Alexander Morozov - design engineer of the tank power of the USSR

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

15 years ago, Alexander Morozov was born - one of the creators of the legendary T-34 and a number of other Soviet tanks. He went from a copyist of technical documents to the head of one of the leading design bureaus of the USSR. Experts call several types of tanks, the development and production of which Morozov had a hand in, the best armored vehicles of his time.

At the same time, being one of the brightest leaders of the Soviet military-industrial complex, a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR and twice Hero of Socialist Labor, Morozov was distinguished by extreme modesty and never sought special material benefits for himself. About the life of the famous creator of Soviet tanks - in the material RT.

Alexander Morozov / T-34 tanks enter the combat line RIA Novosti © Wikimedia Commons

Alexander Morozov was born on October 29, 1904 in the town of Bezhitsa near Bryansk in a working class family. When he was ten years old, the family moved to live in Kharkov, where Alexander's father got a job at a local steam locomotive plant (KhPZ). Morozov Jr., meanwhile, went to a real school, and five years later, on March 2, 1919, 14-year-old Alexander entered the same plant where his father worked as a copyist of technical documents.

Formation of personality

In 1923, Alexander Morozov took the position of a draftsman-designer of the KhPZ.

“Alexander Morozov took his first design steps when revising the German VD-50 Ganomag tractor for domestic realities,” said Andrei Kuparev, a writer and documentary filmmaker, an employee of the Victory Museum's scientific and methodological department, in an interview with RT.

In 1926, Morozov was called up for military service in the ranks of the Red Army, which he served in the aviation unit in Kiev as a mechanic technician. At the end of 1927, a tank design brigade (later transformed into a design bureau) was created on the basis of the KhPZ. It also included Morozov, who returned from the army to his native enterprise in 1928.

However, to work as a designer, it was necessary to have a lot of theoretical knowledge, so Alexander enters the correspondence department at the Moscow Mechanical and Electrical Engineering Institute named after V. I. M. V. Lomonosov and at the same time to the mechanical college at the KhPZ.

“In his track record at the initial stage of design activity was the BT-7 tank, in which Alexander Morozov was engaged in the design of the transmission and making changes to the chassis,” said Kuparev.

In 1933, Morozov entered the combat training sector of the House of the Red Army and a year later graduated from the courses under the BT tank commander training program.

“Military education allowed the designer to understand the machine from the user's point of view,” the expert noted.

The birth of the T-34

In 1936, Alexander Morozov, who was already considered an experienced designer, headed the new design sector in the design bureau. At this time, a conflict arose between the leadership of the Red Army and the KhPZ due to technical defects identified during the practical operation of the tanks. KB leaders were demoted.

At the end of 1936, a talented designer Mikhail Koshkin was sent to Kharkov as the head of the design bureau of the KhPZ, who had previously been deputy head of the design bureau at the Leningrad Kirov plant and successfully modernized the T-26 and T-28 tanks. The decision to transfer Koshkin was made personally by the People's Commissar of Heavy Industry of the USSR, Grigory Ordzhonikidze.

Mikhail Koshkin © Wikimedia Commons

After an order came from the Red Army in the fall of 1937 to KhPZ to create a new maneuverable wheeled-tracked tank (future BT-20), Koshkin decided to transfer the old design bureau, which bore the index 190, under the leadership of Nikolai Kucherenko, and he himself headed a new design bureau (KB -24), for which he personally selected the staff. He appointed Morozov as his deputy.

After the main work on the BT-20, the employees of the "Koshkinsky" design bureau realized that the tank would practically not differ from the well-known BT-7. The idea arose to create a fundamentally new car, taking into account the developments collected earlier by the Morozov sector.

“On April 28, 1938, at a meeting of the People's Commissariat of Defense, Koshkin received permission from Joseph Stalin to design two experimental tanks: the first, a wheeled-tracked BT-20, or A-20, corresponding to the“Moscow”requirements, the second, exclusively tracked diesel A-32, the design of which the Kharkiv residents developed independently. As a result, by the end of the summer of 1939, prototypes A-20 and A-32 had passed production tests, which showed their best side,”said Andrey Kuparev.

The country's leadership became interested in the activities of Koshkin's team. At the end of 1938, under his command, a new OKB-520 was created, into which all the design bureaus that previously existed at KhPZ were united. Morozov again became Koshkin's deputy.

Alexander Morozov © Wikimedia Commons

Tests of the A-20 and A-32 in 1939 showed that the former is more mobile on wheels, but is inferior to the "initiative" development of the Kharkovites in cross-country ability. In addition, the peculiarities of the A-20 undercarriage, in contrast to the A-32, did not allow to strengthen its armament and armor protection.

On December 19, 1939, a decree was issued by the Defense Committee under the Council of People's Commissars on the acceptance of the new tank into service. Taking into account the latest design changes, the vehicle was named T-34.

At the beginning of 1940, two experimental tanks were tested near Kharkov, and on the night of March 5-6, camouflaged vehicles moved to Moscow. The T-34 was examined and approved by Joseph Stalin personally. The tanks were successfully tested at the testing grounds near Moscow and the Karelian Isthmus (at the anti-tank fortifications that remained after the Soviet-Finnish war). On March 31, the State Defense Committee signed a protocol on the serial production of the T-34 in Kharkov.

After the meeting of the State Committee, Koshkin, having a cold and being in a state of severe overwork, accompanied the tanks back to the plant. On the way, one of the cars capsized into the water. Koshkin personally helped pull her out, got wet and fell ill with pneumonia. Attempts to combine treatment with work completely undermined his health. After the removal of the lung, the chief of the design bureau was sent for rehabilitation to a sanatorium, but could not recover and died on September 26, 1940. The leadership of the design bureau and the responsibility for organizing the serial production of the T-34 passed to his deputy and colleague Alexander Morozov.

Separate front

In the fall of 1940, T-34s began to enter combat units. Reviews of the tank, like any new vehicle, were ambiguous: the tankers generally positively assessed the original technical solutions, but some of them noted the low reliability of the units and engine defects. A specially convened commission also criticized the new tank. As a result, Deputy People's Commissar of Defense Grigory Kulik demanded to stop production and acceptance of the T-34, focusing on the already well-known BT-7. However, the leaders of the plant appealed this decision at an appointment with the leadership of the People's Commissariats of Defense and Medium Machine Building, having obtained permission to continue work on the tank.

In 1940, the designers significantly modified the T-34, changing its turret and introducing a new F-34 cannon, and by April 1941, the design bureau, under the leadership of Malyshev, prepared for production a "modernized" version of the T-34 - T-34M, which, according to experts, has become virtually a new car. The country's leadership liked the T-34M, and they wanted to urgently put it into production, but due to the war, practical modernization was postponed for the future.

In September 1941, due to a critical situation at the front, the evacuation of KhPZ production from Kharkov to Nizhny Tagil began. There, on the basis of the Uralvagonzavod, taking into account the capacities of the KhPZ, the Ural Tank Plant No. 183 was created. Its design bureau (keeping the encrypted name OKB-520) was headed by Alexander Morozov.

Soviet tanks during an attack on the right bank of the Dnieper RIA Novosti

“The T-34 tank revolutionized tank building. The Germans who faced him in 1941 did not believe that in the USSR they could have time to design and start producing something similar. The Nazis were shocked. However, Morozov did not stop there. He had his own separate front. Taking into account the comments and suggestions that came from the combat units, he created a tank on the basis of the T-34 that could withstand German equipment with improved armor. This is how the T-34-85 with an 85 mm cannon appeared, military historian Yuri Knutov said in an interview with RT.

According to Andrey Kuparev, all of Morozov's design talent was fully manifested in Nizhny Tagil. “There is information that Stalin personally supervised the work of his design bureau. Morozov himself was required to report on the progress of work every three hours. He was guarded around the clock, a personal car with a bodyguard was provided, and walks in the fresh air were limited to a minimum,”the expert noted.

In 1943, Alexander Morozov was awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor, and in 1945 - the military rank of Major General. In addition to the T-34, he worked in the Urals on fundamentally new tanks - the T-44 and T-54. The latter, thanks to a number of successful technical solutions, was in production for about 30 years, which is a record for modern tanks.

“According to many experts, the T-34 and T-34-85 were the best medium tanks in the world in their day. They had a tremendous impact on the course of the Great Patriotic War,”Yuri Knutov emphasized.

In the service of society

In 1951, Alexander Morozov returned to Kharkiv at his native KhPZ and immediately set to work on the T-64 project, which became the base for most subsequent Soviet tanks.

In 1958, Morozov was elected a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. According to the recollections of the chief designer of the Uralvagonzavod Leonid Kartsev, the designer was remarkable for his amazing modesty, but he was not afraid to harshly criticize the merits of his superiors. As Kartsev writes in the book "Memoirs of the Chief Designer of Tanks", Morozov openly called the idea of creating an air cushion tank "bullshit", which, according to his leadership, came from Nikita Khrushchev. Even as a deputy of the Supreme Soviet, he went on vacation as a savage, because he did not want to humiliate himself and ask someone to give him an elite ticket.

In 1974, for outstanding services in the development of domestic tank building, Morozov was awarded the second star of the Hero of Socialist Labor. He also became a laureate of the Lenin and State Prizes, received a number of high awards, including purely military ones - the Order of the Red Star, Kutuzov and Suvorov.

Monument at the grave of A. A. Morozov in Kharkov © Wikimedia Commons

In 1976, for health reasons, Alexander Morozov was forced to leave the post of the head of the design bureau, but until his death on July 14, 1979, he remained with him as a consultant.

Monuments to Morozov have been erected in various cities of the USSR. The design bureau, which he headed, and the street in Kharkov were named after him.

“Alexander Morozov is a unique person who combines creative and organizational skills. His contribution both to the victory in the Great Patriotic War and to the development of domestic armored vehicles is very great,”concluded Yuri Knutov.