All righty ... gave the turret a touch up of green and a coat of lacquer (which frosted, but that's no big deal, becuase it's going to get a wash and dry brush anyway). I snapped the turret hatch off, but it was an easy fix because it is the same as the engine access hatches, which have identical internal detail. The old turret hatch became an engine hatch on the KV "Big Turret", which provided a replacement hatch with hinge for the later KV-2.





Reading through some accounts, I don't think the battle damage is over the top, because some of these vehicles endured enormous punishment.



Regards variations in KV features, some of the "small turret" tanks were re-built as many as four times, which means you could pretty much mix up any features you want (I reckon an early KV hull with a pistol port in the hull with a late turret would be interesting).

However, the KV-2s were built in a time before the factories were disrupted and few if any were re-built because most seemed to be destroyed/lost/abandoned on their first contact with the Germans during the chaotic first days of Barbarossa.

That said, there may have been some variation during the transition in model features.

One aspect about Russian armour that always has me befuddled is the almost universal lack of crew stowage ... you'd think the crews would have needed some tarps and jerries of water at least!

Anyway, I'll set the hull down on the base, and give the turret and wash and weather once the lacquer hardens,

Mick, you're right with respect to the blending of features on the KV-1s, since new production features such as flanges on the episcopes and ventilators, shielded machine gun mounts, revised stowage boxes etc were streamlined into production and there were frequent overlaps. When you factor in the rebuild programs, both before (13 early KV s malenkiy bashniy were rebuilt with F-32 guns in January 1941) and during the war, there were a helluva lot of combinations.

You're right, I need to be very careful being definitive about this stuff but I've spent four years researching the KVs and I reckon that counts as careful The LKZ factory archives contain the documentation that explains the dates at which many of these changes were introduced. That doesn't account for the rebuilds but does give you a good starting point for 'factory' features.

The KV-2s were a very different story to the KV-1s though. There were two separate production batches of KV-2 Model 1940s (86 in the first batch and 100 in the second batch) and they were built four months apart, the first in Nov/Dec 1940 and the second in May/June 1941. The RKKA acceptance figures are in the LKZ archives, including the chassis numbers, so this is, or at least should be, an undisputed fact. There were very distinct differences between the two batches in both hull and turret features, though there were also minor detail variations within the batches too. It's relatively easy to spot a vehicle from the early batch vs the late batch since there were significant differences during the intervening four months.

There is no evidence to support the theory that any KV-2s were rebuilt during the war. Like you say, the majority of them were lost, mostly due to mechanical failure or sabotaged by their own crews, in the first weeks of the war.

Cheers,

Neil

It's my own mixture of white glue, artist's pigments, chopped up vegetation etc. I keep it frozen and thaw it with the microwave when I want to use it.

Hello again all ... I think I found a figure solution from the Tamita Russian tank crew, which suit the KV well and give it some scale. Question is, are the appropriate for an early war vehicle? (I believe Tamiya made the set for their JS3):

Mick, the figures in that set show some variations; the standing one you've picked looks OK, not so sure about the seated one. Early war helmets were brown leather rather than the later black fabric, so that's hopefully just a question of painting them that way. The shirts worn under the overalls should have normal fold down shirt type collars (like on a shirt you'd wear with a tie) rather than the stand up Tsarist style collar which became standard in 1943. I think you should avoid the ones wearing leather jackets and stick to the ones in overalls, and make them some shade of khaki, though apparently in the late 30's there were also dark blue or black overalls.

This is what I gleaned from Martin Windrow's Tank and AFV Crew Uniforms Since 1916. Someone may have better or different info from me.

Just primed the figures. I have had the Verlinden resin Russian tank officer for about 15 years - the "big" problem with these figures is that they scale out to 1/32 (54mm) to 1/30 and as such they are all but useless with 1/35 vehicles.

As it is, the officer is a hulking giant compared to the other two Tamiya crew figures, but when he's on the ground, the sheer size of the KV-2 kinda scales him down.

Keeps on getting better! Can't wait to see the dio.