The fate of the designer of attack missile systems - the hero G.A. Efremova

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

From 1956 to the present, Herbert Alexandrovich Efremov, who turned 87 yesterday, has been working at OKB-52 (until 1984 under the leadership of an outstanding Soviet scientist and designer, twice Hero of Socialist Labor, a specialist in the field of vibration theory and missile design V. N. Chelomeya). Here, unique weapons systems for the Navy, Strategic Missile Forces, and the Space Forces of the USSR were created and are being created.

Herbert Alexandrovich Efremov was born in the village of Maloye Zarechye, Belozersky District, Vologda Region, on March 15, 1933, into a military family. He was the eldest child in the family, he had a brother and two sisters.

Since the beginning of the 30s. father G. A. Efremov served in distant garrisons - along with him, his eldest son began his travels through life. The village of Maloye Zarechye, the seaside villages of Kamen-Rybolov, Manzovka, the Sakhalin city of Toyokharu (later YuzhnoSakhalinsk), then his father was transferred to Konigsberg (since 1946 - Kaliningrad). Herbert spent his years of study in Leningrad, and then in Reutov near Moscow.

After graduating from school with a silver medal, Herbert Alexandrovich entered the Leningrad Military Mechanical Institute, which graduated from such luminaries of the domestic defense industry as D. F. Ustinov, general designer, associate of V. P. D. I. Koroleva Kozlov, L. N. Lavrov, cosmonauts G. M. Grechko, S. K. Krikalev and others.

Classes at the institute were taught by many outstanding specialists, such as, for example, the Russian scientist Boris Nikolaevich Okunev, who lectured on theoretical mechanics, external and internal ballistics. B. N. Okunev was a passionate collector of Russian painting. He left his wonderful collection as a gift to the Russian Museum (its cost in the early 80s was estimated at several million dollars).

While working at OKB-52, Efremov took a direct part in the creation of missile systems with cruise missiles for firing at ground targets P-5, P-5D. Few remember that the P-5 cruise missile, which had a range of 300 to 500 km, was the first strategic missile of the Soviet Union.

Created at about the same time, the Korolev rocket R-7 (with the help of which Yu. A. Gagarin was launched into orbit) could be at the start in a fueled state for only a few days. And its refueling (the rocket was equipped with oxygen-kerosene fuel) required almost a day and, in fact, the construction of an entire oxygen plant near the start. Naturally, under these conditions, there was no question of any timely response to the American strike. and the stake was placed on the Chelomey P-5 cruise missiles. It was decided to create as many dozen submarines (projects 644, 655, 651 and 659), each of which carried 4-6 P-5 or P-5D missiles and thereby threaten the United States from the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. This program was implemented in the early 60s.

Since the mid-50s, NPO Mashinostroyenia has been working on anti-ship missile systems (P-6, P-35, Progress, Amethyst, Malachite, Basalt, Vulcan, Granit, Onyx, "Yakhont"), which armed Soviet submarines and surface ships.

This was an asymmetric, fairly effective and much more economical response to the US Navy: the mighty aircraft carriers, battleships and cruisers were opposed by Soviet submarines with anti-ship cruise missiles.

In 1962, the country's leadership set the task of developing a heavy two-stage carrier UR-500. Later, the rocket was named "Proton". By means of this rocket and its modifications ("Proton-K" and "Proton-M") the automatic station "Zond" several times flew around the Moon and returned the station to the Earth, the heaviest space stations were put into orbit: "TGR", "Mir "," Zarya "," Salut "," Zvezda "," Almaz "," Almaz-T ", various satellites and spacecraft.

Note that the buildings of the Salyut space stations were first designed and manufactured at NPO Mashinostroeniya under the direction and with the participation of V. N. Chelomey, after which, by order of D. F. Ustinov were transferred to the Korolev NPO Energia.

The Proton rocket also took part in the lunar race. With its help, several automatic flights of the Moon were performed. The Mars-3 station was launched to Mars.

TsKBM proposed a harmonious and constructively justified system UR-700, built on the combination of spent missiles UR-100, UR-200 and UR-500, capable of long-distance space flights.

In the early 60s, here, at TsKBM, within the framework of a preliminary project, possibly under the influence of S. P. Korolev, estimates were made for the UR-900 rocket and space system, which was a further development of the UR-700, associated with the use of hydrogen-oxygen engines.

V. N. Chelomey proposed his own program for a flight to the moon, which included both a carrier rocket (based on "Proton"), and his own fly-over spacecraft, and a descent vehicle. In all these works, G. A. Efremov.

In his own words, he has always been a "systemist", that is, well versed in all the possibilities of operation of all components of missile systems in order to carry out the necessary work accurately and correctly. However, the main executor of the Soviet project on the Moon was S. P. Korolev, his colossal N-1 rocket became the basis of the project. Neither Korolev, nor Mishin, who replaced him, were "systems specialists", and this affected the operation of the first stage of the rocket, which had 30 (!) NK-33 engines, without an automatic engine synchronization system created later. The rocket made four unsuccessful launches, and work with the lunar program in the USSR was completed.

When the quantitative advantage of strategic missile systems in the United States became menacing, under the leadership of V. N. In the course of three years, Chelomey created an "ampulized" ballistic missile UR-100. Its last highly protected modification, the UR-100N UTTH, is still in service with the country's Strategic Missile Forces.

For the UR-100 rocket, bimetal transport and launch containers were created: on the one hand, stainless steel, on the other - an aluminum alloy … The stainless steel reliably protects the rocket from any operational damage, including those arising during refueling and during long-term storage.

Of the 165 test and combat training launches of UR-100N UTTH missiles carried out in recent years, only three were unsuccessful.

Herbert Aleksandrovich took an active part in all the developments of NPO Mashinostroyenia, by the end of the 70s becoming one of the most authoritative developers of the association.

Note that G. A. Efremov met with S. P. Korolev, M. P. Yangel, V. P. Glushko, as well as with N. S. Khrushchev, L. I. Brezhnev, A. N. Kosygin, G. V. Romanov …

By the way, G. V. Romanov during one of the meetings with G. A. Efremov and aircraft designer G. V. Novozhilov strictly demanded that they promptly defend their candidate and doctoral dissertations. But Herbert Alexandrovich defended only the candidate's thesis. “There was no more time,” he always said.

On December 8, 1984, unexpectedly, due to a detached blood clot, V. N. Chelomey, and already on December 29 G. A. Efremov was appointed general designer of NPO Mashinostroyenia.

1984 was a tragic year for our defense complex. D. F. died almost simultaneously. Ustinov, V. N. Chelomey, P. S. Kutakhov, an outstanding nuclear physicist I. K. Kikoin …

Since 1984, the development of the Meteorite cruise missile has continued, with a speed of up to 3M, a range of up to 5500 km, carrying a warhead weighing over 1 ton, which had no analogues in the world. Work continued on improving the UR-100 N UTTKh and Proton-K ballistic missiles, and numerous anti-ship missiles were modernized.

In 1987, the Almaz-T automatic orbital station was successfully launched, which had been in orbit for more than two years.

In 2002, the Onyx cruise missile, called Yakhont in the export version, was adopted as part of the Nakat MRC.

But in the late 1980s, with the coming to power of M. S. Gorbachev, the defense industry went very badly: payments were delayed, rapid inflation devalued money. In the 90s it got even worse …

“The sailors did not refuse us, they could not refuse, but they themselves did not have money, the only thing for which they received money in those years was routine maintenance with the Strategic Missile Forces, but the money was sorely lacking. We were offered to look for a conversion, - recalls Herbert Alexandrovich. “But we didn’t have any experience either. For what they just did not undertake. And for solar panels, and for vacuum-free storages for vegetables and fruits, and for low-pressure chambers, and for a new oil and fat complex … It happened that we solved problems that were too complex for consumers, which, of course, reflected in the price. It happened that they cheatedly deceived us. So, having demanded from us all the documents on the cryogenic storage facility, including calculations, we said we approve, but we will give three times less money. When we received the money, it turned out that it had decreased by six times due to inflation”.

At the same time, in 1998, the Russian-Indian joint venture BrahMos was created, named after the Indian Brahmaputra River and the Russian Moskva River. The main project of the enterprise was work on a supersonic cruise missile, which received a similar name - "BrahMos". The first rocket launch took place on June 12, 2001 from a coastal launcher.

The first roles in the creation of the joint venture were played by G. A. Efremov and Dr. Abdul Kalam, who developed the most friendly relations with Herbert Alexandrovich. Largely due to the success with the development and testing of the BrahMos cruise missile, Abdul Kalam was elected President of India in July 2002.

It was the Soviet-Indian enterprise created by the efforts of G. A. Efremov and his comrades, allowed to preserve NPO Mashinostroeniya, not to allow it to be stolen from rental and other enterprises. With America, on which some pinned their most important hopes, nothing happened.

“The option of building a Double-Cola plant has appeared,” recalls G. A. Efremov. - The proposed new rather big building of our canteen was dismissed by the Americans annoyed, saying: we need your main assembly shop or the building where the stands are located under the water … … Not! - objected the Americans - we must have a developing enterprise: we will have to invest all the profits in its development.

Then we traveled to the United States several times to work in the framework of the Chernomyrdin-Gora project. We got the task to develop some kind of program for post offices or for laundries. We started work …

Soon two tall, finely dressed, gray-haired gentlemen arrived from the States. We looked at our first estimates - uh, no, that won't work, - they decided - here the mathematics of the highest level is involved. You can't do that. So it’s like this: they not only tried to determine what we do, but tried, let's say, to move from the professorship to the classroom in high school.

During our rapprochement with the United States and Western Europe, we became familiar with many foreign weapons systems. But nothing made a strong impression on us, rather, on the contrary, some even made a mockery of it.

They also tried to and did get into our military successes very deeply. More than once we have noticed bewilderment and even surprise on the faces of our potential competitors.

The advance of capitalism in Russia meant the rejection of government funding for most defense programs. I remember the meeting with Gorbachev in the Column Hall of the House of Unions, when, in response to a constructive analysis of the situation in the defense industry, he burst out openly spiteful speech against the defense industry, accusing them of almost the economic collapse of the country."

In the early 2000s. Herbert Alexandrovich met with A. B. Chubais, invited him to the enterprise (Chubais arrived at the NGO, accompanied by a whole range of tax services - from the lowest "Reutov", to the highest, federal), told him about the unjustly assessed taxes and achieved the abolition of the accrued bribe, which by that time had significantly increased due to accrued interest.

Herbert Aleksandrovich sees useful in the whole history of new Russia that the president of the country has nevertheless heard the new proposals of the defense industry. And he called to move away from the primitive system of arithmetic leveling, which was adopted and triumphed in the creation of the American-Soviet weapons systems: you have three thousand missiles - we have three thousand, you have 11 thousand warheads and we have 11 thousand … Now the enemy can expect a crushing blow from the most unexpected side.

A major role in changing defense policy was played by the memorable meeting of G. A. Efremov with V. V. Putin to Novo-Ogaryovo and the visits of the President of the Russian Federation to NPO Mashinostroyenia. It is no coincidence that US President D. Trump urged his specialists to accelerate work on a hypersonic missile. Now the Americans are in the position of catching up.

For the last eight years, he has held the post of Honorary General Director - Honorary General Designer of NPO Mashinostroyenia. Despite his advanced age, Herbert Alexandrovich is full of creative energy and new plans.

Herbert Alexandrovich and Irina Sergeevna Efremov have been together for more than six decades. Raised a son and daughter.

Laureate of the Lenin and State Prizes of the USSR, the Prize of the Government of the Russian Federation, the State Prize of the Russian Federation named after V. I. Marshal Zhukov Herbert Alexandrovich Efremov was awarded the titles of Hero of Socialist Labor and Hero of Labor of the Russian Federation, becoming the first holder of both Gold Stars in our history. He is a holder of the Orders of Lenin, the Order of the Red Banner of Labor, the "Badge of Honor"; Orders of Merit to the Fatherland, II and III degrees, as well as the Indian Order of Padma Bhushan.

In the name of G. A. Efremova named the minor planet of the solar system.