Types of Defensive Structures Designed by the OKB-43 in the 1939-40s in the Context of Changing Profiles of the Design Bureau

This article reviews and clarifies the OKB-43 experimental design work on fortifications during the late ‘30s and mid - ‘40s. The significance of this research lies in the fact that it is one of the best examples of how a scientific school of weapon design developed in the Soviet Union from the late ‘20s to ‘50s, with the turn of ‘30s - ‘40s being a crucial period. The consistent identification and study of the main areas of development work during this period led to the need to clarify the reasons for the change in the profile of OKB-43's activities compared to the developments of the 1930s which focused on aircraft weapons and various projects to create recoilless rifles. To solve this problem, it was necessary to consult materials from state and departmental archives at both the federal and regional levels. As a result, the following findings were obtained: a list of development projects was clarified; documents previously marked with restrictive labels were brought into scientific circulation; and photographs from an album of designs created and manufactured by OKB-43 in the period between 1942 and 1954 were published for the first time. Additionally, information about OKB employees and their photographs were revealed. The conclusion is made about the significance of this stage in the general history of OKB43 development and activities for the creation of small arms, cannon weapons, and military equipment in the USSR. The description of the casemate machine gun and machine gun installations from the late 1930s identifies a list of planned developments and the implementation of several unscheduled projects initiated by OKB-43 and M.N. Kondakov. These projects included the creation of collapsible armor covers and armored installations for machine guns, as well as numerous developments from the first half of the 1940s, which were divided into such categories as fixed firing points, hiding firing points, mobile firing points (transported armored cupolas), and observation posts.