Semyon Alexandrovich Ginzburg () (1900–1943) was a Soviet tank designer. He enrolled in business school in 1918, but then volunteered for the

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, after ...

in 1919 and served in the light artillery squadron of the 3rd Rifle Division. After the division had retreated to

Voronezh Voronezh ( rus, links=no, Воро́неж, p=vɐˈronʲɪʂ}) is a city and the administrative centre of Voronezh Oblast in southwestern Russia straddling the Voronezh River, located from where it flows into the Don River. The city sits on the ...

, Ginzburg enrolled in the Military Academy of the Strategic Missile Forces and graduated in 1920. He was appointed as a platoon commander in the

52nd Rifle Division The 52nd Rifle Division was an infantry division of the Red Army during the Russian Civil War, the interwar period, World War II, and the Cold War, formed once during the Russian Civil War and three times during the existence of the Soviet Union. ...

and fought at

Kakhovka Kakhovka ( uk, Кахо́вка, ) is a port city on the Dnieper River in Kakhovka Raion, Kherson Oblast, of southern Ukraine. It hosts the administration of the Kakhovka urban hromada, one of the hromadas of Ukraine. It had a population of It ...

and in Crimea. He continued his studies at the Dzerzhinsky Military Technology Academy in 1926 and graduated in 1929 after specializing in tank designs. He was one of the earliest tank designers in the Soviet Union who expressly studied to become one. He worked in the GKB (the main design bureau) and in the KB-3 in Moscow. In 1930 he was a member of the Soviet purchasing committee in Great Britain that prepared buying a license for the

Vickers 6-Ton The Vickers 6-ton tank or Vickers Mark E, also known as the "Six-tonner" was a British light tank designed as a private project at Vickers. It was not adopted by the British Army, but was picked up by many foreign armed forces. It was license ...

tank. Ginzburg then headed the

OKMO OKMO (''Opytniy Konstruktorsko-Mekhanicheskiy Otdel'', 'Experimental Design Mechanical Department') was the tank design team in the Soviet Union during the early 1930s. Located in Leningrad, it produced the design of the T-26 infantry tank, of whic ...

experimental group in

Leningrad Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

preparing the production of the

T-26 The T-26 tank was a Soviet light tank used during many conflicts of the Interwar period and in World War II. It was a development of the British Vickers 6-Ton tank and was one of the most successful tank designs of the 1930s until its light ...

, based on the acquired Vickers 6-Ton design. Later he was directly involved in development of experimental types like T-33, T-43, T-29, T-46-5, T-100 and T-126SP, as well as in the series built T-26, T-28, T-35 and T-50 types. A deputy to Joseph Yakovlevich Kotin, himself a deputy to the

People's Commissar Commissar (or sometimes ''Kommissar'') is an English transliteration of the Russian (''komissar''), which means 'commissary'. In English, the transliteration ''commissar'' often refers specifically to the political commissars of Soviet and Eas ...

of the Tank Industry, Ginzburg was directly responsible for development work of the

SU-76 The SU-76 ('' Samokhodnaya Ustanovka 76'') was a Soviet light self-propelled gun used during and after World War II. The SU-76 was based on a lengthened version of the T-70 light tank chassis and armed with the 76 mm divisional gun M1942 (ZiS-3) ...

light self-propelled gun. The transmission problems of the first serial variant was a reason for his removal from that position and sending to front. He became a chief technical officer of 32nd tank brigade, and was killed during

Battle of Kursk The Battle of Kursk was a major World War II Eastern Front engagement between the forces of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union near Kursk in the southwestern USSR during late summer 1943; it ultimately became the largest tank battle in history. ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ginzburg, Semyon Alexandrovich 1943 deaths Soviet military personnel killed in World War II Soviet Jews in the military Soviet Jews 1900 births Recipients of the Order of Lenin Tank designers