navigator of the Navy. In 2006-2010. Sergey Kozlov headed the Department of Navigation and Oceanography of the Ministry of Defense - the hydrographic service of the Navy, and in 2010 headed the Military Topographic Directorate.
In 2015, a new head of the Military Topographic Directorate of the General Staff was appointed - the Topographic Service of the RF Armed Forces. Colonel Alexander Nikolaevich Zaliznyuk, who heads the service at the present time, became him. A graduate of the Leningrad Higher Military Topographic School and the Geodetic Faculty of the Military Engineering Academy of V. V. Kuibyshev, Colonel Zaliznyuk went through all the hierarchy levels in the topographic service, rising from the photogrammetric department of the aerial topographic detachment of the Moscow Military District to the chief engineer of the Military Topographic Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.
Recently, the state has been trying to solve the problems facing the military topographic service. You have to do a lot. In the "dashing nineties" many mapping factories were forced to switch to the production of products for general consumption. Chronic underfunding affected the quality of the equipment of the topographic service. Now, at least, funding has begun to grow, which means that it is possible to update and improve the material and technical part, pay decent salaries to officers and contractors. In recent years, space geodesy has been actively developing, the capabilities of which make it possible to significantly improve the topographic and geodetic support of troops. Thanks to space geodesy, it is possible to launch rockets with greater accuracy, and ammunition is saved during exercises. The digital information obtained by means of satellite imagery is processed, and electronic topographic maps are compiled.
For obvious reasons, military topographers today pay special attention to the southern borders of Russia. It is here that the risk of local armed conflicts and terrorist acts is highest. In connection with the need to solve the problems of topographic support of troops in the South of Russia, in 2012, the 543rd Center for Geospatial Information and Navigation was created. Among its tasks, a special place is occupied by the practical study of the terrain with the help of special equipment. In 2014, the Crimean Peninsula returned to the Russian Federation, which means that the military topographers had more work to update the maps of Crimea, which from 1991 to 2014 was under the control of Ukraine. In January 2018, military topographers received a new Volynets mobile digital topographic system (PCTS), which allows them to correct and supplement existing maps already in the field. In an interview with reporters, the head of the press service of the Southern Military District, Colonel Vadim Astafyev, said that the new complex allows you to scan the terrain and convert the information received into maps, as well as create 3D terrain models, which is very important in modern conditions of warfare.
Although progress in science and technology today greatly simplifies the work of military topographers, nevertheless, today, service specialists have to act on the ground, including in areas with a complex mountain landscape. The hostilities in Syria have shown that, despite the latest technology, not all unit commanders can rely on electronic cards in all cases. Traditional cards come to the rescue, which are also improved and modified - for example, now they are created using special markers that are not subject to the effects of water, but are made on silk, which allows you to safely carry such cards in your pockets without fear of damaging them.
The Syrian campaign also actively uses three-dimensional maps, tested during the hostilities in Chechnya. For example, three-dimensional maps of Aleppo and Palmyra were used, which significantly increased the effectiveness of the Syrian army's actions to destroy terrorists. It is difficult to imagine missile launches, flights of our military aviation with strikes on enemy positions, without topographic support.
Thus, the profession of a military topographer today remains very important and in demand; it is impossible to imagine the armed forces without military topographers. Voennoye Obozreniye congratulates all active military topographers and veterans of the service, civilian personnel on the Day of the Military Topographer, wishes a successful service, the absence of combat and non-combat losses and the constant improvement of the capabilities of military topography.
