Kharkiv Morozov Machine Building Design Bureau

KMDB started as the Tank Design Team of the Kharkiv Locomotive Factory Komintern (KhPZ, now Malyshev Factory) in 1927, in Kharkiv, Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, and was responsible for the T-12 and T-24 light tanks. In the 1930s, the design team was designated as the independent T2K Tank Design Bureau, and began work on the BT tank series. In 1936 the plant was re-designated "Plant No. 183", and the design bureau "KB-190". The plant also produced small quantities of multi-turreted T-35 tanks, and had a separate design bureau (KB-35) to assist in their development.

T-34-85 tank on display

Soviet T-80 tank on display

In 1937, a separate design bureau was established to build a replacement for the BT tank series, under the supervision of Mikhail Koshkin. Koshkin pushed the boundaries of the specification given to him, and further development led to the T-34, the most-produced and one of the best known tanks of World War II. Series production began in June 1940 in Kharkiv, and followed by production at the Stalingrad Tractor Plant and the Sormovo Shipbuilding Plant in Gorky . In the same year, Koshkin died and Alexander Morozov was appointed Chief Designer of the T-34 Main Design Bureau (GKB T-34), a post he would hold for the remaining thirty-six years of his life.

In 1939, the tank design bureaux of Kharkiv were merged into a single agency called Department 520. In 1941, due to German advances, the factory and design shops were evacuated to the Ural mountains. The plant was combined with the Uralvagonzavod Plant in Nizhny Tagil into one enterprise called Urals Tank Plant No. 183.

Although design improvements and production continued to concentrate on the T-34 and improved T-34-85, new design work was also continued during the war. The T-44 began production in the recaptured Kharkiv factory in 1945, and the first prototypes of the T-54 were built.

After the war was over, the factory gradually transferred operations back to Ukraine (now named "Kharkiv Diesel Factory No. 75"). T-54 production was started in the Urals and Kharkiv in 1947–48, and the move ended with the 1951 establishment of the KB-60M Design Bureau in Kharkiv.

During the post-war period, Morozov turned over further development of the T-54/55 to the Kartsev Design Bureau at Uralvagonzavod, and began work on a next-generation main battle tank, which would become the T-64, for which Morozov would receive the Order of Lenin.

Factory No. 75, renamed Malyshev Plant in 1957, built tank engines, and later took up production of T-54, T-55 (1958, the most-produced tank ever), and T-64 (from 1967) tanks. The T-64 was also built in the Leningrad Kirov Plant and Uralvagonzavod Plant. In the 1960s the bureau also designed OT-54 and TO-55 flame-thrower tanks, for production at the Omsk Transport Machine Construction Plant.

In 1966, the tank design bureau (Department 60) and experimental tank production shop (Shop 190) were combined into the Kharkiv Machine Building Design Bureau (KMDB). In 1979, after the death of Morozov, it was renamed in his honor.

KMDB designed the T-80UD, a diesel-engined variant of the gas turbine-powered T-80, in 1985.

• KMDB - official site
• History of the first tanks on Ukrainian territory, Maksym Sayenko, at Vasyl Chobitok's Bronze-Site (Russian: История создания первых танков на территории украины)