The military affairs of the Moscow state. From Vasily Dark to Mikhail Romanov

For a long time in Russian public opinion, the point of view on the military affairs of the Russian state of the early New Age (the second half of the XV - end of the 17th century) was established as something archaic, primitive and backward. The bright image of a Moscow military person who formed in Peter"s time, dreaming that the sovereign served without taking out the sabers out of the scabbard, made an indelible impression on the subsequent generations of domestic historians who neglected the level of development of the Russian military affairs of the Moscow era. Meanwhile, such derogatory assessments are in clear contradiction with historical reality. In two and a half centuries, from the middle of the XV to the end of the XVII century, the Russian state has achieved considerable successes in the foreign policy: not only conquered three Tatar kingdoms, defeated the Polscolitovsky state in the two -hundred -year war, but it itself became an empire. It would be impossible to achieve such impressive successes, without having at your disposal of a reliable and effective “last argument of kings” - a good, combat -ready army and the proper level of development of military affairs - it would be impossible.
But what was this very “last argument” of the Moscow sovereigns, thanks to which they managed to achieve such impressive successes? This question is answered by the book of a doctor of historical sciences, professor V.V. Pen, who talks about how the Russian military affairs of the second half of the XV - beginning of the 17th century, when it was created, was tested in numerous battles and campaigns of the Moscow military machine. This is not about the battles in this study, but about the history of military affairs: the number of the sovereign’s troops, the features of its structure and management, logistics, military finance, tactics and strategy, siege, weapons and much more