Chief designer of the KV and IS heavy tanks, builder of Tankograd
A fellow designer said of him: 'Kotin won't sleep at night if he hasn't hooked someone.' His tanks bore the names Kirov, Voroshilov, and Stalin.
A giant of Soviet heavy-tank design: the engineer-administrator who gave the Red Army the KV series, the IS (Iosif Stalin) heavy tanks, and the SU-152 and ISU-152 self-propelled guns. Appointed chief designer at the Kirov Plant in 1937 at just 29, he began by upgrading the T-28, then, drawing lessons from Spain, turned to developing heavily armoured breakthrough tanks. After the German invasion he served as Deputy People's Commissar for the Tank Industry while personally directing the evacuation of factories from Leningrad to Chelyabinsk, forging the vast 'Tankograd' complex that produced 18,000 tanks and SPGs during the war. After 1945 he designed the PT-76 amphibious tank, the T-10 heavy tank, and the K-700 tractor, before capping his career as Deputy Minister of Defence Industry in 1968.
Career Timeline
- 1932–1937Engineer and design bureau chief, Research Dept., Military Academy of Mechanisation and Motorisation
- 1937–1968Chief Designer of SKB-2, Kirov Plant (Leningrad / Chelyabinsk)
- 1941–1943Deputy People's Commissar for the Tank Industry and Chief Designer
- 1943–1945Director and Chief Designer, Experimental Tank Plant No. 100 (Chelyabinsk)
- 1949–1968Director and Chief Designer, VNII-100 Tank Research Institute
- 1968–1972Deputy Minister of Defence Industry, USSR