Vasily Bakalov

Vasily Ivanovich Bakalov (; 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.

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.

Early life and wartime Bakalov was born on 18 April 1929 in the village of Semeyka, in Central Black Earth Oblast, then part of the RSFSR, in the Soviet Union. His father moved the family to a city in the 1930s seeking work, and the young Bakalov joined , a voluntary organization promoting water safety and work. With the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, Bakalov and other OSVOD members were called up to support the war effort by crewing vessels to transport military personnel, civilians and weapons. He was then interred on the Alley of Honour in the city's . He had also received the Order of the October Revolution, two Orders of the Red Banner of Labour, and the jubilee medals "In Commemoration of the 100th Anniversary of the Birth of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin", "50 Years of Victory in the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945" and "300 Years of the Russian Navy". He was married, with two sons and a daughter.