Veniamin Pavlovich Efremov

Benjamin Pavlovic Efremov was the General Designer of the Research Electromechanical Institute [NIEMI] of the Ministry of Radio Industry of the USSR, Moscow. His work made great contributions to the development of the country's air defense system, that includes: the first generation of the Krug and Osa missile defense systems, the second generation of the S-300V multi-channel missile system, the Tactical Tor missile system, the third generation of the Antey-2500, the Tor-M1 and their modernization.

Veniamin Pavlovich Efremov was born on March 22, 1926 in Tambov. He was the third child in the family of Soviet employee Pavel Petrovich and housewife Olga Feodorovna Efremov. He graduated from the Moscow Polytechnic of Communication named after V.N. Podbelsky (now moscow Technical University of Communication and Informatics - MTUSI) in 1945. Veniamin Efremov was sent to work at TsKB-20 and participated in the development of the first national station of gunfire and artillery fire control devices. At the same time he studied at the evening department at the Moscow Institute of Communication Engineers (now the Moscow Electrical Institute of Communications). He graduated from the institute in 1951 [1952??] with a degree in radio communication and radio broadcasting.

The end of the 1940s and the beginning of the 1950s became for Efremov sometimes of becoming, of life and professional hardening, made him a scholar and leader. He deeply and comprehensively mastered the theory of radiolocation and radio control, the development of blocks of radio engineering equipment, figured out the principles of organization and planning of experimental design work and testing. And Veniamin learned to organize his work punctually, to highlight the most important and focus on it, and most importantly - to work with the people of his team and related enterprises.

These qualities of Efremov were noticed in the top leadership of the military-industrial complex of the country and sent to the construction and delivery to the troops of the first Russian anti-aircraft missile system Berkut - air defense rings around Moscow, the "brainchild" KB-1.

Three years of work in KB-1 largely contributed to the formation of the personality of Veniamin Efremov as a specialist and leader. He gained extensive experience in the creation and development of large systems, engineering courage and self-confidence. It was these people who were required during the period of the scientific and technical revolution in the armament of air defense, for the implementation of which the country, which had not yet fully restored the national economy after the war, nevertheless allocated all the necessary resources.

From 1954 to 1968 he was Deputy Chief Engineer then Head of the Department of Research-20 (transformed from the CCB-20 in 1946), working on anti-aircraft missile systems for the Army. In 1958, he was appointed chief designer of the army's first anti-aircraft system by government decree. A cohort of talented research engineers, designers, and mathematicians was formed around Veniamin Efremov. There was a cooperation of enterprises of many industries. And here, first of all, it is necessary to note partnerships of the Efremov Scientific Research Institute of Electrical Engineering and the Sverdlovsk Design Bureau Novator Lyulyov, a developer of anti-aircraft missiles and launchers (today, this design bureau is named after Lev Veniaminovich Lyulyev).

Efremov worked in the conditions of tough scientific and technical competition with other enterprises and their leaders, also engaged in mobile anti-aircraft missile systems for the air defense of the Ground Forces:

• for the battalion level, portable anti-aircraft missile systems of the machine-building design bureau were created (heads, corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences, SP Nebedyimy, then N.Gushchin, Doctor of Technical Sciences);
• for the regimental level - anti-aircraft artillery and cannon-missile systems of the KB Precision Instrument-making (Academician A.G.Shipunov);
• for tank divisions, and then for the artillery link - the complexes of the Research Institute of Instrument Engineering (chief designers V.V.Tikhomirov, A.A.Rastov, E.A.Pigin).

This competition was peculiar: all its participants exchanged scientific and technical information, held joint scientific conferences, helped each other in solving complex scientific and engineering problems. But for the performance of tactical and technical requirements, combat effectiveness, operational characteristics of their complexes, each of them carried personal responsibility.

In 1964, the first mobile anti-aircraft missile system "Circle" of the army level was adopted by the Soviet Army and began to enter the army, where it received a high rating. In 1966 he was awarded the Order of Lenin for the development in 1964 of the first mobile missile defense system 2K11 "Circle", which was adopted into the army and was highly appreciated.

In 1967 Efremov was appointed scientific director, and in 1968 he was appointed director and chief designer of the transformed Research Electromechanical Institute (NIEMI).

Veniamin Pavlovich regularly visited manufacturing plants, monitored their re-equipment, was critical of design and design documentation deficiencies, participated in almost all military exercises, collected and carefully analyzed the experience of daily operation and combat use, maintaining constant contact with the leading research institutes of the Ministry of Defense, GRAU and troops, developed measures to eliminate the comments and in the shortest possible time implemented these activities in serial factories and military units.

Already in 1971, the NIEMI, under the leadership of Efremov, commissioned the Soviet Army with the mobile OSR “Osa” for motorized rifle divisions.

Decree of the Presidency of the Supreme Council of the USSR of September 27, 1976 ("closed") for outstanding service in the creation and development of mass production of new types of special equipment (mobile missile defense system 9K33 "Osa") Efremov Benjamin Pavlovic awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labour with the award of the Order of Lenin and the gold medal "Serp and Hammer."

Along with solving current problems, Veniamin Pavlovich did not for a moment forget about the prospective problems of his field of activity. Doctor of Technical Sciences, Professor, Academician Efremov has published many articles, including a number of major theoretical works. If he felt that the use of one or another innovation would improve the combat and operational characteristics, shorten the development time of the air defense system, and vigorously supported the initiative. Efremov followed everything new in his and related fields and submitted for discussion the think tank of the NIEMI, then at a meeting of the scientific and technical council of the institute, the ministry, and on issues requiring action in the country - to the State Commission on Military-Industrial Issues USSR Council of Ministers, Department of Defense Industry of the Central Committee of the CPSU, Gosplan USSR.

Meanwhile, in the late 1960s, a new task arose before the army air defense system — the struggle against tactical and operational-tactical ballistic missiles and precision weapons. And the cooperation led by NIEMI was basically ready to carry out research and development work on the creation of such systems and complexes.

Since 1983 he was the General Designer of NIEMI (now the Antey Industrial Company).

In 1983, the S-300V anti-aircraft missile system, built on new principles, had a circular radar (for detecting aerodynamic targets) and a sector (for detecting ballistic targets) radar, with two types of missiles - for destroying aerodynamic and ballistic targets. a single command post and a single multi-channel ZUR guidance station. It should be noted that the methods of controlling them at the moment of flight near the target and the order of undermining the warhead with heavy shrapnel ensured very high efficiency, and so far no one has been able to reproduce them in any anti-aircraft missile system in the world.

There were a lot of new things in the S-300V: phased arrays, a unique digital computing complex and homing heads. All this is the development of NIEMI under the leadership of Efremov. A rocket for the destruction of the ballistic targets of Novator Design Bureau for energy and speed characteristics still has no equal among the adopted for analogies.

Thus, the country received an anti-aircraft missile system, which allowed the creation of non-strategic missile defense in the theater of operations and to ensure effective air defense of the most important facilities of the front and civilian industrial facilities.

In 1983, Veniamin Efremov was appointed General Designer of NIEMI. A year later, he was commissioning the Tor system, the first in the world to ensure the destruction of precision weapons. In this complex, a target detection radar, a missile guidance radar, a missile launcher, command center equipment are located on one combat vehicle. Thus, each combat vehicle can be commander: mobile systems S-300B, Osa and Thor are placed on self-propelled armored chassis.

In 1991, the Soviet Army adopted the Tor-M1 air defense missile system with improved tactical and technical characteristics. In the same year, the upgraded S-300VM system was ready for testing, but, unfortunately, its tests were carried out very slowly due to lack of funding and were completed only in 1995.

Since 1985, Veniamin Pavlovich was General Designer of NPO Antey. In this association NIEMI is the leading organization; but NPO Antey not only created weapons for the Air Defense of the Ground Forces, but practically all the radar equipment for this type of Armed Forces: radar detection of ground targets, anti-tank radio control lines, artillery reconnaissance complexes, radar sights for anti-tank guns, tank control system and etc.

Veniamin Pavlovich was seriously worried about the collapse of the USSR. But he continued to devote himself to strengthening Russia's defense capability.for 20 years he was head of the Department of the Moscow State Institute of Radio Engineering, Electronics and Automation (Technical University) (MIREA).

Efremov died September 16, 2006.

Awarded 3 Orders of Lenin (29.07.1966; September 27, 1976; March 21, 1986), Orders of the October Revolution (26.04.1971), Labour Red Banner (20.04.1956), Russian Orders of Merit to the Fatherland 2nd (22.11.2001) and 3rd (1996) degrees, Medals. On 21 March 2008, a memorial plaque in honor of V.P. Efremov was unveiled on the building of the Research Electromechanical Institute in Moscow.

He made a great contribution to the development of the concept for the further development of anti-aircraft missile systems and the principles of creating a single anti-aircraft missile system.