On March 23, Russia annually celebrated the Day of Workers of the Hydrometeorological Service - a professional holiday of forecasters and meteorologists.
Meteorologists work with the most recalcitrant and volatile matter - the weather. It cannot be repaired like a tank, and it is almost impossible to influence it. One can only correctly predict and adapt to its conditions.
Today, military forecasters deploy mobile meteorological stations and receive meteorological data from orbiting spacecraft using mobile systems for receiving satellite information. They monitor the actual hydrometeorological and ice conditions, analyze the collected data and transmit them to command posts in processed form for the performance of certain tasks of the branches and arms of the RF Armed Forces. So, for the preparation of a weather report used for military aviation, the amount of cloudiness, the height of the cloud base, the direction and speed of the wind, air humidity and atmospheric pressure are determined.
Today, the world continues to work on studying the possibilities of influencing the climate and creating appropriate weapons. However, the real "meteorological battles" unfolded during the Second World War. Meteorological information acquired “the value of a special type of weapon,” and history has many proofs of this.
Generalissimo Forecaster
After the telegraph was invented in the middle of the 19th century, a new and most significant branch of meteorology arose - synoptic, that is, survey (at that time synoptic meteorology was called "meteorological telegraphy"). Weather information coming from almost all over the world began to be plotted on the synoptic map. On such a map, you can trace the general course of the weather in different parts of the world and guess what the situation will be in the near future.
Robert Fitzroy.
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The British Vice Admiral Robert Fitzroy began to draw such maps in 1861. He strove to develop a methodology for early forecasting. Seamen and fishermen especially awaited his storm alerts. Of course, Fitzroy's forecasts did not always come true - only 11 weather stations were operating in the whole of Great Britain at that time.
By the way, today few people know that there is a generalissimo among Russian meteorologists. In 1899, a young Georgian Iosif Dzhugashvili got a job at the geophysical observatory in Tiflis as a computer observer. He was engaged in meteorological observations for 98 days. His duties included hourly rounds of all instruments that measured the air temperature, monitoring cloud cover, wind and air pressure. He entered all the results in notebooks specially designed for this. It is known that Dzhugashvili's salary was decent money at that time - 20 rubles a month.
In 1901, the meteorologist of the Tiflis Geophysical Observatory resigned and after 44 years became the Generalissimo of the Soviet Union. By the way, it was on Stalin's initiative during the Great Patriotic War that automatic probes were thrown into the enemy's rear, which transmitted information about weather conditions, which made it possible to correct the actions of aviation.
"Cropped map" of forecasters
The impetus for the development of military meteorology was the Second World War. The first units of military meteorologists in the USSR appeared in 1941.
According to the German admiral Friedrich Ruge, meteorological information during the Second World War acquired "the value of a special type of weapon." The victory of the Red Army was due to many factors, including weather reports. German troops were deprived of information about the Russian cold. History is silent whether it was the mistakes of German forecasters or the impossibility of conducting research in the field, but in fact, in 1941, the Germans were not ready for the harsh Moscow winter.
The Great Patriotic War required the inclusion of the USSR Hydrometeorological Service in the country's Armed Forces. The troops needed accurate weather forecasts for the timing of combat operations. On July 15, 1941, the Main Directorate of the Hydrometeorological Service of the Red Army was created. It and the Central Institute of Weather (since 1943, the Central Institute of Forecasts) became part of the People's Commissariat of Defense with direct operational subordination to the General Staff, and hydrometeorological departments were created at the headquarters of the fronts and armies.
From the first days of the war, the belligerents have classified their broadcast weather reports. For this, their own meteorological code was used. The weather data was a military secret. The synoptic map became a kind of mirror reflecting the situation on the front line. As our troops retreated, along with the abandoned cities, points invaluable for weather forecasters were closed, so we worked with incomplete maps.
'Cropped Card' August 30, 1941 / FGBU & quot; Hydrometeorological Center of Russia & quot;.
"Cropped map" - as meteorologists called the synoptic map. Every opportunity was used to expand its scope. In 1942, attempts were made to obtain weather information from the occupied lands. Among the partisans in Belarus and in the Smolensk region there were people who were familiar with the method of meteorological observations and who knew how to work with instruments. The information they obtained about the weather was broadcast. The reports went to the Central Headquarters of the partisan movement in Moscow, and then went to the headquarters of the armies, to the aviation and to the Central Institute of Forecasts. There these figures turned into those very additional, invaluable points on the "cut off" synoptic map of the fighting country.
The designers with the direct participation of the Hydrometeorological Service employees in an incredibly short time created a compact weather station, consisting of two small suitcases. The one-of-a-kind amphibious automatic radio meteorological stations were delivered by aviation to the German rear and automatically went on the air four times a day, sprinkling signals over a distance of several hundred kilometers and providing information about the weather on flight routes.
By the way, the forecast of non-flying weather for German aviation made it possible to hold a military parade on Red Square on November 7, 1941, and the use of knowledge of the snow cover passability for tanks during the defense of Moscow made it possible to determine the timing of the start of the counteroffensive in December of the same year. The ice was broken by an artificial flood on the Moscow Canal. This serious water barrier made it possible to stop the German offensive north of the capital.
Thanks to military meteorologists, the Road of Life on Lake Ladoga / Rafail Mazelev / TASS worked.
Forecasts played a significant role in planning the combat operations of the Volkhov, North-Western and Kalinin Fronts in the winter of 1942, during the crossing of the Dnieper in the summer and autumn of 1943, as well as during the defense of Stalingrad and the defeat of a large group of Germans in the winter of 1943. Taking into account the cross-country ability for tanks of frozen swamps and ice cover of rivers near Tikhvin, Rzhev, Vyazma, Tver in January-February 1942, it was possible to appoint a counterattack on the dates of the expected weather improvement. Also, hydrometeorological support played an important role in the creation and successful operation of the famous Road of Life on the ice of Lake Ladoga.
Covert Operation Haudegen
Similar units in Nazi Germany were strictly classified. One of them became known only decades after the end of the war.
In September 1944, the submarine U-307 surfaced off the island of Nordostland (northeast of Spitsbergen). 11 people left it - they were taken to the shore by boat. Thus began the top-secret Operation Haudegen.
A day later, about 1800 boxes of various equipment were delivered to the island: a couple of ready-made wooden houses, provisions, weapons and ammunition, as well as meteorological equipment.
As they later wrote, the entire operation cost 2 million Reichsmarks (which was equal to the cost of six medium tanks). The money was spent to ensure the smooth operation of a group of military meteorologists led by polar explorer Wilhelm Dege. The group created a hidden weather station and constantly transmitted weather data to the mainland.
The German station was never discovered until the moment when, at the end of May 1945, the meteorologists themselves contacted the British units stationed in Norway and asked them to be picked up from the island. The group learned about the surrender of Germany from the receiver. However, the ship for them came only three months later - on September 3, 1945.
Thus, this group of German meteorologists became the last unit of the Wehrmacht to surrender. By the way, Dege buried all the materials of the expedition, diaries and films on the island. 30 years later, they were found by his son, who was also a scientist.
Climatic weapons, object "Sura" and HAARP
At present, all subdivisions of the RF Ministry of Defense are provided with the necessary information on climatic conditions in different parts of the world by the Hydrometeorological Service of the RF Armed Forces. The foreign media more than once reported that she owns the secret facility "Sura", and was credited with developing climate weapons, in particular against the United States. At the same time, the Americans themselves create such weapons, the most famous project is HAARP (a program for the study of ionospheric scattering of high-frequency radio waves).
Launched in 1997, it was created to study the nature of the ionosphere and develop air and missile defense systems. A powerful radar complex - a huge antenna field on one and a half dozen hectares of land - was built in Alaska (Gakon military range). A total of six diesel generators and a field with 180 antennas of 22 meters and 360 radio transmitters installed on it. They will allow focusing short-wave radiation pulses on separate parts of the ionosphere and heating them up to the formation of a temperature plasma. The radiation power is many times higher than the solar radiation. According to data from open sources, radiation can be focused anywhere in the world, thereby causing various natural disasters, various man-made disasters, and also affect the consciousness and psyche of people.
HAARP in Alaska.
A complex similar to the American HAARP was created in the Soviet Union. It received the name "Sura" and is located 150 kilometers from Nizhny Novgorod. Extremely interesting results of the behavior of the ionosphere were obtained on this completely unique installation, which is 15 times less powerful than the American one. In the 1980s, it was actively used, in the sky above it, interesting anomalous phenomena were observed: flaming red balls hanging motionless or sweeping in the sky at high speed. At first, the research was financed to the required extent, but after the collapse of the USSR, such work stopped.
Now "Sura" belongs to the Radiophysical Research Institute. On an area of 9 hectares, there are even rows of 20-meter antennas. In the center of the antenna field there is a huge horn-emitter - with its help scientists study acoustic processes in the atmosphere. At the edge of the field there is a building of radio transmitters and a transformer substation, a little in the distance - a laboratory and a utility building.
Climatic weapons are currently prohibited. On the initiative of the USSR in the mid-1970s, the Convention on the Prohibition of Hostile Environmental Impact was adopted. More than 50 countries have approved it.
In principle, it is possible to influence, but rather on the weather. There were such examples before the convention. For example, it is easy to cause heavy rains that wash away crops. Or something else. But climate is a global category. All countries will suffer from the hostile influence on it. - Alexander Frolov, ex-head of the Federal Service for Hydrometeorology and Environmental Monitoring (Roshydromet)
In 2015, the head of the Hydrometeorological Service of the RF Armed Forces, Vladimir Udrish, said that it was impossible to create and use "climate weapons".
World experience shows that impacts of a global nature are impossible, since this requires very large energies and costs. - Vladimir Udrish, Head of the Hydrometeorological Service of the RF Armed Forces, Colonel
However, there have long been tools to influence the weather locally - to cause rain, hail, avalanches. “We have a hailstorming service, to ensure avalanche safety, which was used during the Olympic Games to secure the event, preliminary avalanches were launched,” said the chief military meteorologist.
Prepared by Roman Azanov
