"KV" IN THE "WINTER WAR"
By the late 1930s, the Red Army command realized that the only heavy tank in the armored forces' armament system, the famous "five-headed dragon" T-35, no longer met the requirements for a heavy breakthrough tank. Attempts to increase the T-35's armor protection to 45-75 mm were unsuccessful. Simultaneously, the design bureau of the Leningrad Kirov Plant and the design bureau of Plant No. 183 received the task of designing a new heavy breakthrough tank. According to the customer's specifications, the tank was to have three gun turrets and 60 mm of armor. The Kirov Plant developed the SMK (Sergey Mironovich Kirov), and Plant No. 183 developed the T-100. On December 9, 1938, a meeting of the Defense Committee of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR was held. Representatives from the factories informed the military that, with a three-turret design and 60 mm of armor, it was impossible to meet the specified weight of 60 tons. It was decided to reduce the number of turrets to two. At the same meeting, representatives from the Kirov Plant proposed designing a single-turret heavy tank. In October 1938, a group of fifth-year students from the Red Army's Military Aviation and Mechanics Department arrived at the Kirov Plant's SKB-2 design bureau to complete their graduation project. At the time, the SMK tank was being designed, and the students were offered the design of a heavy single-turret breakthrough tank based on it as their graduation project. The group of students made extensive use of data from the testing of the Czechoslovakian Sh-2A tank at Kubinka. The project by the VAMM graduates allowed SKB-2 head Zh. Ya. Kotin and Kirov Plant director I. M. Zaltsman to propose this initiative.
In February 1939, the GABTU of the Red Army developed the performance characteristics for the new tank. On February 27, it was approved by the Defense Committee, and the designed vehicle was then given the designation "KV" (for Klim Voroshilov). However, the Kirov Plant began designing the KV on February 1, 1939, without waiting for the military's approval of the tank's performance characteristics. Work progressed at a record pace, and by April 7, the technical design and wooden model of the tank were approved by the GABTU commission. In May, working drawings of the tank's components and assemblies began production, and the Izhora Plant began manufacturing the hull and turret. On September 1, the KV made its maiden voyage through the plant yard. The heavy KV borrowed its armored hull, suspension, observation instruments, and transmission components from its SMK predecessor. However, the resulting vehicle had some deviations from its performance characteristics: a conventional gearbox was used instead of a planetary gearbox, and the DT machine gun in the turret was eliminated because, with two guns installed in the turret—a 45mm and a 76mm—there was simply no room for one. The tank was demonstrated to members of the government commission from September 23-25 in Kubinka. The tank made a good impression on the high command, and on October 10, it began field and factory trials.
On November 30, 1939, the Soviet-Finnish War began. By decision of the Leningrad Military District Military Council, the experimental KV, SMK, and T-100 tanks were sent to the front for combat testing. The KV crew included soldiers from the 20th Heavy Tank Brigade: Lieutenant G. Kachekhin (tank commander), Military Technician 2nd Rank P. Golovachev (driver-mechanic), Red Army soldiers Kuznetsov (gunner) and Smirnov (radio operator), as well as Kirov Plant test specialists A. Estratov (engineer-loader) and K. Kovsh. For crew convenience, the 45mm gun in the turret was removed and replaced with a DT machine gun.
The KV, SMK, and T-100 tanks formed a separate heavy tank company of the 91st Battalion of the 20th Heavy Tank Brigade. Captain I. Kolotushkin was appointed company commander. The company first saw combat on December 18, 1939, supporting the Soviet infantry offensive near the Khottinensky fortified area. According to Estratov's recollections, it went like this:
"We were offered to conduct combat testing on KV and SMK tanks. We agreed, even though we weren't drafted into the army. Preparations for the combat mission began. We had to plan for everything, for every eventuality, and take with us all the necessary parts that might be needed. The starter on the KV often failed. I installed a 150 atmosphere compressed air cylinder in the engine compartment and attached a device to open and close the cylinder from the fighting compartment. We received military uniforms. Late that night, we gathered in the rolling mill canteen. Present were: I.M. Zaltsman, Zh. Ya. Kotin, N.L. Dukhov, A.S. Ermolaev, P.K. Voroshilov, A.I. Lansberg, and A. Shpitanov. A military commander was assigned to each vehicle. After dinner, parting instructions, and good wishes, we loaded onto railway platforms and We set out on a combat mission. Upon arriving at the front lines, we were assigned to the 20th Brigade. P.K. Voroshilov was with us…
Our advance units approached the Baboshino fortified area. That evening, Comrade Pavlov, the head of the armored command, came to see us. "Now," he says, "comrades, I'll show you around the pillboxes of the Baboshino fortified area. The T-28s can't get through—they're on fire. We're counting on you. Tomorrow morning we'll send you into battle; we need to test the vehicles urgently."
Upon arriving at our starting position, we were explained our mission. After an artillery barrage, we were advancing with the 20th Tank Brigade. After passing a small section of forest, a vast clearing opened up before us. A battle was raging, and tanks were burning to the left and right of us. The T-28 ahead had caught fire, preventing us from moving forward. We were afraid to turn off the road—we were afraid we'd run into mines. Ahead lay a barbed wire fence, an anti-tank ditch, and dragon's teeth. We tried to get close to the burning tank and push it off the road. The T-28 crew abandoned the tank through the lower hatch and didn't disengage the transmission, so we couldn't move the vehicle. We received an order over the radio to turn left off the road and move along the anti-tank ditch. The enemy is pounding the right side of our vehicle with shells, blow after blow, like someone was hitting it hard with a sledgehammer. We're moving. True, a chill or trembling runs down our legs. Our commander, Kachikhin, started talking nervously. They're firing at us, but the enemy is nowhere to be seen. We remembered D. Pavlov's instructions. The commander orders us to keep an eye on all observation devices and look for pillboxes. Suddenly, Kovsh shouts: "There's a hump up ahead. Look: a pipe has stuck out of it and disappeared!"
Kachikhin's voice: "That's probably a pillbox. Aim at the pipe – fire!" I spotted the hump. There are poles stacked on the hump. Smoke is coming out of them. The commander gave the command: fire on the poles. I load the gun; I'm the engine mechanic and loader; we spotted enemy firing points in several other places. A shell hit the front of the tank hard, showering it with sparks. Another hit. Our gun shook, and we stopped the tank. It's unclear what happened. We started the engine and tried to move – everything was fine.
I said to Kachikhin: "We need a snack. We haven't had breakfast, it's been a long time since lunch. I'm sure our tank is impenetrable." We declined the snack. We received the order over the radio: "There's a knocked-out T-28 to your left. Inspect it and, if possible, tow it to the rear." We approached the T-28 closely, despite the heavy shelling. I got out of the vehicle. We towed the tank to the rear. Early in the morning, P.K. Voroshilov arrived with five commanders in Romanov fur coats. Pavlov was among them. After inspecting the vehicle, they discovered: the gun barrel had been shot through, some of the undercarriage rollers had been shot through, some of the track links had been damaged, but not completely, the tow rope had been severed, and several hits had been taken to the starboard side—the tank remained intact and undamaged. The military commission was satisfied. They shook our hands and congratulated us on completing the mission. Pavlov ordered P.K. Voroshilov to immediately go to the factory and provide the KV tank to the front as quickly as possible. A 76mm gun barrel was brought from the factory. There was no crane available, so they found a good, strong pine tree, lifted the barrel with a hoist, adjusted the tank, and manually mounted the gun under the supervision of artilleryman Boynov.
After the battle, traces of nine hits from 37mm armor-piercing shells were discovered on the armor: one hit on the front hull plate, three hits on the right side, one hit on the gun barrel (a large dent in the barrel), one hit on the hub of the fourth right road wheel, and three hits on the right track. The results of the new tank's combat use were immediately reported to Moscow. On the same day—December 19—Decree No. 443ss of the USSR Defense Committee was signed, accepting the KV tank into service with the Red Army. By this time, the KV prototype had covered only 550 kilometers. This, of course, was insufficient to test the new tank's reliability, and this had an impact a year and a half later. Later, at the beginning of the Great Patriotic War.
The experimental KV remained on the front lines until early January 1940, but saw no further combat. On January 2, the vehicle returned to the Kirov Plant as a reference sample for the production of a pilot batch of 20 vehicles. At the request of the Military Council of the Northwestern Front, the first four vehicles were to be equipped with 152-mm howitzers to combat pillboxes and destroy anti-tank obstacles. A dedicated team of engineers from the Kirov Plant's artillery design bureau, led by N.V. Kurin, working 16-18 hours a day, managed to complete this task in two weeks. Preference was given to the M-10 howitzer, model 1938. The new turret with the M-10 howitzer for the KV received the factory designation MT-1. The designations KV-1 and KV-2 appeared only in 1941; before that, the tanks were called "tanks with a large turret" and "Tank with a small turret."
On February 22, 1940, a U-2 tank with the turret of the experimental U-0 tank with a 76mm gun departed for the front, followed by a U-3 tank with an MT-1 mount on February 29.
The KVs operating at the front were organized into a separate company, under the command of Captain I. Kolotushkin. The company operated as part of the 13th Light Tank and 20th Heavy Tank Brigades. However, it was not possible to test the "KV with a large turret" in combat by firing at pillboxes: by the time the company arrived at the front, the main line had been destroyed.
During this time, the vehicles sustained the following damage:
KV No. U-0: 1 shell hit in the joint of the front armor plates, 3 hits on the front sloping plate, 2 hits on the lower front sloping plate, 1 hit on the rear, 3 hits on the right hull side, 1 hit on the left hull side, 1 hit on the right idler hub, 1 hit on the upper right side roller, 1 hit on the lower right side roller, 1 hit on the left side road roller, and 8 track links destroyed by mines.
Tank No. U-1 has no shell damage. There are scratches from large-caliber shells exploding near the tank, and 11 track links destroyed by mines.
Tank No. U-2: 1 shell hit in the joint of the front armor plates, 1 hit on the left road roller, and 3 track links destroyed by mines.
Tank No. U-3 sustained one shell hit on the upper sloped plate, one on the lower sloped plate, one on the right side, one on the rear, one on the turret, one on the buffer (roller stop), one on the lower rollers, one on the track. The fourth right roller was destroyed by a mine, and a shell jammed the turret.
All shell hits on the armor created dents ranging from 10 to 40 mm. The shell impacts did not affect the crew's normal operations.
Furthermore, even during these battles, it became clear that the KV (especially the KV-2) was quite heavy, and its engine was weak and unreliable. For example, Senior Lieutenant Umanov, a company commander in the 20th Tank Brigade, reported in a report dated March 2, 1940: "I am under heavy enemy artillery, machine gun, and mortar fire." Four T-28 tanks were destroyed. The KVs sank into the snow and were practically unable to move."
The successful use of the KV in the Soviet-Finnish War led to the adoption of a heavy breakthrough tank with excellent armor protection by the Red Army. Its invulnerability to Finnish anti-tank guns had a mesmerizing effect on the country's military leadership. The vehicle, accepted into service despite having not undergone even a fraction of factory testing, was "raw," suffering from numerous minor and major defects and "teething problems." The situation with eliminating these defects remained virtually unchanged until the start of the Great Patriotic War. Mass production was prioritized, and quality was sacrificed for the quantitative production of heavy tanks. Numerous investigations into this matter remained just that. Statistics on non-combat losses due to technical reasons in the initial period of the war are further proof of this.
Sources:
M. Kolomiets "The KV Breakthrough Tank" M. "Yauza" 2006
M. Svirin. "Stalin's armor shield, history of the Soviet tank 1937-1943" M. "Yauza" 2006
M. Kolomiets "History of the KV tank" BFI 2003
opens the box on a Battlefield in a Box house.
