Hi!

I have an assembled turret from Mig Productions KV-1 M1939 upgrade kit. The kit was intended for use with Tamiyas outdated KV range, and sadly I ruined the build with an overdose of cheap carprimer. Most parts where salvageable though, but I wasn'nt overwelmed with the details on the Tamiya-kit and eventually put the model away deep in the wardrobe.

I found it yesterday and thought that I might give it a second chance

My question is if anyone knows if this turret would fit nice on top of Trumpeters KV-2 "big turret" kit? As far as I'm concerned, the trumpeter kit looks to be a perfect base for an early KV-1 M1939 but I'm worried that the top of the hull where the turret rests may have slightly different dimensions as compared to the Tamiya kits.

Does anyone have both the Tamiya and Trumpeter kits and could to a quick check?


Best regards

Robert Hedelin
Sweden

Robert,
This should help you out. Neil Stokes did a seminar on the KV & How to model them at AMPS East back in 2007. Here's the link: http://decalcomaniacs.net/KVseminar/KVSeminar.pdf . BTW, Neil is writing a book on the same subject, with totally new drawings and lots of new unpublished photos. Look for it sometime this year.
Regards,
Georg

Hi Georg

Thank you very much for your help! That was great information indeed!

I think that the easiest way will be to buy the Trumpeter kit and see if the MIG tower fits. If not, then I could build the M1939 from the instructions you linked to.

regards,

Robert

Hi Robert,

I may be able to save you some trouble. I have both kits and will check the fit of the Mig turret to the Trumpeter hull. However, I just arrived home after travelling 37 hours from Australia, so it'll have to wait until the morning

Neil

Hi Neal

That would be great!


Regards,

Robert

Hi Robert,

I checked the fit of the Mig turret to the Trumpeter hull and it will fit quite easily. You will need to trim the raised lip off the inner edge of the turret ring on the upper hull, since the opening on the underside of the Mig turret is much smaller than that of the Trumpeter turrets. Other than that however, it's an easy fit.

Be aware though, that all of the initial 11 series production vehicles mounting this turret were re-armed with the F-32 gun when they were overhauled at LKZ in January 1941. You can source the gun and mantlet from the Trumpeter "KV small turret" kit.

If you decide to build a vehicle as it appeared in mid- or late 1940, you need to fix the gun mantlet from the Mig kit. The kit part is a mish-mash of features from the early (pre-September 1940) and late (post September 1940) variants, and is difficult to convert to the early variant. The easiest way to get a correct early L-11 mantlet is to use the part offered as an option in the Trumpeter "KV Small Turret" kit, and simply add the missing conical headed bolt to the top of the recuperator cover.

Regardless of which gun you choose to use however, the Mig turret has some problems:

The ventilator cover and episcope covers on the roof should NOT have flanges around them. The flanges were not introduced until March 1941.

The raised circular bumps around the edge of the roof should be filed away. These were only evident on late production up-armored welded turrets manufactured by the two ChTZ subcontractors UZTM and Factory No.200, and were not present on the early "rounded" turrets manufactured at the Izhorskiy Plant.

I have photographs showing that the base plate for the P40 anti-aircraft mount was not fitted to these vehicles, even after their overhaul in January 1941. You should remove the plate from the turret hatch coaming.

The turret roof needs to be reduced in size by about 0.5 millimetres all round. There should be a distinct lip around the edge of the roof since it sat on flanges inside the turret side plates, not on top of the side plates.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

Neil

Hi Neil,

Thank you VERY much for your VERY informative answer! Looks that there is a chance to make use of the turret after all. I will check the details you mentioned with the turret, but sadly I think i have sanded (and filled the gap) between the turret and the side plates already.... but I recon that that could be fixed as well.

I used the Trojca 13 - KV-1 / KV-2 photo album for reference when I began the project, but these issues you mentioned with the turret is impossible to see on those photos as they only shows front and side views, so again - thanks for the information.

Do you have any recommended litterature for KV-1 tanks apart from Mr. Zalogas KV1 book and above mentioned Trojca 13?

Cheers,

Robert

Hi Robert,

The best available books on the KV series at present, are the three Frontline Illustrations books by Maxim Kolomyets. The only down-side is that they are in Russian. There are Polish translations available from Wydawnictwo Militaria but not all the translations are accurate and the books are still in Polish rather than English.

My own book - roughly 450 A4 pages, 300 photos and more than 200 line drawings - will be available in the spring of 2010 from AirConnection. We are planning to have the book available by the time of the AMPS National show in April. It covers the KV-1, KV-2, KV-8 and SU-152.

Cheers,

Neil