The Day of the Military Motorist is a professional holiday for all military personnel, as well as the civilian personnel of the Russian Automobile Forces, as well as all military personnel and military service personnel who, according to their duty, had to or had to drive various vehicles. Today, motorists in the army are not only drivers, but also repairmen, chiefs of the automotive service, commanders of automobile units, 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, 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 military chronicle of Russian motorists is directly related to history our country. They have been involved in all military conflicts since the First World War. Separately, it is possible to single out the heroic feats of the motorist warriors during the years of the Great Patriotic War, which is only one “Road of Life” to the besieged Leningrad. After the end of the war, motorist warriors were directly involved in restoring the national economy, participated in the development of Tselina, drove along dangerous roads in Afghanistan, took part in other local conflicts, participated in the aftermath of emergency situations, including the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.
It all began with one training automotive company, formed in St. Petersburg 29 May 1910. It was the first car part in the Russian imperial army. Its main task was to train drivers for automotive units of the Russian army. For a fairly short period of time, this company has become a real center of automotive and technical support for the troops. The company was headed by Captain Peter Secrets, who is rightfully considered the creator of the Russian automotive forces.
He headed the training company from 1910 to 1915 years. In 1915, the company was transformed into the country's first military automobile school, which was also headed by Colonel Peter Ivanovich Secrets. It is worth noting that in the school headed by the Secret they were not limited to training only drivers. Here, comprehensive studies were carried out on the suitability of various machines to the needs of the armed forces, and the first requirements for military vehicles were formed. Here began the formation of the foundations of military automotive science and pedagogy. All this contributed to the widespread use of motor vehicles in the aria. If by the beginning of the First World War there were only 711 vehicles in the troops, by the end of the war their fleet was already more than 10 thousand cars. In the stormy 1917 year, Peter 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, he left the country for good and emigrated abroad.
However, without Sekretov the army’s mobilization was already unstoppable. During the years of the civil war in Russia, both white and red were actively used by automobiles. Moreover, both sides of the conflict experienced very serious difficulties in providing fuel and spare parts vehicles that they had, the country's industry was in serious decline and was disorganized by the war. In 1920, the Red Army automobile fleet numbered about 7,5 thousands of cars, mainly it was a foreign-made vehicle.
At the end of the 1920s, the formation of the first automobile battalions of district subordination began in the country, and they were being equipped with new domestic vehicles. By the mid-1930s, the Red Army already has 40 thousand different cars. At the same time, Soviet military theorists are already considering road transport as the main means of infantry motorization, which is prescribed to follow tanks as part of a deep offensive operation.
By 22 June 1941, the Red Army included more than 272 thousands of vehicles of all types, the base of the fleet was Emki GAZ-M1 cars, the famous GAZ-AA lorry and three-toned cars - ZIS-5. Already in the first months of the Great Patriotic War, the motor transport units of the Red Army suffered catastrophic losses, and partly managed to fill them with mobilization of motor vehicles from the national economy and, to some extent, with the release of new cars. However, until the very end of the war, the Soviet automobile industry was not able to reach the 1941 performance of the year. The delivery of American trucks and jeeps played a very important role at that moment. By the summer of 1945, there were thousands of cars in the Red Army 664, a third of them were cars obtained under the Lend-Lease program, and about 10 percent more were captured automotive vehicles.
During the Great Patriotic War, various vehicles were widely used on all fronts for organizing operational and supply transportation of soldiers and cargo, towing different-caliber artillery systems, installing and moving rocket artillery and other purposes. Cars have become the main form of transport in almost all operational links. The role of this type of transport was determined not only by the enormous 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 a thaw and in the harsh conditions of a snowy winter, showed mass heroism and courage.
After the war, at the beginning of the 1950s, the Soviet car makers faced a very important task - to ensure the mobility of the created nuclear missile shield of the country. This task was successfully solved by domestic engineers and designers, who developed special multi-axle wheeled chassis for mounting the Strategic Rocket Forces complexes, many of them have no analogues in the world.
In modern conditions, military vehicles in the general system of the RF Armed Forces occupy a special position, being the main means of ensuring the mobility of troops and the main means of ensuring all their combat activity. The most important task of the automobile troops was not just the transportation of personnel and various cargoes, but also the transportation of mobile weapons systems and equipment, the military vehicles themselves became carriers of different types of weapons, successfully coping with the new task.
For more than a century of development history, military vehicles in our country have come a long way from the first self-moving vehicles to vehicles, which have absorbed all the achievements of modern science and are a fusion of innovation and advanced technology. The qualitative change in the purpose of military vehicles was largely predetermined by the intensive development of means of destruction and detection of a potential adversary, all of which predetermines a significant tightening and expansion of tactical and technical requirements for military vehicles from various types of aircraft and service arms.
For the first time in our history, based on the modern requirements of the troops and special forces, the Russian Defense Ministry begins to consider highly mobile vehicles with low payloads (buggies, snowmobiles, ATVs) as possible means of ensuring mobility. They have already spread in some armies of the world and appear in the power structures of our country.
Speaking of the performance characteristics of modern military vehicles, it is possible to distinguish high indicators of anti-bullet and mine protection, mobility indicators (maneuverability, speed), reliability indicators. Modern military cars in practice prove their right to exist, saving the lives of military personnel, being a means of ensuring the mobility of different weapon systems, delivering various goods. In this case, the key requirement for military vehicles of the XXI century is the protection of the crew and equipment. In recent years, Russia has been able to reduce the lag in this area from the leading foreign models, which began in the late 20th century. Today, a lot of work is being done in this direction, an example is the “Typhoon” project, in which strict requirements for the provision of anti-mine and anti-bullet protection are embodied in the gland.
Nowadays in Russia, the Omsk Automobile and Armored Institute is engaged in the training of motorist officers. In addition, specialists for the automotive industry are trained by numerous civilian universities, as well as their military departments. After training, graduates can go to serve under the contract or become a motorist officer. Drivers for the needs of the army are trained at the Training Center for Driver Training in Ostrogozhsk, located in the Voronezh Region, as well as the Counter Emergency Training Center in Solnechnogorsk. In addition, drivers are trained in military district training centers, types and branches of the armed forces, as well as in DOSAAF throughout the country.
Today, motorist warriors are a true example of responsibility and professionalism, conscientious and honest attitude to the performance of their sacred duty to the Motherland. At the same time, military vehicles became the most widespread type of military equipment in the modern Russian army. Such a technique permeates all its formations from the battalion to the army. So in the modern combined-arms (motorized) brigade of the new look, the number of motor vehicle warriors reaches 20 percent of the total personnel, according to the official website of the Russian Ministry of Defense.
Today, in the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, the number of military vehicles in general 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 VKS and the Strategic Missile Forces, almost all ground weapons are mounted on automobile base chassis, and in the Armed Forces this figure is more than 95 percent. At the same time, military vehicle models carry more than 1,5 thousands of different types of weapons. At the same time, the total fleet of military motor vehicles in the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation today comprises more than 410 thousands of units.
On the Day of the Military Motorist, the Military Review congratulates all the current and former military personnel of the automotive forces, motorist veterans, as well as all those who previously had a duty to manage various automotive vehicles with their professional holiday!
Based on materials from open sources.