Mikhailovskaya Military Artillery Academy: 185 years of activity in Military education and science.

Vladimir Alexandrovich KONSTANTINOV, born 13 August 1952. Graduated from the Higher Artillery School (1973), Military Artillery Academy (1987), Higher Academic Courses of the Military Academy of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation General Staff (2002). Service record positions: Artillery Platoon Cmdr, Battery Cmdr, Chief of Staff of the Artillery Battalion, Battalion Cmdr, Chief of Staff of the Artillery Regt, Regiment Cmdr, Lecturer at the Missile Forces Operational Tactical Training Chair of the Military Artillery Academy, Chief of Combat Training Branch of the Missile Forces & Artillery Office Military District, Cmdr of Missile Forces & Artillery of Combined-Arms Army, Dpty Cmdr of Missile Forces & Artillery Military District, Cmdr of Missile Forces & Artillery Military District. Participated in combat operations in the Chechen Republic (2000). 2003/present Cmdr of the Mikhailovskaya Military Artillery Academy.

The history of the oldest military education establishment of Russia dates back to the Artillery Training School, which opened 26 November 1820 and received the naming distinction Mikhailovskoye in honor of its founder and careful curator General-Zeugmeister Grand Duke Mikhail Pavlovich. At that time already, the Training School fully corresponded to the formal characteristics of the higher military educational institution. Along with the lower ranks (junker-lich) courses, the Training School had the officer training courses (the second level of education), and the unity of educational and scientific work formed itself especially under the guidance of Gen. A.D. Zasyadko, the first Training School Commander, when experiments were conducted for the design of rocket weapons. Inscribed with the golden letters in the Training School history pages are: V.A. Ankudovich, the famous scientist and educator, whose efforts led to the development of the external ballistics training course; M.V. Ostrogradskiy, who solved a number of important problems of military science, first of all, in the area of ballistics and artillery engineering; Ye.Kh.Wessel, outstanding scientist and educator, who was the first artillery professor in the Russian history. N.V. Medem (General of Artillery), the outstanding Russian military theoretician, expert in strategy and tactics, also began his scientific and pedagogic track here, and from 1833, he was granted the professor position in the Military Academy.

It was in those years that the important tradition formed itself--that of engaging the best professionals in the particular demesne of knowledge and military practice for work in this education establishment and of treating with great care drivers of ideas in scientific and pedagogical schools and trends. Grand Duke Mikhail Pavlovich, the founder of the Mikhailovskoye Artillery Training School, in point of fact, disbursed extra pays on his own account to those teachers of the Training School, who were renowned for creative achievements in scientific and pedagogic work. Concern about creating of favorable conditions for the activity of experienced teachers allowed to achieve continuity in organizing scientific and pedagogic process and scientific investigations and in the transfer of valuable experience.

The scientific and pedagogic schools, created by the renowned educators and scientists of the Academy, functioned most productively at the time, when two-three generations of specialists were working side-by-side. The Training School, and later the Academy, created all the conditions for scientists to dedicate virtually the entire life to the work in the Academy. In the 19tth-20th centuries, employment record exceeding 40 years in the Academy belonged to: A.V. Gadolin, N.F. Drozdov, P.A. Guelvikh, I.P. Grave, N.A. Zabudskiy; exceeding 30 years: N.V. Maiyevskiy, V.N. Ipatiev, S.G. Petrovich--approximately 16 scientists all in all. Twenty-year employment record in the Academy belonged to: N.V. Medem, P.L. Lavrov, I.A. Vyshnegradskiy, A.A. Blagonravov. This list can be continued. Even the years of revolutionary changes in the beginning of the 20th century did not offend the traditions of treating the eminent teachers with care. Thanks to this, new scientific and pedagogical schools came into being comprising first-class professionals. At the incipient stage of one of those schools was Prof. P.A. Guelvikh, the leading artillery gunnery expert of long standing. V.G. Dia-konov and G.I. Blinov, who worked under his guidance, subsequently became famous artillery scientists and organizers of artillery education and science. Again, Maj. Gen. G.I. Blinov largely opened the way to science work for Col. Gen. A.I. Matveyev, the future Commander of the Academy, the merited RSFSR figure in science and engineering.

But this outstanding tradition did not survive the banal reduction of the Armed Forces in the 1990s, conducted under the slogan of military reform. The education establishment was loosing even Doctors of Science, who had reached the pinnacles of creative pedagogical and scientific work. Nevertheless, the Academy retained the gold core of the scientific and teaching personnel, thereby maintaining its hallmark as one of the leading military education establishments in Russia. As of 2005, employment record exceeding 40 years of work in the Academy belongs to: B.N. Druganov, Ye.V. Yefimov, A.T. Gerashchenko, V.P. Demidenko, D.A. Domanov, A.K. Yepikhin, A.S. Krukovsky, I.F. Ladyga, Yu.S. Fyodorov, A.V. Khorenkov, Yu.V. Chudakov. Today, the teaching staff of the academy includes 6 honored workers of science (science and engineering): V.G. Anisimov, V.P. Demidenko, A.F. Ivanov, V.G. Staroselets, Yu.S. Fyodorov, G.N. Ulyanov; 10 honored workers of higher school: S.D. Belyayeva, B.N. Druganov, A.K. Yepikhin, Ye.N. Zhucheva, I.F. Ladyga, L.G. Plotnitsky, VS. Pod-levskikh, M.P. Samsonov, B.F. Singayevsky, A.V. Khorenkov. Educational activity in the academy is conducted by 27 Doctors of Sciences, 172 Candidates of Sciences, 40 Professors, 102 Assistant Professors. About 65% of military teaching personnel and more than 75% of civilian teachers have academic degrees and academic titles.

Unfortunately, to retain the leading position, it is not enough for contemporary scientists and pedagogues to have experience, knowledge, degrees, titles and creative nature alone. The time, when A.D. Zasyadko, the outstanding artilleryman, could afford to finance on own account the experimental work in rocket engineering passed long ago. The wages and salaries of our officers are barely enough, God grant, to support the family worthily. Nevertheless, the situation for the development of military science is considerably better than in the 1990s. At present, scientific investigations are conducted in the academy in the six branches of science (the military, engineering, pedagogic, economic, historical, and sociologic branches). They aim at the renovation of statutory and guideline documents (up to 20%); at summarizing of combat experience of missile and artillery forces in the Great Patriotic War, and in localized wars and armed conflicts, and at drafting proposals and recommendations, on its basis, for development and improvement of the organization and troop basis of missile and artillery echelons, of artillery reconnaissance, command and control systems, and of the maintenance logistics of the missile forces and artillery of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation in times of peace and in wartime (45%-55%); at the improvement of forms and methods of educational activity in the academy, and in other higher education establishments of the missile forces and artillery (MFA) of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation to ensure the continuity and higher effectiveness of the training process (10%-25%).

Scientific investigations being conducted are specially focused on the development of recommendations for higher effectiveness of service arm tactical employment in operations (on the battle field), directing the strikes and conducting fire, fulfillment of tasks in all-round combat service support, and employment of new kinds of equipment and weapons of the missile forces and artillery; on the study and practical introduction of investigation results and foreign experience in command-and-staff training exercises augmented by new IT, as well as on the improvement of forms and methods for scientific work supervision to enhance its effectiveness and the practical validity of scientific investigation results.

The results of implemented scientific investigations are realized, above all, in the new system of statutory and guideline documents for the armed forces (field manuals, regulations, methods for operational calculations, guidelines, combat training programs, etc.), to which the commanders and the teaching staff of the academy have contributed greatly. Over the last five years, 14 monographs and 12 text-books were written and published in the academy, among the titles are: Artillery Tactics; Basic Theory of Control of Missile Strikes and Conducting of Artillery Fire; Gunnery and Conducting of Fire; Control of Strikes and Fire of the Army Missile Forces and Artillery (the Body of Troops); Tactics of Artillery Subdivisions; Basic Deployment of Artillery Reconnaissance Means; Missile and Artillery Weaponry Tests; Control Theory and Decision-Making Rationale Techniques. Besides theoretical treatises and proceedings, the academy experts developed a number of learning tutorials, including the artillery fire simulator Arkada, well known in the armed forces. It permits in classroom environment to simulate the execution of all types of fire missions determined by the Artillery Training Course. The program is used in MFA higher education institutions and in many subdivisions of the arm of the service. Special contentment is evoked by the work of the academy scientists, who take part in the design of the computer-augmented artillery practice ground based on the 3D image target environment. This practice facility significantly enhances artillerymen training effectiveness in implementing a wide spectrum of fire missions. With its characteristics and technical capabilities, it is in no way inferior to the analogous training facilities developed in the U.S. and in Great Britain. The task is to provide at least artillery educational institutions with this veritable miracle of engineering thinking. The matter depends on financing.

The Academy closely cooperates with enterprises of the country's defense complex: with the federal state-owned unitary enterprises--the scientific and production enterprise Rubin; the instrument-making design bureau; the Systemprom concern; the state-owned scientific and production enterprise Splav; the machine-building design bureau; with the open joint-stock companies--Radiozavod, VNIItransmash, the scientific and research institute Strela; with the scientific and production association Spetsmaterialy. Thanks to those stable scientific ties, the important results of the investigations of our scientists are realized in the development of new military systems and complexes, above all, in the development of special software for future technological complexes of automatic control of missile forces and artillery echelons within the unified ACS system of tactical echelon and armed forces control region-wise, and in the new technical means of reconnaissance in artillery and other branches of the armed forces.

To promulgate meaningful experience, scientific achievements, to make scientific information available and to bring up scientific results to the public at large, the academy maintains scientific ties with the Russian academy of missile and artillery sciences, with the Academy of military sciences and with many organizations and higher education establishments of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation. At the same time, the essential role of practical training lessons is the important organizational asset of the academy's educational process. Today, their share in learning by the trainees and student cadets of command and control skills (bodies of troops, units, subdivisions) amounts from 60% of time in major specialist fields to 90% in supplementary education branches. The learning process of trainees and cadets is conducted in the form of management games, command-and-staff training exercises and war games, practical lessons and classroom tutorials. The share of such lessons of the leading chairs of the academy amounts to 60%-80%.

But, these enticingly happy figures cannot satisfy us any more. They wrap up the important new trends of the recent years. For instance, the major tactics chair has been widely using, since 2005, the situational methods in the training of officer students for the exercise of integrated tactical missions. Command-and-staff training exercises and war games are conducted in the training command grounds augmented by electronics and computer technologies. But, this is not the main novelty. Earlier, student-learning time was mostly allocated to the planning of missile forces and artillery combat employment in operations and on the battlefield. Today, the C.O.G. has been shifted to the organization of tactical activities and control of the bodies of troops and units of the service arm in operations. After the year 2000, more attention is paid to theory and practice of missile forces and artillery combat employment in local wars and armed conflicts. At present, command-and-staff exercises and war games are developed for missile forces and artillery combat employment in the first defensive operation of the initial period with non-contact warfare and tactics officially approved by Western armed forces in the local wars of recent decades.

According to established tradition, the considerable segment of classroom activities in the academy is conducted in field environment. According to the training curriculum, a series of practical exercises are conducted in the Luga training center twice a year in addition to the field lessons for cadets in the fourth and the fifth years. Not long ago, similar exercises were conducted being accompanied by missile service launches. As those war games departed from the sufficiently well-trodden path of exercise organization, they required non-standard decisions to be taken, made someone recollect partially forgotten skills and revealed unpreparedness of certain service branches and teachers in getting rid of habitual stereotypes. In other words, these exercises became field academy not only for the cadets, but also for the teachers and the training process service branches.

A number of advanced investigation results in the area of innovation technologies are linked in educational process with the training-and-material base of the academy, which is noticeably progressing. It components include 320 premises with 18 lecture halls, 17 PC classrooms, 2 recreational centers, 3 gyms, more than 80 specially equipped classrooms, as well as the computer-augmented combat command and control center for the body of troops, the computerized simulation CP of the body of troops (units and subdivisions) of the service arm. In recent years, the overall number of PCs used in the training process rose to 258 pieces. The academy, together with the inter-regional association for supplementary education of St. Petersburg, outfitted the auditorium of scientific investigations and innovation technologies in education. It is equipped with modern information transfer and reproduction means for delivering mufti-media based lectures, for conducting Internet-service conferences, teleconference bridges by using Internet technologies.

To overcome personnel shortage is today one of the critical issues, which we inherited from the 1990s. In solving this issue, we put big hopes upon the military postgraduate courses. Today, a number of young and talented officers are among the postgraduate students. We also look ahead and pay much attention to engaging officer students and cadets in scientific work, searching for specialists among the graduates with propensity for science and research. For instance, nearly 360 officer students and cadets were engaged annually in investigating of the topical problems of military art in the society for the promotion of military science in the last decade. Supervised by experienced pedagogues and scientists, many postgraduate students achieved fairly good results. Since 1991, officer students and cadets, who submitted scientific research materials to All-Russia competitions, won 6 gold medals and 17 diplomas. In resent years, the academy cadets constantly won prizes in olympiads of the Military Historical Society for the students of the military education establishments of Russia similar to the IT and mathematics competitions.

High-quality education confirmed by practice was grounds for wide participation of the academy in the USSR (later Russia) cooperation programs with the MOD of 39 states. Quite a few foreign graduates of the academy were promoted to the leading positions in the Armed Forces of those states as well as to the Government. Extensive international contacts always played the noticeable role in the promotion of educational and scientific activity in the academy. In the past, foreign trips of scientists and teachers were organized for this purpose on the regular basis. Thus since 1837, two officers of the academy used to be sent abroad to get acquainted with the development of gunnery. Foreign trips were typical not only in the time of the Russian Empire, but also in the 20s-30s of the previous century. At that time, teachers and post graduate students regularly made trips from two to six months to Germany, France, Czechoslovakia, the U.S., and Holland. Sometimes, they got into contact with the expatriates, who, driven by patriotic feeling, rendered indispensable assistance to them. Unfortunately later on, the tradition of foreign trips was cast to oblivion, and the teachers study foreign experience by reading specialized publications in translation. Perhaps, that is why the knowledge of foreign languages ceased to be the distinguishing feature of the graduate of our academy, although right up to the turn of the 20th century many of them had linguistic proficiency in two and more than two foreign languages. In our information-ridden epoch, teachers with perfect command of foreign languages have become scarce, which increasingly makes it difficult to work with foreigners and to organize foreign trips for our representatives. It is already clear that the command of foreign languages must be the inalienable cultural asset of the artillery officers.

Over the past five years, the groups of cadets headed by the teachers three times visited Greece at the official invitation of the Academy of the Armed Forces of that country. The participated in the duty training exercise as part of the international contingent composed of Greece, Poland, Czechia, Hungary, Armenia, and Montenegro. Apart from the best unforgettable impressions about the hospitality of the hosts, our cadets and officers also brought valuable experience. For instance, not without pride did they note the fact that, although today the living conditions in Greek military academies and universities are significantly higher, our combat training is conducted in a more intensive manner, and we are in no way inferior to the foreign counterparts.

The academy pays special attention to inculcation of pride for one's own service arm and higher education establishment. This tradition has firm moral foundations. From the very outset, artillery is reputed for being the intellectual "scholarly" service arm of the armed forces, and popular wisdom had it that the wise heads belong to artillery. Such societal accolade about artillery laid additional moral responsibility on the artillery academy.

The tradition of being proud for one's own service arm of the armed forces and for the higher education establishment is embodied in the spirit and desire to support the prestige of artillerymen and missilemen by showing dignified behavior within the academy walls and outside of them, by exemplary appearance and deportment, by perfect implementation of service duties, by winning sport competitions and olympiads in training subjects. This tradition largely formed itself thanks to the immersion of the cadets and officers in the atmosphere of respect for the historical legacy of the academy, the service arm of the armed forces, the Russian Army, the celebrated scientists, teachers, graduates, artillery commanders, the country's heroic defenders. At all times, the walls and the classrooms of the academy are hung with the portraits of the founders of scientific and educational schools, outstanding scientists and pedagogues, artillery commanders. Some of the auditoriums are bearing the names of outstanding doers in artillery science and education.

The Academy Museum, which is the hallmark of the education establishment, was traditionally the source of educating the lofty spirit of Michaelites. Remarkable veterans of the academy used to be nominated directors of the museum. Today, the museum is headed by G.K. Kravtsov, the Companion of Three Orders of Glory.

One of the traditions of "immersion" in the academy history, which appeared in Mikhailovskoye Artillery School in the middle of the 20th century, was connected with the annual commemoration of the founder of the artillery school--Grand Duke Mikhail Pavlovich--in his burial place in the Peter and Paul Fortress in St. Petersburg. In the end of the 20th century, this tradition was restored.

The traditional forms of using the potential of military history in the technical school and later in the academy include visits to the Museum of the military history of artillery arm, engineer corps and army signal corps, the care of the graves of those, who fell in action defending the country, laying wreaths on military burial places and to the monuments of military valor, the ceremony of taking oath by the cadets, the annual graduation ceremony in military museums and at the monuments of military valor, etc. The annual celebration of Missile Forces and Artillery Day on 19 November plays an important role in the activity of the academy. In present-day Russia, this celebration was officially set for the third Sunday of November to make it coincide with the holiday. On the other hand, according to the tradition of observing important events, this celebration must not necessarily conform the establishment of "bank holidays".

One of the good traditions is maintaining close informal ties between academy graduates and the educational establishment. It manifests itself in various forms. One of them is sponsorship, which is of no little significance in this anything but simple time, for the benefit of the academy, for artillery science development, as well as for rendering help to officers and their families. In the past, sponsorship manifested itself in the creation of special funds at the expense of officer voluntary donations or testamentary sums of money, in setting up by military school graduates of the special funds payable to named persons for the encouragement of investigations in the area of artillery, etc. Not infrequently did the teachers bequeathed their home libraries, instruments and devices for experiments. Thus in 2003, the relatives of Prof. V.G. Sapozhnikov, the leading chemical scientist, who died in 1935, donated to the academy museum his home library and documents from his personal files.

In the renovated Russia, the traditions of sponsorship and works of mercy go through new birth. The artillery and missile officers, who were dismissed from service and made the career in business or in government agencies, use their new opportunities to render meaningful and publicly approved assistance to the academy for developing the material base, the forms of visual propaganda etc.

Note that the Mikhailovskaya Artillery Academy and the military school were always linked by thousands of visible and invisible ties with society. In the 20th century, these ties were even more diversified. The close contacts of the academy commanders with the local government authorities, state-owned and nonprofit organizations are the important forms of this tradition. Thus, N.N. Voronov, Artillery Chief Marshal, who enjoyed great renown in Leningrad, managed as the Commander of the Academy, in 1953, to have the academy stock of dwellings enlarged, given the limited capacities of the city, which had survived the dreadful blockage. In Soviet time, the participation of the academy in patriotic upbringing of population by way of patronage of the infant and secondary schools, orphanages, etc. Fruitful contacts with the administration of St. Petersburg, of Kalininskiy District, of the town of Luga characterize the academy today, too.

In conclusion, note that, from 1953 to 2005 alone, 16,000 officers graduated from the academy. Numerous state awards and positions of authority, which they earned by honest service in the Armed Forces, attest the training level of the graduates. The academy educated 80 Companions of the Cross of St. George, 52 Heroes of the Soviet Union, 2 Heroes of Russia, Marshals, Generals, outstanding military scientists. According to the summarized opinions from the Armed Forces in 2002-2004, 11% of the officer graduates were granted state awards, 89% were granted merit awards by the leadership, 68% of them are the commanding officers of units and subdivisions with good and excellent performance results in combat training and military service. 70% of opinions about former cadets, who graduated from the academy, are also distinguished for sound skills and knowledge. The principal achievement of the academy, throughout its history, has been the training of significant number of highly qualified personnel of command and engineering profile, who have confirmed their competence in day-to-day activities of the armed forces and in combat missions.

Lt. Gen. V.A. KONSTANTINOV

Commander, Mikhailovskaya Military Artillery Academy

Candidate of Military Sciences