Vasily Bakalov

Vasily Ivanovich Bakalov (Russian: Василий Иванович Бакалов; 18 April 1929 – 25 January 2020) was a Soviet and Russian military engineer and designer who worked on the designs of armoured vehicle defence systems and anti-tank guided missiles.

Born in 1929, Bakalov served during the Second World War in his youth, drawing on his experience with OSVOD [ru], a voluntary organization promoting water safety and work, while crewing vessels to transport military personnel, civilians and weapons. After a period as a machinist in the marine salvage department after the war, he studied at the Leningrad Electrotechnical Institute of Communications, graduating with honours and starting a career as a design engineer at the TsKB-14 design bureau in Tula. Working on guided rocket weapons, Bakalov rose to senior design and management positions, eventually becoming the bureau's chief engineer and overseeing the development of anti-tank guided missiles such as the 9M113 Konkurs, 9K115-2 Metis-M, 9M117 Bastion, and 9M119 Svir/Refleks, and the guided artillery shells 2K25 Krasnopol and 2K22 Tunguska.

In 1978 he was appointed head and chief designer of TsKIB SOO, where he remained until his retirement in September 1997. Bakalov oversaw significant developments in the company's organizational structure, which soon achieved a high reputation for the quality of its products. The Soviet team for the shooting competitions at the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow all used weapons designed and manufactured by TsKIB SOO. Among the designs developed under his supervision was the Drozd active protection system for tanks and armoured vehicles for use against anti-tank missiles and rocket-propelled grenades. Over his career he received a number of honours and awards, including the Lenin Prize, and held around 150 patents.