Soviet engineer Grabin Vasily Gavrilovich: biography and photos

The Russian Land has always been famous for its craftsmen in various spheres of human life. One of these specialists, who came from a simple family, is called Grabin Vasily Gavrilovich. The destiny and vital vicissitudes of this legendary designer will be discussed in this article.

Birth

Grabin Vasily Gavrilovich, whose family lived very poorly, was born in the Kuban, in a village called Staronizhesteblyevskaya. It happened on December 29, 1899. By nationality - Russian. The father of the future designer served as a fireworks in artillery and worked as a foreman. The family had 10 children. He happened to work as a riveter, a boilermaker, a worker at a mill, at a post office. In addition, local peculiarities added additional difficulties, because Kuban is a Cossack region, and the hereditary Cossacks always had their own traditions, which did not contribute much to good relations with other inhabitants of this region who are not from this military kind. Life was hard in material terms, and so Vasily Gavrilovich was forced to begin his labor activity at the age of 11.

Admission to the army

In July 1920, Grabin Vasily Gavrilovich volunteered for the Red Army. He was enrolled in the Krasnodar command course for the artillery department. During his studies, the young soldier was part of the combined battalion and fought against the White Guard army of Wrangel. In 1921, Grabin became a member of the RCP (b).

Continuation of military career

After the courses were completed in 1921, Vasily Gavrilovich was sent to the Military School of Coastal and Heavy Artillery, which was stationed in Petrograd. This officer graduated in 1923, after which he was sent to the combat units of the Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army as commander of an artillery platoon. He also served as communications division chief.

In 1924, Grabin was appointed commander of the artillery school in Leningrad. A year later he entered the Academy. Felix Dzerzhinsky, graduates of which became officers and employees of engineering and technical units. Our hero's training was conducted under the guidance of such prominent scientists as Helvich, Rdultovsky, Durlyakhov.

In 1930, Grabin Vasily Gavrilovich successfully graduated from the academy and received an engineer diploma, after which he was distributed to the design bureau of the enterprise "Red Putilovets", located in Leningrad.

In 1931 our hero becomes a designer in the bureau No. 2 of the gun-arsenal association of the USSR of the People's Commissariat of Industry of the country. In the same year there was a merger of two design bureaus and a general design association was created.

In 1932, engineer Vasily Grabin became the first deputy head of the state design bureau at number 38, which - the only one in the state - was engaged in the creation and modernization of artillery guns and systems. But this organization existed for a very short time and already in 1933 was liquidated by order of the head of the Tukhachevsky army, who preferred the so-called dynamo-active weapons, called recoilless weapons.

At the helm

At the end of 1933, engineer Grabin Vasily Gavrilovich went to the artillery plant in the city of Gorky, where he became the head of the design bureau of this enterprise. It was under the sensitive command of Grabin that dozens of the most diverse guns were created, which were absolutely in no way inferior to their Western counterparts. According to historians and weapons specialists, the only direction of technical weapons, in which the Soviet Union always surpassed Germany, was artillery.

Vasily Gavrilovich was the first person in the world to combine the development, design and production of new guns, which enabled him to master the creation of new weapons for army units in a short period of time.

Distinctive features

Grabin Vasily Gavrilovich, whose biography is considered in this article, went down in history also due to the fact that he began to apply the unification of all knots and parts of guns, reduced their number to the maximum, and introduced the principle of equal strength. Together, this made it possible to reduce the time required for the design of artillery pieces from 30 months to 3. In addition, the cost of tools was significantly reduced, and mass production made it possible to withstand the fascist onslaught during the entire period of the Great Patriotic War.

August 1, 1940 engineer was awarded the rank of major general of the technical troops of the USSR, and November 20, 1942 - the rank of lieutenant-general.

Activities during the Second World War

In the fall of 1942, Grabin Vasily Gavrilovich headed the Central Artillery Design Bureau, which is located at the suburban station Podlipki. The leadership of the country entrusted this organization with the task of creating projects for new guns in the artillery sphere. Of the 140,000 cannons our ancestors used on the battlefields with the fascists, more than 90,000 guns were created at the enterprise, which was headed by Grabin as chief designer. At the same time, another 30,000 copies were produced on projects, the author of which was this famous engineer.

Life in peacetime

In 1946, Grabin was appointed head of the Central Scientific Research Institute of Artillery. And in 1955, before this institution was set an ambitious task - to create an atomic reactor. Because of this, Vasily Gavrilovich is already in the status of the department head and tries in every possible way to defend the tasks of the artillery line. As a result, in 1956, the Ministry of Defense of the USSR decided to establish the Central Research Institute number 58. It goes without saying that Grabin became its chief executive. Under his command, the development of artillery complexes of a tactical purpose such as "earth-earth" and "ground-air".

Sunset career

In the summer of 1959, CRI-58 was absorbed by Korolev's Design Bureau. At the same time, the most important archives of documentation and weapons samples were destroyed, many of which existed in a single copy. This was due to the fact that the head of the country Nikita Khrushchev took a course to strengthen the Union's rocket forces, and he considered artillery a relic of the past. Grabin himself became a member of the advisory group of the Ministry of Defense, and in 1960 he resigned.

Teaching Path

In the same 1960, Grabin Vasily Gavrilovich, whose photo is shown below, became the head of the MVTU faculty. Bauman. At the same time, he lectured on artillery guns and created a youth design bureau from among the students of the university.

It is worth noting that the legendary creator of guns was a doctor of science and was a professor. He also twice served in the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. Had awards:

• Four Orders of Lenin.
• Order of the October Revolution.
• Order of the Red Banner.
• Order of Suvorov two degrees.
• Four-time winner of the Stalin Prize.

In addition, his pen belongs to a book called "The Weapon of Victory", which was released in full version only at the end of the 1980s. By the way, the book was not published for a long time only because Vasily Gavrilovich was in disgrace during the life of the People's Commissar of Armament Ustinov, who did not like that the talented engineer had the right to communicate directly with the country's chief leader and was under his protectorate. Stalin's patronage of the designer was ensured by the fact that the latter was able to clearly formulate his thoughts and ideas and always obstinately defended his position during the discussion of the most important state issues.

Grabin Vasily Gavrilovich, whose children did not follow in his footsteps, was twice married and lived with his second wife for 32 years.

The talented designer died on April 18, 1980 in the Moscow region. His body was buried on the Novodevichy Cemetery. The grave is located on the site at number 9.