115 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 achieved special material benefits for himself. About the life of the famous creator of Soviet tanks.
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 made his first design steps when revising the German VD-50 Ganomag tractor for domestic realities," Andrei Kuparev, writer and documentary filmmaker, an employee of the scientific and methodological department of the Victory Museum, said 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 was created on the basis of the KhPZ (later transformed into a design bureau). 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 Institute of Mechanics and Electro-technical. M. V. Lomonosov and at the same time to the mechanical college at the KhPZ.
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“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 changes in the chassis,” Kuparev said.
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.
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 KhPZ due to technical defects identified during the practical operation of the tanks. KB managers were demoted.
At the end of 1936, a talented designer Mikhail Koshkin was sent to Kharkov to the post of chief of the design bureau of the KhPZ, who had previously been deputy chief 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 taken personally by the People's Commissar of Heavy Industry of the USSR Grigory Ordzhonikidze.
Mikhail Koshkin.
After an order came to KhPZ from the Red Army in the fall of 1937 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 staff 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 was a wheeled-tracked BT-20, or A-20, corresponding to the“Moscow”requirements, and the second was exclusively a tracked diesel A-32, the design of which the Kharkovites 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 had previously existed at KhPZ were united. Morozov again became Koshkin's deputy.
Alexander Morozov.
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, unlike the A-32, did not allow to strengthen its armament and armor protection.
At the beginning of 1940, two experimental tanks were tested near Kharkov, and on the night of March 5-6, the camouflaged vehicles moved to Moscow. 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 have 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, the Deputy People's Commissar of Defense Grigory Kulik demanded to stop the production and acceptance of the T-34, focusing on the already familiar BT-7. However, the plant managers 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 - the 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 the 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 outdoor walks 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 at the time. They had a tremendous impact on the course of the Great Patriotic War,”Yuri Knutov emphasized.
Serving 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 memoirs 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, Morozov was awarded the second star of the Hero of Socialist Labor for outstanding services in the development of domestic tank building. 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.
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 a consultant with him.
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.
Author: Svyatoslav Knyazev