Russian land has always been famous for craftsmen in the most diverse spheres of human life. One of such specialists, who was from a simple family, is named Grabin Vasily Gavrilovich. The fate and life 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 Staronizhesteblievskaya. It happened on December 29, 1899. By nationality - Russian. The father of the future designer served as a fireworker in artillery and worked as a craftsman. The family had 10 children. He had a chance to work as a riveter, a cauldron, a worker at the mill, at the post office. In addition, local peculiarities added additional difficulties, because the Kuban was a Cossack region, and the hereditary Cossacks always had their own traditions, which did not contribute very much to good relations with other residents of this region who were not from this military family. Life was difficult in material terms, and therefore Vasily Gavrilovich at the age of 11 was forced to begin his career.
Joining the army
In July 1920, Grabin Vasily Gavrilovich volunteered for the Red Army. He was enrolled in the Krasnodar command courses in the artillery department. During training, the young warrior 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 the 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. The officer graduated from this educational institution in 1923, after which he was sent to combat units of the Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army as commander of an artillery platoon. He also served as head of communications division.
In 1924, Grabin was appointed commander of the artillery school course in Leningrad. A year later, he enters the Academy. Felix Dzerzhinsky, whose graduates became officers and employees of engineering divisions. Our hero was trained under the guidance of such prominent scientists as Gelvikh, Rdultovsky, Durlyakhov.
In 1930, Grabin Vasily Gavrilovich successfully graduated from the Academy and received an engineering degree, after which he was assigned to the design bureau of the Krasny Putilovets enterprise located in Leningrad.
In 1931, our hero became a designer in the bureau number 2 of the gun-arsenal association of the USSR People’s Commissariat of the country's industry. In the same year, there was a merger of the 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 did not exist for very long and already in 1933 was liquidated by order of the head of the armament of the army, Tukhachevsky, who preferred the so-called dynamo-reactive guns, also called recoilless guns.
In leadership position
At the end of 1933, engineer Grabin Vasily Gavrilovich went to the artillery factory in the city of Gorky, where he became the head of the design bureau of this enterprise. It was under the strict command of Grabin that dozens of the most diverse guns were created, which were absolutely inferior to their Western counterparts. According to historians and weapons experts, the only area of technical weapons in which the Soviet Union always surpassed Germany was artillery.
Vasily Gavrilovich was the first person in the world who managed to combine the development, design and production of new guns, which made it possible in a short period of time to master the creation of the latest guns for army units.
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 components 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 design time for artillery products from 30 months to 3. In addition, the cost of guns was significantly reduced, and mass production made it possible to withstand the fascist onslaught for the entire period of World War II.
On August 1, 1940, the engineer was awarded the rank of major general of the USSR technical troops, and on 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 Podlipki railway station near Moscow. The leadership of the country assigned to this organization the responsibility for creating projects of new guns in the artillery field. Of the 140,000 guns used by our ancestors on the battlefields with the Nazis, more than 90,000 were created at the enterprise, which Grabin led as chief designer. At the same time, another 30,000 copies were produced on projects authored by this illustrious engineer.
Peacetime Life
In 1946, Grabin was appointed head of the Central Research Institute of Artillery. And in 1955, this institution was set an ambitious task - to create a nuclear reactor. Because of this, Vasily Gavrilovich is already in the status of head of department and is trying in every possible way to defend the tasks of the artillery direction. As a result, in 1956, the Ministry of Defense of the USSR decided to establish the Central Research Institute No. 58. It goes without saying that Grabin became its chief manager. Under his command, the development of tactical artillery systems such as ground-to-ground and ground-to-air was underway.
Sunset career
In the summer of 1959, TsNII-58 was absorbed by Korolev Design Bureau. At the same time, the most important archives of documentation and weapons samples were destroyed, many of which existed in one copy. This happened because the head of the country Nikita Khrushchev headed for the strengthening of the Union’s missile 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 resigned.
Teaching path
In the same 1960, Grabin Vasily Gavrilovich, whose photo is given below, became head of the department of MVTU im. Bauman. At the same time, he lectured on artillery guns and created a youth design bureau from among university students.
It is worth noting that the legendary creator of guns was a doctor of science and held the title of professor. He also twice entered the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. Had rewards:
- Four orders of Lenin.
- Order of the October Revolution.
- Order of the Red Banner.
- Order of Suvorov of two degrees.
- Four-time Stalin Prize Laureate.
In addition, he wrote a book entitled The Arms of Victory, which came out in its entirety only at the end of the 1980s. By the way, the book was not published for a long time just because Vasily Gavrilovich was disgraced by the People’s Commissar of Arms Ustinov during his lifetime, who did not like that a talented engineer had the right to communicate directly with the country's chief leader and was under his protectorate. Stalin's patronage to the designer was ensured by the fact that the latter was able to clearly formulate his thoughts and ideas and always stubbornly defended his position during the discussion of the most important state issues.
Grabin Vasily Gavrilovich, whose children did not follow in his footsteps, was married twice and lived 32 years with his second wife.
The most talented designer died on April 18, 1980 in the suburbs. His body was interred in the Novodevichy cemetery. The grave is located on plot number 9.