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Boris Vasilievich Bunkin

From 1968 to 1998, Boris Vasilievich Bunkin was the general designer of the NPO Almaz, and from 1998 to 2007 the scientific leader of the enterprise that developed and serialized the production of anti-aircraft missile systems, which were the basis of the national air defense forces: S-75, S-125, S-300, S-400. For his successes, he was awarded numerous awards, was a laureate of the Lenin Prize and twice Hero of Socialist Labor (1958, 1982).

Boris Bunkin was born on July 16, 1922 in the village of Aksinino-Znamenskoe, Khimki district, Moscow region. His father, Bunkin Vasily Fedorovich, was a geodesic engineer, a participant in the First World War. The mother of the future designer Bunkin Antonina Sergeevna was an accountant. In total, the Bunkins family had three children - Boris, Valentina and Fedor. Boris was the eldest child in the family. In Khovrin he graduated from primary school, then continued his studies in the Likhobory, measuring every day three kilometers back and forth to school. On the way the students spent time discussing a wide variety of ideas. In 1936, Boris's father, who became an engineer, was provided with housing in the capital, the family moved to Moscow. A year before the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War, Boris Bunkin graduated from secondary general school No. 471.

The day of the last exam for the first course fell just on June 22, 1941. The students immediately rushed to the recruiting points, and many of those who were not taken to the front, including Boris Bunkin, were among them, were sent to work for aviation plants. Boris was offered to work at the oldest aircraft engine plant in the city - Plant No. 24 (today the Moscow Machine-Building Production Association "Salut"). In October 1941, when the country's capital passed to a state of siege, Bunkin was evacuated with the last group of students and teachers of the MAI in Alma-Ata, where he finished the second year of the institute and again made an attempt to get to the front in order to fight the German fascist invaders, but he again refused. In the summer of 1943, together with the institute, Bunkin returned to Moscow. At the same time, the family of the future designer was poor. His seriously ill father died from effects the concussion that was received by him on the fronts of the First World War. And after another 4 years, Boris's mother died.

In 1944, the Institute announced a recruitment for a new faculty - radar. Boris Bunkin submitted an application and with the loss of the year (since the old training programs were hopelessly outdated) began to master modern sciences and new knowledge. In 1947, Bunkin completed his studies, according to the results of his studies, he was recommended to enter post-graduate studies. Simultaneously with postgraduate studies, he worked at the 108th Central Research Institute - the main institute of the USSR in radar, here he worked as a senior engineer. Already at that time the institute had experienced workers and design personnel. It was during the work in the Central Research Institute-108 that Boris Vasilyevich Bunkin met his love - the MAI graduate student Tatyana Fenichev. In July 1949, young people played a wedding. Soon in the young family appeared first-born son Sergei (all in the family had two children, daughter Tatiana was born in 1955). This important event in their life coincided with the adoption of very important decisions at the highest state level. After the completion of the postgraduate study, Bunkin is sent to work in a special office SB-1. This appointment was fatal for him, determining the fate of the scientist, the creator of numerous complexes and systems of missile weapons of air defense.

Very important state decisions, of which, then, of course, Boris Bunkin could not know anything, consisted in the fact that Joseph Stalin formulated before the leading Soviet scientists and military the task of developing in the shortest time a reliable air defense system. Soviet intelligence reported to the capital that new carriers of nuclear weapons were being developed overseas, and the United States was about to see strategic bombers with a large range of action. Therefore, the Soviet Union needed new and adequate means of protection. It was in this period, in October 1950, that Boris Bunkin got a job at Design Bureau No. 1. Here, under the guidance of outstanding Soviet scientists - Semyon Alekseevich Lavochkin, Alexander Andreevich Raspletin and Vladimir Pavlovich Barmin - the first anti-aircraft missile system was developed in the USSR. It was Boris Vassilievich, in the four specialists who worked at the Central Research Institute-108, AA Raspletin and AN Shchukin were selected to work in KB-1. Later, recalling this time, Bunkin wrote: "How we worked! Raging pace almost all the time, as in the war, worked for 11-12 hours a day! At the head factory located in Kuntsevo, the documentation was sent along with the technology ... ".

Developed in the KB-1 anti-aircraft missile system was called "Berkut" [Eagle]. Candidate of Technical Sciences Boris V. Bunkin, appointed Leading Engineer of KB-1 Thematic Laboratory, was at the epicenter of all the main events connected with this system. The SAM received the S-25 code, in May 1955 it was formally adopted. The soul of this ambitious project was the future academician AA Raspletin, whom Bunkin rightly considered his main teacher.

After the development of the S-25 stationary anti-aircraft missile system, the leadership of the Soviet Union faced the task of creating an air defense system that would provide protection not only to the capital of the country, but also to the territory of the rest of the USSR. This task was dictated by the actions of the Americans, who threatened the country from the air, performing numerous reconnaissance flights. Their provocations forced the Soviet government to take retaliatory steps, one of such steps was the development of the mobile anti-aircraft defense complex S-75, which could be easily deployed near any strategically important country object by the type of "roaming" artillery batteries at the front. In order to create such a complex, a fundamentally new approach was required to the questions of maneuverability, to the design of the system. In late 1953, a young candidate of technical sciences BV Bunkin, on behalf of AA Raspletin, was engaged in the development of the first mobile anti-aircraft guided missile system, which went down in history under the designation S-75 Dvina. By decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR ("closed") of July 25, 1958, Bunkin was awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor for the outstanding achievements in the field of creating new special equipment (for the creation of the S-75 air defense system) with the award of the Order of Lenin and the gold medal "Sickle and Hammer".

But the work on the S-75 complex was just the beginning of a long journey. In the spring of 1958, Chief Designer A.A.Raspletin set the task of creating a new air defense system, the so-called "long hand", which could hit large-sized air targets at long ranges. Preliminary elaboration of the future anti-aircraft missile system was entrusted to the collective under the leadership of Boris Bunkin. In July 1958, the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union adopted a resolution on the creation of the S-200 air defense missile system capable of striking at long ranges carrier aircraft, and in the near zone - unmanned means of attack against a credible adversary. Leading for this system, the theme department was headed by Bunkin.

At the end of December 1961, A. A. Raspletin was appointed responsible leader and general designer of the KB-1, and the RAS was transferred to the direction of Bunkin. Under his direct supervision, the modernization of the S-75 and S-25 air defense systems was launched, as well as the large-scale production of the new S-125 Neva anti-aircraft missile system capable of destroying enemy aircraft at low altitudes.

In the same period, a wide-range development of a long-range system called the S-200 "Angara" with a V-860 rocket was under way in the country. Work is also beginning on the creation of the Azov system and the modification of the Angara (the S-200 system with the B-880 rocket), and new directions are being carried out. On February 22, 1967, the S-200 system was officially adopted by the Soviet Union's air defense forces. For the creation of this system, Boris Vasilievich was awarded the Order of Lenin. The S-200 surface-to-air missile system was later subjected to repeated modernization. For this work, Boris Bunkin was awarded the State Prize.

After the death of A. A. Raspletin, on April 30, 1968 Bunkin, who worked under his direct leadership for almost 17 years and occupied a special, important place in his scientific school, becomes the successor to his mentor as the general designer of "Almaz". In the autumn of the same year he was elected a corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences. At this time, Bunkin was densely engaged in the realization of the idea left by A. A. Raspletin as his will. The idea of the ingenious designer was to develop a new S-300P anti-aircraft missile system - a medium-range multi-channel anti-aircraft missile system designed to hit various air attack weapons at all altitudes, including extremely low altitudes, and having a minimum time for full combat readiness.

According to the memoirs of Boris Bunkin, the development of the S-300 missile system was accompanied by the overcoming of numerous engineering and scientific problems. The designers had to exaggerate once again all branches of Soviet industry: since the S-300 used new technologies and materials, digital technology and electronic integrated circuits, the main combat functions of the system were automated, the missiles on the target in turn were built on absolutely different methods. The complex was initially designed to fire at the same time 6 different targets with the guidance of each of them to 2 missiles. Moreover, air targets were defeated at all altitudes, starting from 25 meters. It was also important that, thanks to the vertical launch of the S-300 missiles, it was possible to fire at air targets approaching from any direction,

Much attention was paid to the designers of the mobility and survivability of the complex. All components of the S-300 SAM were mounted on self-propelled chassis of high cross-country capability, and not on trailers, as was the case with Americans. In the fighting position the complex could easily be deployed on any chosen site in just 5 minutes, for the same time the complex could be turned off. Specially for the S-300 was created a unique missile 5V55, and for the first time for this type of missile was used the so-called catapult vertical launch from the transport-launch container (TPK). In the design of the 5B55 missile was laid, and also for the first time, the principle of guaranteed reliability - the missile could be in the TPK for more than ten years without any checks, after which it could be used for its intended purpose.

In 1970, Boris Vasilyevich Bunkin became the first winner of the Academician A.A.Raspletin Gold Medal with the formulation "For outstanding work in the field of radio engineering control systems". July 22, 1982 Bunkin for the second time was awarded the title Hero of Socialist Labor. He was awarded for outstanding services in the field of creating new special equipment (for the creation of the S-300 SAM) and in connection with the 60th anniversary of his birth. In addition, Boris Vasilievich was awarded four Orders of Lenin, the Order of the Red Banner of Labor, the October Revolution, Friendship of Peoples, "For Services to the Fatherland" of the IV degree, the Medal of the Defense Ministry of Russia "For Strengthening the Combat Commonwealth", the "Honorable Radio Operator" badge, the Gold Medal named after Academician VF Utkin, with a gold badge named after Academician AI Berg. The name of the designer was entered in the Great Soviet, and then in the Russian Encyclopaedia. He was a full member of the Academy of Natural Sciences (1992), the Academy of Engineering Sciences named after AM Prokhorov (1996), the Academy of Military Sciences, the Academy of Cryptography, the International Communications Academy, and was an honorary member (academician) of the Russian Academy of Missile and Artillery Sciences (1997).

The government's primary response to branch science's distress, and the centerpiece of the Ministry of Science's policy in 1994-1995, was the creation of a substantial number of federally funded "state science centers" on the basis of existing R&D organizations. By 1995 the once "holy of holies of the country's air defenses," the Almaz Central Design Bureau, which apparently did not thrive when it was broken up into 30 state and small enterprises and cut off from virtually all budget funds, was living on the hope of being transformed into the "State Science and Production Center."

The Almaz Central Design Bureau was broken up into 30 state and small enterprises, since the leadership hoped that in this way, in small fragments, it would be possible to keep afloat. But, according to the chief of the central design bureau, "This straw of salvation soon snapped Far from everyone managed to stay alive." With half of its 12,000 staffers gone and its experimental production facility which employed 3,000 idled, the design bureau began looking for government subsidies to keep it operating. Whether in fact the jettisoning of 50 percent of its personnel might not be a positive step in assuring Almaz's viability was clearly not considered by the director, who continues to think in terms of "everyone's" survival.

In the beginning of 1995 the state enterprise OF NPO Almaz was converted into the open joint-stock company OF TSKB Almaz. This made it possible to conduct independent economic policy and control of property with the retention/maintaining of the state control, necessary for the enterprise, which carries out the most important state orders.

On May 22, 2007 Boris Bunkin, a Soviet and Russian scientist, designer and organizer of the production of anti-aircraft missile systems for the country's air defense system, died. Over the years of his work, Bunkin took part in the creation and modernization of the S-25 SAM, was the chief designer of the S-75 air defense system, the S-200 missile system, and also the general designer of the S-300PMU and S-300PMU1 SAM. Under his direct guidance, the main scientific and technical solutions were developed for the most modern S-400 Triumph air defense system at the time. Bunkin also created scientific schools on the development of modern anti-aircraft missile systems, automated methods for designing and manufacturing large integrated circuits and radio electronic equipment. His scientific results were published in more than 400 scientific and technical works, as well as 33 patents for inventions and author's certificates.