Nikolai Afanasyev

Nikolay Mikhailovich Afanasyev (Николай Михайлович Афанасьев; November 14, 1916 – March 15, 2009) also known as Nicolai Michaelovich Afanasiev, was a Russian firearms designer.

Biography
Nicolai Michaelovitch Afanasiev was born in Russia on 14 November 1916 in St. Petersburg. In 1938 he graduated from a Tekhnikum of the Mechanization of Agriculture.

In 1939 he was drafted to serve in a tank corps in Mongolia, where he started to work on machine gun design. After the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, he volunteered for front-line service. He was allowed to be a fighter from September 1941 until the fall of 1942, when he was recalled to work on armaments, initially on improving fuses for 82- and 120-mm mortars.

After 1948 Afanasiev worked at the KBP Instrument Design Bureau.

He died on 15 March 2009.

Designs

 * LAD machine gun – 1942
 * Afanasev A-12.7 – 1950
 * Afanasev Makarov AM-23 – 1953
 * a bullpup design with which he participated in the AKM contest - 1955
 * 2A-14 23 mm autocannon, used in the ZU-23 – 1960 (with P.G. Yakushev)
 * 2A-7 23 mm autocannon, used in the ZSU-23-4 – 1960 (with P.G. Yakushev)
 * TKB-011
 * TKB-0136, competed in Project Abakan
 * OTs-02 Kiparis

Honours and awards

 * Hero of Socialist Labour (1986) – For achievements in the design of aircraft gun armament
 * Two Orders of Lenin (1963, 1986)
 * Order of the October Revolution (1977)
 * Order of the Patriotic War, 2nd class (1963)
 * USSR State Prize (1967)
 * Mosin Prize
 * Honoured Inventor of the RSFSR (1968)