MOSCOW, February 23 (AVN) - The General Staff's idea to lay the main stress in combat training on the increasing efficiency of trainer application did not prove effective in 2000 and is unlikely to prove effective this year, a high-ranking official of the General Staff told the Military News Agency.
Due to lack of fuel and lubricants motorised rifle units implemented only 55 percent of driving practice plans and tank units 54 percent of plans, the official said. An officer's average run made 20 to 40 kilometres a year and a driver's run 50 to 60 kilometres, while the norm is 450 kilometres. The figures are a 15-percent decline in comparison with those of 1999.
At the same time, the presence and state of trainers in the troops' inventory only allows to practise 10 to 15 percent of combat training missions. The land forces do not have trainers for tactical, technical and some other types of training at all, the official stressed.
The situation is further aggravated by the programme of trainer development that pays no attention to the Armed Forces' true needs in cheap training methods and compensatory trainers, the official said. Nobody deals with trainer standartisation and unification, the equipment is developed in accordance with outdated requirements, and proposals to the state armament programme and state defence orders ignore the General Staff's professional training problems analysis.
As a result, professional skills of military specialists may continue to worsen, the official stressed.