It is regrettable that the national defense consciousness is still tragically poorly aligned with the variety of factors of sufficiency in defense construction. Such a feeling also remains from the statements of our leadership on the topic of defense construction, which apparently believes that "emergency funding" declared in a certain amount and for a certain period of time will solve absolutely all problems on the defense field. Arguing, apparently, according to the Western image and likeness: money can buy everything. At the same time, the experience of enlightened humanity, like our own domestic experience, suggests that success is only in the completeness and unity of all factors determining the process, and in such a specific matter as the military, especially.
Destruction of the Russian cruisers "Varyag" and "Koreets" in the Gulf of Chemulpo. UK propaganda postcard. 1904
Meanwhile, in the officialdom one can see almost the absolutization of the financial or material factor. The formula “money is a new weapon, and a new weapon is a new image of the army and navy” works.
Well, we can only welcome the increase in the salaries of servicemen, pensions, the attention of the leadership to the housing issue of servicemen and veterans. All this evokes a legitimate sense of satisfaction, if it were not for hearing how, under the guise of "reforms", the verified structure of the Armed Forces, military administration, military education, the system of training troops and fleets, and more are being destroyed for decades, if not centuries.
At the same time, guess what, this is done maliciously, with the aim of finally undermining the combat effectiveness of the army and navy, or unconsciously by amateurs.
For the sake of fairness, I note that not a single serious domestic military specialist found the structures and institutions of the USSR Armed Forces, and then the Russian Armed Forces, fully meeting the requirements of the time. But this is not a reason to lose them at all overnight, without receiving anything in return.
Having restored in memory the variety of factors that directly shape the combat effectiveness of the Armed Forces (in addition to the volume and quality of their weapons), let us touch on at least some of them in more detail.
HISTORY IS ONLY WARNING AGAINST ERRORS
In such cases, it is customary to start with historical examples. The example of the Russian-Japanese war of 1904-1905 has always been literally textbook on this score. The program of training the fleet "for the needs of the Far East" alone cost the Russian Empire a figure commensurate with several state budgets.
Meanwhile, the most unbiased analysis of military operations in the Russo-Japanese war at sea convincingly testifies: send the naval department in the fall of 1904 to the Pacific Ocean everything planned by the programs, and buy in addition those ill-fated armored cruisers that to this day haunt some researchers. the result of the war would be the same. The trouble was not in the number of squadron battleships and armored cruisers, Russia was hopelessly suffering from paralysis of control in all state and military spheres. And the replenishment of the already not weak Russian fleet in the theater of operations with new ships would only multiply the Japanese trophies.
So, the fleet, which was considered the third in the world, shamefully lost both campaigns, partly died, partly it went to the triumphant enemy in the form of trophies, unprecedentedly multiplying not only the glory and authority, but also the size of its fleet (by eight battleships alone).
Although the war with Japan is considered to be a typically naval one, more precisely with a decisive naval factor, large-scale hostilities were also fought on land with great ferocity. They had to transfer a million-strong army, huge amounts of weapons and equipment, a significant part of the personnel arrived from the reserve. You can imagine how much it cost the budget.
As for the Great Siberian Route itself - the just completed railway to the Far East, it was a grandiose, literally geopolitical project on the level of such as the Suez and Panama Canals, if not larger. By the way, the astronomical costs for it should also be attributed to the costs of the war: after all, without the road, war would be impossible in principle.
Thus, it turns out that even such incredibly high defense spending may result in the absence of the expected result, because, besides them, there is still much that is and is necessary.
Only recently was the myth dispelled that in June 1941 the Germans attacked us with many times superior forces. And this, together with the suddenness of the attack, led to the hardest setbacks on the fronts in the campaigns of 1941-1942. It turned out, to put it mildly, is not confirmed. Even if we are talking about the quality side of the matter, then here, too, the number of new and incomparable T-34 and KV tanks (obviously superior to all German ones), new aircraft was an impressive figure. The total number of tanks, guns, aircraft is definitely in our favor. At the same time, the mass models of enemy equipment and weapons by themselves did not surpass our old mass models too much. They took details and nuances that were often insignificant for a civilian view: motorization and mechanization of troops, radio equipment of tanks and aircraft, more rational weapons, better assimilation by their crews and crews, better reconnaissance, and well-tested interaction. And most importantly, superiority in command and control.
However, this is not even about that. In the context of the topic raised here, it is necessary to recall what colossal efforts, financial costs and even sacrifices cost the country arming the Red Army, preparing it for war. It was the armament of the Red Army that was devoted to the first Soviet five-year plans with all the ensuing costs. And here is the result - the hardest, almost fatal beginning of the war.
As in the case of the previous example, the conclusion is unobtrusively formed: not everything is decided by the money and resources spent on weapons. There are many other decisive factors. They are known: they are structure, personnel, military education, operational and combat training, and more. They cannot be ignored. However, among the recently prevailing particular or semi-civil (by origin) leaders, for some reason they chronically do not understand this, referring all other (except financial) factors to the category, apparently, self-evident, on which one can not stop, not dissipate one's strategic focus.
RE-EQUIPMENT AS AN ECONOMIC FACTOR
On weapons, as follows from the speeches of our leaders, it is planned to spend 23 trillion. rub. Let's spend and "there will be happiness." Moreover, quite recently at the last collegium of the Ministry of Defense it was said that the reform in the Armed Forces is finally being completed, its goals have been achieved, the new look of the Armed Forces suits everyone, which can only mean one thing: nothing else needs to be changed. It remains to continue to change old weapons and military equipment for new ones. Now there are 16-18% of new weapons and military equipment in the army, and it will probably become 100%.
As for the relevance of armament, or rather rearmament, it is difficult to disagree with this. Indeed, if we turn, say, to the problems of the fleet (they are closer to the author), there is very little left of what you can sail and fly, let alone fight.
The Black Sea and Baltic fleets have a total of one or two diesel-electric submarines and four or five modern surface ships.
No sooner had they started talking about the purchase of the Mistral, than the lack of modern landing craft and fire support means, that is, the range of necessary types of helicopters and air cushion boats, became apparent. We are already silent about the absence of reconnaissance drones for him. And without them, it is difficult to talk about organizing effective (deep) airmobile operations and raids deep into the enemy's coast, for which this weapon system exists.
The situation with torpedo weapons is no better for submarines. Not to mention more than a 20-year lag or even, more precisely, a failure in equipping submarines and surface ships with modern information and combat control systems, elements and means of network-centric systems, which occupy an increasingly significant position in the concepts of modern war at sea and are indispensable in prospects for "leveling" the operational capabilities of forces and groupings in the theater of operations.
Meanwhile, the question is even broader. Rearmament should be so conceptual and complete that it would not work like the British in the Falklands crisis: they had been preparing for war for 37 years, and when they came to the South Atlantic, they found that there was nothing to fight, there were no aircraft and early warning radar helicopters. The vacuum of solutions to these extremely important problems for the fleet, and therefore defense, problems and issues not only of the future, but also of the present day, is becoming simply threatening.
The army, they say, is not much better. According to many signs, understandable to a military man, the armies of China and even Pakistan confidently, at full speed, bypass our "invincible and legendary" both in equipment and organizationally. This impression is convincingly reinforced by the transition to a one-year service life. During this time, you can “master” how to break weapons and equipment, throw grenades at your own people and drop them at your feet, shoot at your own people from a tank cannon, but it is impossible to learn the business and art of modern combat in a year. Earlier, in Soviet times, a more educated, physically and morally more stable soldier and sailor was barely enough for this, respectively, two or three years.
When financing the purchase of new weapons, one cannot do without allocating a substantial part of the funds for the modernization of production. It is impossible to produce equipment and weapons of today using old equipment and technologies. At the same time, there are fears that the development of new samples itself would not be left behind the scenes, especially since for many developers, even more so than for manufacturers, the long-term forced pause in work was not in vain. For export, at the expense of which the industry was fed during these years, there were also Soviet samples.
Fears on this score are strong also because in recent years, the number of experimental design work (R&D) ordered by the Ministry of Defense has absolutely inexplicably decreased. We have to take into account that "brains" that are not in demand in the creation of new types of weapons and equipment, especially quickly "dry up" and are lost. And also the fact that the average OCD takes 7 to 10 years. One way or another, you will also have to share with them, you need to remember about them. As well as creating conditions for them.
Bearing in mind the past, not always positive experience, it is also important that tasks for the development of new technology are given by the military, and not by the industry itself, which is profitable to develop and produce what is profitable for it, and which does not always coincide with what is needed for war …
Thus, it was established that the procurement of new weapons, weapons and equipment for the army and navy is the essence of a complex and multistage process in its structure, which also encompasses the revival of industry and even science.
Objectively, there is a simple, but extremely important military-economic axiom: trillions in our country are not at all what trillions they have. You should clearly see the difference: with this money you can buy almost all weapons and weapons in ready-made form, perhaps, with the exception of the "most cherished" one held for their own Armed Forces and the closest friends. For our “hard-earned” money, we can only purchase insignificant “semi-finished products” of dual use on the world market. The Mistral is a rare and pleasant exception, and even then, if we can manage it wisely. So it makes doubly sense to invest in your industry and science, but invest judiciously and wisely, having a good idea of what exactly and in what sequence is needed for defense.
STRUCTURING THE VERTICAL OF MILITARY POWER
Thanks to a correctly constructed structure, knowledge is achieved of what is needed for defense, in what sequence to satisfy its needs, and thus it is possible to rationally manage the military budget, in particular, that part of it that is allocated for armaments.
With the proper state of the structure, the issues of the number, composition and deployment of the main groupings of the army and navy, as well as what they should be armed and equipped with, are not resolved spontaneously or opportunistically (bearing in mind the possible position of the defense industry complex, but on the basis of strategic concepts of a future war, many times tested on strategic and operational-strategic models by qualified personnel of the General Staff.
Thus, only strategy can indicate the correct path for the construction of the aircraft. By the way, the construction of the Armed Forces is one of the tasks of the strategy. This, in turn, requires special requirements for the structure and balance of the supreme body of military command - the General Staff, which works with the categories of the strategic order.
No matter how deeply we honor the experience of the Great Patriotic War, the authority of its commanders, the structure of the modern General Staff has long been ripe for evolution towards some kind of "coalition" body of chiefs of staff, where all types of armed forces should be equally represented. In fact, the criterion for the question is the ability to prepare and conduct operations in all three environments, and maybe in four, including space. The specificity of the existing purely "army" General Staff, focused on continental threats, does not allow doing this at such a universal level. The representation of the Navy and the Air Force in it obviously does not correspond to the required level. The representation of these types of aircraft remains only subordinate.
I remember that even at the Academy of the General Staff, during the inevitable discussion of this problem, opponents with fervor and conviction assured that we could not carry out operations even in three environments, that we allegedly did not have enough forces and means, and it would be reasonable to focus on the continental and coastal areas of the theater of operations, where we are strong and we can do something. But the adversary (so far probable) will not reckon with anyone's insufficient capabilities and desires, or rather, the level of thinking. He plans and prepares to carry out the operations he needs. Moreover, he will gladly take advantage of our delusions as weakness.
But the basis for the preparation of the Armed Forces and future operations, following the alphabet of military science, should be based on the real intentions and capabilities of a potential enemy, and not someone's passionate desire "if only there was no war" or for the war to proceed according to our scenario. Meanwhile, the structure, optimized for the continental type of war, ceased to meet the requirements of the time already in the first post-war years, because the potential enemy and the main threats quickly shifted to oceanic directions.
It should be said that intuitively, on our part, certain correct steps were taken. This includes the urgent creation of strategic aviation, nuclear and missile weapons, the development of the Arctic regions for basing this aviation (for reasons of reach), the creation of the Naval Ministry and the Naval General Staff as strategic planning and control bodies, the large shipbuilding program of 1946, the deployment of six instead of four fleets,followed by an unprecedented program for the deployment of nuclear missile and multipurpose submarines.
However, the foundation remained the same. The Unified General Staff, which is, in fact, the General Staff of the Ground Forces, continued, as before, during the war years, to direct all military development and preparation of the USSR Armed Forces for a possible future war. Naturally, he soon "ate" the Naval General Staff, the Naval Ministry, and then "canceled" everything that resembled a naval strategy. That is, the most important strategic structure, petrified, ceased to correspond to the threats and challenges of the modern world. The imagination of the top leadership finally and irrevocably fell under the hypnosis of the nuclear missile version of the war as the main one. Against her background, everything else concerning, including the essence, was lost and became incomprehensible, and therefore insignificant. This affected the construction of the Navy, the Air Force, and with them the power of the country's defense complex as a whole, huge funds and resources were wasted irrationally.
However, let us return to possible examples of structure optimization.
In addition to the reform of the supreme body of strategic management, the scale of the declared rearmament simply leaves no choice but the immediate formation of the Naval Ministry and the Ministry of Aviation, which it is advisable to charge them with the responsibility for managing the construction of the civil fleet, civil aviation by belonging, with the function of regulating the safety of their activities. … A serious state business must have a master, and even on the expected rise.
Every time with the next accident with an airplane or ship, public attention is sharpened in relation to the problems of aviation, the aircraft industry, shipbuilding, and the maritime register. But who will deal with them? Name this structure. How much will we fly on foreign old stuff with young, half-trained pilots who are just right to pollinate the collective farm fields. How long can we boil in the chaos of commercial lawlessness on such an important and specific issue? In such a large country with such endless spaces, with such a large-scale process of rearmament and revival (if this is serious), the aviation and navy cannot remain without a master, in fact, remain on a voluntary basis.
Let's leave on the conscience of the frightened inhabitants of the "horror stories" of the growth of new ministries into gigantic corrupt structures. This is a purely psychological fad of the national mentality. So don't make them that way. The recipe is simple: take and create completely new structures: ministries of a new type, like in the West (a kind of managerial Skolkovo), compact and mobile, without the Moscow nomenclature, their children and relatives. Thank God, there are still serious specialists in the country: the crisis of management at the state level manifests itself precisely in ignorance of them in person.
This topic can be continued almost indefinitely: it is so comprehensive and universal, for example, in terms of its influence on all aspects of the life of the army, navy, and the defense industry. However, other factors should be given their due.
EDUCATION, OPERATIONAL AND COMBAT TRAINING
There was a tradition to call renowned educational institutions the forge of personnel. This also extended to military schools. However, once we had every reason to be proud of our national, including military, education. Now the education system is an extremely sick organism.
Educational institutions, especially in recent decades, do not train personnel in the full sense of the word. Graduates become (or do not become) real officers only in the fleets and in the military. The system of military education has previously supplied only the starting material for the formation of military personnel from graduates. If you think about it, this is probably the main claim to the existing education system. It is enough to refer to the fundamental criteria.
The Navy needs a primary-level specialist who is absolutely ready to perform his duties on a ship or a submarine. Meanwhile, the process of commissioning a college graduate on a ship is delayed for several months. This is especially true for future operators of the main power plants (GEM) of electromechanical warheads (BCh-5), engineers of inertial navigation systems of navigational combat units (BCh-1). The first two even have to be sent to the Naval Training Center (Naval Training Center). Meanwhile, warships must constantly correspond to their assigned readiness and cannot depend on "seasonal personnel vicissitudes" associated with the arrival of graduates.
Along the way, graduates have to study the structure of the ship, master the techniques and methods of fighting for survivability, take tests for duty on the ship. To a large extent, the timing and success of passing the tests depend not only on the abilities and service zeal of the graduate, but also on such circumstances as the plan for using the ship on which he got. So, it is generally unthinkable to carry out the admission of power plant operators and navigators without a ship out to sea.
As for the graduates of the Naval Academy assigned to serve in the headquarters of the tactical and operational-tactical level, we have to admit their insufficient operational, operational-tactical level and outlook, which does not allow to fully participate in the development of the decision of the commander (commander), in the planning of hostilities. operations, their special support. The question arises: what needs to be reformed here?
The experience of leading foreign fleets suggests that the graduate (who knows which ship he is going to) devotes the last year of training to practical training at the Naval Training Center and on combat training ships. There he passes the necessary exams and comes to his first ship after graduation as an already perfectly trained officer. The same training period, however, with a rational formulation of the question, warships are spared from even a temporary stay on them of unprepared crew members.
In schools, it is high time to raise the bar of naval education so that upon leaving the school, a graduate will form a completely firm conviction that he is graduating as a naval officer, and this sounds proudly and obliges a lot. For this, young people should not be dragged to the navy, but selected harshly and exactingly, peering not only at the documents, but also at the soul, trying to consider there a propensity for naval service and a willingness to overcome the associated hardships and difficulties. To instill the elitism of the ship service, so that they do not rush to the shore. Otherwise, all the "clever men" serve on the shore.
There are no better recipes in the maritime business than the old ones. Passing all candidates through sailing training vessels, thus carry out the initial selection. He does not like the sea, he cannot withstand sailing, there is nothing to get involved with: it is cheaper to take a future employee of a research institute from a civilian university.
Again, the experience of the oldest and most advanced fleets suggests the effectiveness of the so-called alternative service, when the path to officers is not ordered through the sailor service. The best practices are obtained from such personnel, and they love their ship sincerely and faithfully. In this regard, the encouragement and dissemination of the practice of extramural study of personnel in universities has helped a lot in this regard.
The gigantic reserves of the fleet's combat readiness lie in skillfully delivered operational and combat training. Service on a good ship (formation, squadron) should take place as in wartime, maintaining the personnel in constant tension and confidence that they will have to act in the same way in war. This frees the trainees from the dangerous burden of double standards and arouses the officers' interest in the service.
The author was fortunate enough to pass the school of service (as an assistant to the commander of a nuclear submarine) with the unique commander of the ship Anatoly Makarenko. He sharply differed from all the commanders in the formation and, probably, the flotilla in his requirements for combat training and organization of service. Its combat readiness criteria did not differ from the wartime norms, but there was no more combat-ready ship in the Navy. The ship was always ready for any test, exercises of any degree of complexity, and combat service. Despite the fact that many around were not just surprised, but sometimes twisted their fingers at their temples.
Solid life and service experience, following the example of your commander showed that there is no other way if you set yourself the goal of honestly and disinterestedly serving the Motherland in the military field.
STAFF STILL DECIDE
Here I cannot do without historical examples.
The Russo-Japanese War was not lost at all by ordinary participants in the events. The war had no other perspective, if only because in the main and only naval theater of operations out of 18 months of the war, the fleet commander had only 39 days. Exactly so much was meted out by the fate of Vice Admiral Makarov in Port Arthur. There was no one to replace him in Russia.
An unbiased analysis of operations in the initial period of the Great Patriotic War shows that the level of command and control in the operational and operational-tactical echelon is often an order of magnitude or more (calculated specifically, but it is scary to voice this figure) inferior to the level of command and control in the enemy camp. Probably, this is strange to hear: references to superiority in forces, technology, surprise of an attack are more common. Speaking of the loss of almost all of the command in 1937, one very rarely remembers the operational staff, which suffered the same fate and whose role in the war can hardly be overestimated. Hence, too, astronomical losses and failures.
Summarizing the problem, I have to remind once again that in Russia it was always difficult with personnel.
Somehow back in 1993, in the course of summing up the results of the inspection of troops and forces in the Far East, from the mouth of the then First Deputy Minister of Defense, General Kondratyev, I had to hear a sad confession that during numerous trips it was not possible to find a single chief capable of training and to conduct regimental exercises. In the Ground Forces, this is a very important criterion for combat training and even combat readiness. At that time, the main groupings had not yet been "dispersed" and practically all the generals and admirals were sitting in their places, there was someone with whom to conduct these exercises. However, there were probably no more frames in the true sense of the word. Does it make sense to talk about this now, when there is no one in the fleet to appoint a leader even to practice the actions of ships in the order?
Cadres are admirals, generals and officers who adequately and promptly react to all the vicissitudes and changes in the situation, capable of adequately commanding subordinate forces in the event of war, in accordance with the current situation, conducting operations and controlling forces during the conduct. Able to solve problems with the forces and means that are. In contrast to the others, who, in all fairness, are more appropriate to be called simply officials, and which, unfortunately, are in the majority.
And yet, the first of the factors that determine the success and prospects of building state defense, I would call not weapons and not structure, but the factor of returning dignity to servicemen - from private to general, admiral. As strange as it may seem and smack of humanitarian populism, it is the self-esteem of the personnel that makes the army invincible. This was indicated by authoritative researchers of the phenomenon of the invincibility of Napoleon's armies. The dignity and honor of an officer have always been quoted above life. This means that it is not so easy to ignore this factor today.
There are more recent examples. In the early 90s, a well-known and high-ranking American four-star admiral, commander of the US Navy's operations, shot himself on the grounds of honor. The case is very strange from the standpoint of modern ideas and, in the opinion of the majority, the reason did not deserve attention. However, such notions of honor among the senior officers work strongly on the authority of the fleet, the Armed Forces to which it belonged. This is especially noteworthy against the background of the notions of honor among his contemporaries from other fleets, who have much more compelling reasons for such decisions.
Indeed, how much the effectiveness of defense depends on the dignity of the commander, general or admiral. It is no secret that in those times, the end of which we had not yet been notified, the majority of even very capable military commanders entered the commanding offices with their opinion, and left with someone else's, his opinion. This is the tragedy.
It is especially significant that such a concept that has not been overused in our country, as military (naval) thinking, is closely related to the concept of dignity. In 8 out of 10 cases, a self-sufficient, arrogant commander intellectually loses to his colleague, who is ready to patiently and kindly listen to the proposals of his staff officers and senior specialists. Multiple, if not all, of our national failures and blunders in terms of military development are directly related to the inability to be heard by our leadership.
