Hi All,

I was reading some stories about tanks on www.wio.ru/tank/ww2tank.htm#t2
They talk about an event on 18 Aug 1941 when 5 KV-1's held up the 8th Panzer Division on its advance to Lenningrad. The KV's reaped a grim toll that day, 43 enemy tanks, 19 guns and 11 halftracks. The lead tank was No. 864 commanded by Lt. Kolobanov. No. 864 took 135 hits but remained functional!

What version of KV-1 were these tanks?
And what Trumpeter kit best represents them?

Thanks
Len

Try and get in contact with Neil Stokes. Not many know the KV like he does.
He is a member here (callsign "MrNeil") so you could PM him.

Hi, Len

Most probably it's KV-1E (s ekranami - with screens) mod. 1941 with applique armor. A detailed report in Russian is presented here: http://tankfront.ru/snipers/ussr/kolobanov_zg.html

They say Kolobanov's heavy tank platoon of the 1st Tank Division was formed at Kirov tank factory in Leningrad. KV-1E were produced only on Jul 1941 and took action only in Leningrad Front and NW Front, so the authors imply it could be the only modification of Kolobanov's KV. No direct evidence though.

Therefore you would need Trumpeter's 00357 Russian KV-1 S Ehkranami Model 1941, but it's possible that Kolobanov's platoon tanks had no applique armor on hull, only on turret. Check the existing reference pictures.

Cheers

Thanks for the reply Frank - what do you mean by PM?
Raimondas thanks for the link.

It seems to me that Kolobanov's tank:

Had an F-32 76.2mm gun so that narrows it down to Trumpeter kit 00356 (Small Turret) or 00357 (Ehkranami) and;

Was equipped with a radio and;

Had applique turret armour like Trumpeter's KV-1 Ehkranami #00357 with additional 35mm thick spaced armour bolted on and;

Possibly had applique armour of 25mm thickness welded to the upper hull front and sides and;

Possibly no applique armour to the lower hull front between towing points.

Too much guessing at this time. Anyway I ordered Trumpeter's KV-1 Ehkranami kit as that seems to be the best starting point.

I will update as details can be confirmed.

Regards
Len

Hi Len

What Frank means by PM is private message. You can send him a message, Neil not Frank, about your ideas via the amorama network.

By the way it's worth bookmarking Neil's great site on KV's. Lots of info including a breakdown of kits available. accuracy etc.

Here ya go

http://www.4bogreen.com/

Alan

Hi Len,

I don't have any information on this specific engagement, over and above what's been posted/linked here.

Kolobanov's tank had the F-32 gun but so did about 80% of the KV-1s in service in August 1941. Of the 1054 KV-1 built by LKZ prior to the evacuation in October, 915 were KV-1 Model 1940s with the F-32 gun.

Almost all KV-1s had radios...normally the 71-TK-3 set at that time. The only difference was whether they had a transmitter and receiver, or just a transmitter. Kolobanov's tank, as a commander's vehicle, probably had both. There was no external difference however.

There were several kinds of applique turret armor on an LKZ vehicle at that time. The first 90mm-armored turrets had a applique plates welded to the front face since there was a shortage of 120mm armor plate, and of course the ehkrany-equipped vehicles had bolted armor on the sides. Weight of numbers suggests that Kolobanov's tank was an ekrany-equipped vehicle.

The ehkrany program began in mid-June 1941, just before the Germans invaded, and continued until mid-July. The plan was to fit all hulls and turrets with ekhrany, and to retro-fit the plates to vehicles already in the field. However, shortages of material meant that not all hulls and turrets received ehkrany. The priority was given to turrets.

The practice of fitting applique armor on the front of the hull began at about the same time. However, shortages of material meant that not all hulls received the applique and some only received improvised plates.

The most common configurations for ehkrany-equipped vehicles were:

Applique armor on upper and lower hull front, ehkrany on upper and lower hull sides, ehkrany on turret.

Applique armor on upper and lower hull front, regular applique armor on upper hull sides, ehkrany on turret

No applique armor on upper and lower hull front, no extra armor on upper hull sides, ehkrany on turret. This was more common on late June production examples...by July, most hulls were getting some form of extra armor, at least on the front.

This isn't an exhaustive list, just gained from four years of poring over thousands of photos

I have never seen a vehicle with the 25mm applique plates on the driver's plate that didn't also have them on the lower front hull too.

The other tricky thing with ehkrany-equipped vehicles is the road wheels.

When the program began, the standard road wheels were the pressed steel two-part resilient type with six cooling vents on the inner disc and no reinforcing ribs on the outer disc. These are the type included in Trumpeter's 'Small Turret' kit.

At the beginning of July, LKZ eliminated the lightening holes on the outer discs, due to a high incidence of road wheel failures.

This mod only lasted about a week though, before they switched to stronger cast steel wheels which are distinguishable by the reinforcing ribs between the lightening holes on the outer discs. These are the wheels included in Trumpeter's 'KV s Ehkranami' kit.

Vehicles with a full set of the 'no holes' wheels were fairly rare, and the wheels were more often used on the two front stations on each side, with cast wheels further aft. By mid-July, most vehicles carried a full set of cast wheels.

My guess is that Kolobanov's tank would most likely have been an early July production example...the RKKA was dropping tanks like flies at this point and most vehicles lasted only a matter of days. That said, the Trumpeter 's Ehkranami' kit gives you pretty much everything you need. There are a couple of minor tweaks, which are covered in the 'recipe' on 4bogreen.

Hope this helps...

Neil

Hi Neil,

This helps immensely
Thank you very much for your reply and for creating 4BO Green.

What markings do you think Kolobanov's tank had? Do you think it had "864" painted on it as a tactical number?

Photo of Kolobanov's Crew and Tank

Hi Len,

The use of tactical numbers on RKKA tanks was very rare in the summer of 1941. Most photos of KVs showed them with no markings at all, though there were exceptions.

The mention of Kolobanov's tank as No.864 suggests that it carried a turret number, but there was almost no standardization between units. Kolobanov was the company commander of the 3rd company, 1st Battalion, 1st Red Banner Tank Division, though it gets more complicated because the two KV battalions within a division were normally assigned one to each of the two tank regiments. As you can see, '864' doesn't correspond to any meaningful numbering system but turret numbers, when they were used, were often coded to 'confuse' the enemy. It gets even weirder since in early August 1941, the RKKA armored forces were reorganized with the Tank Brigade as the largest organic unit. However, 1st Red Banner was in transit at that time and was thrown straight into the line upon its arrival in the Luga area, so it might have escaped the reorganization for a while. 1st Red Banner was known to use slogans on their vehicles (the often photographed 'BEY FASHISTOV!' was one example) but I've never seen a photograph of a vehicle with a turret number that was confirmed to be from this division.

The safest bet would be to go with no tactical number at all but if you do that, then you have a 'generic' KV. Alternatively, you could use a little modeler's license and do a turret number like the one in this photo:



I don't have a firm identification on the unit but the photo was taken near Pskov in September/October 1941 and 1st Red Banner was operating in the same area at that time, so it's plausible.

Cheers,

Neil