Day of the military topographer
The military topographical depot (namely, the so-called service until 1863 of the year) was created under the Ministry of War. The tasks of those who were engaged in military topographic affairs in the Russian Empire included:
organization, production and scientific and methodological support of cartographic (topographic) work in the line of the military department;
collection, storage, publication of cartographic and military topographic documents (including historical ones);
conducting field studies of the area, for which special companies of military topographers were formed;
composing and publishing work.
Having existed for more than 51 of the year, the Military Topographical Depot was abolished, but this does not mean that the cross was put on the military topography in Russia. The entire functional base and all the materials collected by the staff of the structure were transferred to a special military topographic part, structurally part of the General Directorate of the General Staff.
During the existence of the Military Topographical Depot, “Notes” began to be published, which dealt with the production of reconnaissance, instrumental “shooting”, triangulation, drawing and other works. We are talking about Notes of the Military Topographical Depot, the publication of which was launched in 1837 year. Notes-reports related to the activities of the service in various buildings (Orenburg, Caucasus, Siberian). For several years, military topographers carried out truly titanic work, compiled thousands of topographic maps of various parts of the provinces: from Kherson to Grodno and Vilno, from St. Petersburg to Siberia and Transcaucasia. These reports and maps made became the content of the most valuable archive, which made it possible to take into account the accumulated information when organizing the most diverse offensive and defensive operations of the Russian army. They used the same work after the Russian Empire ceased to exist, since the accuracy and quality of the works carried out by the 19th century military topographers were at the highest level.
In the notes you can find unique documents on topographic studies of the coast of the Caspian Sea and the Aral Sea, data of geographical expeditions in Siberia. There are in the archive and the military topographic map of the western part of the Russian Empire, compiled in 1848 year, as well as the most accurate topographical studies of the Crimean peninsula and other territories.
The tasks of the modern military topographic service are determined by the main defense department of Russia as follows:
creating, updating, accumulating stocks of topographic maps, catalogs of geodetic and gravimetric points, bringing them to headquarters and troops;
the production, accumulation and creation of funds of digital and electronic maps and other means of digital information about the terrain and their provision of automated troop control systems and weapons;
preparation of initial geodetic and gravimetric bases for ensuring missile launches, flights aviationfiring artillery and combat use of radio systems of various purposes;
production of special maps, photographic images of the area and other means of topographic and geodetic information and the provision of troops to them;
edition of graphic combat documents;
performance of geodetic and cartographic works of federal purpose.
The main focus is on improving the accuracy of work to determine geospatial coordinates, which plays a crucial role not only in the process of positioning on the ground, but also when performing military operations related to striking specific targets.
The Russian Ministry of Defense formed the main center for space geodesy, navigation and cartography, as well as the main center for geospatial information. The most important role here is played by the increasing in scale Russian orbital satellite constellation. In addition, the military expedition topographic detachment, as well as units of the district and army subordination, performs its duties.
What technical tools do modern topographers use? In fact, this is a whole range of tools that allow solving problems of a topographical, geodesic, gravimetric nature.
Electronic cards are created by automated ARM-EK complexes (ARM-KR). The ARM-EK complex is used not only to create electronic maps for permanent storage slides and prints from scratch, but also for their constant updating. These are general geographical maps, city plans, classical topographic maps.
Astronomical, geodetic and gravimetric data are obtained using PNGK-1. This is a mobile navigation and geodesic complex that can be used in conjunction with the Geonika-T support system.
Modern military topographers use the PCTS digital topographic system, which is a field photogrammetric tool of five special machines.
The composition of the PTSTS ("Volynets"):
printing module PM PTsTS, made in 2-x container bodies on the vehicle chassis and one container body on the vehicle trailer chassis;
UM PTsTS universal module, made in a special container body on the vehicle chassis;
life support module MJO, made in a special container body on the chassis of the car trailer.
The modules of the system are mounted on 532361 URAL automobile chassis with KK6.2.20.1 container bodies and 2-PN-8 (ChMZAP-8335.7) trailers with KK4.2 container bodies. All modules are equipped with autonomous power supplies.
The system is designed to perform the production, updating, storage and transmission of digital and analog information about a particular area. Foreign states show great interest in PCTS due to the fact that the complex allows drawing up graphic documentation of the area with high accuracy in a relatively short time.
In a whole series of exercises conducted in various military districts of Russia, military topographers also took an active part.
"Military Review" congratulates military topographers on their professional holiday!
- Pashkevich82 (www.yaplakal.com)
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