The development of OKB-43 during the 1940s and 1950s within the context of the system of small arms and cannons design organizations

The subject of the research is the post-war period of the formation of the national system of design organizations. This stage was the final one in the process of establishing the principles of functioning of design bureaus in the system of scientific and technical organizations of the USSR. The article examines the general features of the activities of artillery design bureaus (KB) using the example of the State-owned Union OKB-43, which is a kind of typical organization that dates back to the turn of the 1920s–1930s and has gone through all stages of development within the framework of the system of design bureaus: from individual disparate inventors to design bureaus of a wide profile. and, as a result, to a narrow specialization in the 1940s–1950s. The complex of methods used included the processing of archival materials, historical and scientific analysis of fundamental works and the comparative historical method. The research resulted in the following results: 1. New data from state (RGAE) and departmental (Central Archive of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, Central Naval Archive) archives have been introduced into scientific circulation. 2. A general list of scientific research and development works by GS OKB-43 was identified, including orders from the Engineering Committee of the Land Forces, the Artillery Research Naval Institute, the Artillery Directorate of the Navy, and the USSR Ministry of Armaments. The activities of design institutions in the second half of the 1940s-1950s, considered on the example of OKB-43, have a number of common patterns: well-established cooperation with academic science; conversion based on consideration of current trends in the field of weapons and military equipment; the reorganization of inefficient organizations carried out "from above", while the effectiveness of work was assessed on the basis of strict reporting.