Sergey Petrov, chairman of Rolf Group
In 80s I served in the Soviet Air Forces. Once, when I commanded a squadron of air regiment, we had the regular exercises.
They were held in the usual style of the Soviet Army: started with fussy running around after the alarm, then the nobody-knows-where operation flight. Afterwards, the debriefing, where the commanders eagerly sought to find the guilt of the pilots, pointing them on non-fulfilment of preflight guidance, not-knowing of airfield call-signs, various rules and so on. And all this with the only aim: to rub pilots’ noses in the dirt.
That brought unnecessary nervousness in the team and affected the common level of training.
I realized that there was no creative approach at all in our service. We were trained to perform plain dull commands execution. Meanwhile, it’s important to note that the pilots are not just like common soldiers. A pilot must cope with a lot of complex navigation instruments. You cannot cram the air fight into a field manual. There’s no way to foresee all the difficult situations that may occur during the flight. Anything may happen, and any standardization can only make things worse. You can’t shout to the pilot: “Shut up and do as you are told!” You should motivate him in a right way. That’s why it is more appropriate to manage, not to simply command in the Air Forces.
So I decided to apply to our regiment commander. I considered him as a progressive person, he was young enough, and in addition, he was an aerial acrobatics champion.
I told him after the exercises:
“Anton Vasilievitch, let’s try to make something to stop that senseless running around. I suggest we should get together with the pilots and think about air combat, try to develop new tactics ...
But his answer was:
“Petrov, stop it. If we’ll start playing a democracy here, the Soviet Army will die. Stop it, listen to my advice. The only way to hold people in leash is to kick and shout.”
I was astonished. I realized with horror that we have no chances of winning. We will try to prevail by numbers through storm method.
That was a moment when I saw that Army needs more and better management than command. Per se, if any effective corporation today will buy military airplanes and hire professional pilots, it will easily overcome a big army, where commanding is performed on the ‘shouting’ level.
It’s a delusion that the iron discipline is necessary, I thought then. What’s needed actually is very thorough examination of goals and motivations: what are we fighting for, with whom we are fighting, and how to meet a goal. And the commanders ought to select thinking pilots.
But that approach was completely unnatural for the Soviet Army. It was an absolutely hierarchic organization dependant upon muddle-headed officers and soldiers. The system required neither thinking people nor any initiative. I realized that I had nothing to achieve there, and was strongly disappointed in the Army. Soon I left it and switched to business.
This story in Russian
