The face of Soviet tank design: T-34, T-54/55, and T-64
October 1941: the Kharkov bureau evacuated to the Urals. Morozov, 36, had to make the T-34 simpler for unskilled workers to build while upgrading it to counter Germany's newest tanks.
He began at 14 as a file clerk at the Kharkov Locomotive Plant and became the longest-serving chief designer of Soviet tanks (1940–1976). Together with Mikhail Koshkin he led development of the T-34; after Koshkin's death, he took over the design bureau at 36 and spent the entire war simultaneously simplifying the T-34 for mass production and upgrading its combat capability: the T-34-85. After the war he designed the T-54/55, the most-produced tank series in history, and in the 1960s opened the era of the second-generation main battle tank with the T-64, which introduced composite armor, an autoloader, and a smoothbore gun. His design bureau still bears his name as the Morozov Design Bureau.
Career Timeline
- 1919File clerk, copyist, and draftsman at Kharkov Locomotive Plant technical office
- 1926–28Served in Red Army air brigade as aviation technician-mechanic
- 1928–31Returned to Kharkov design bureau; worked on Kommunar tractor and T-24 tank
- 1931Graduated Kharkov Machine-Building College; contributed to BT-2, BT-5, BT-7 light tanks
- 1936–38Head of new-design section, Kharkov design bureau
- 1938–40Deputy head of design bureau, deputy chief designer; developed A-20 and A-32 — the A-32 became T-34
- 1940–41Chief designer of Kharkov Plant No. 183; directed T-34 series production launch
- 1941–51Chief designer, Ural Tank Plant (Nizhny Tagil); T-34 modernization, T-43, T-44, T-54 development
- 1951–66Chief designer, Kharkov Machine-Building Design Bureau; developed T-55 and T-64
- 1966–76Head and chief designer, Kharkov Machine-Building Design Bureau; completed T-64A
- 1976–79Consultant to Kharkov design bureau and member of USSR Defence Industry Ministry Scientific-Technical Council