Military Topography Service

a special service in the armed forces, established to provide troops with topo-graphic and geodetic information in wartime and peacetime. The service exists in most present-day armies and is usually part of the staffs. The most important tasks of the military topography service are preparing topographical and special maps and other documents containing pertinent information about areas, delivering such documents to troops and headquarters, developing geodetic systems, and providing troops with geodetic data necessary for orientation, target designation, reconnaissance, administration, and combat employment of the means of destruction.

The organization of a military topography service began in Russia with the formation of the Map Depot in 1797 and the Corps of Military Topographers in 1822. In modern times the role of the military topography service has become consider-ably more important because of the sharp increase in the need for information about terrain, an increase in the amount of such information, and the necessity to provide troops with the information.