By the beginning of World War II, not a single army of the world was armed with heavy tanks. With one exception. They had the Red Army.
Why heavy tanks are needed
War is, first and foremost, work, hard, dirty and very dangerous. Most of the time a soldier digs earth. The more he removes the soil, the higher his chances of surviving. There are other types of work, no less laborious, and each of them requires its own tool. A heavy bomber is not suitable for bombing individual target targets - an attack aircraft is needed. To destroy the industrial potential of the enemy, a fighter is not worth using, strategic bomb carriers are required here, and there should be a lot of them. Light tanks are necessary for deep and rapid raids, bypassing enemy defenses and creating "cauldrons" in which significant military formations, deprived of supplies and communications, cannot survive for long. If we draw analogies with a working tool, then they perform the functions of a blade, flexible and convenient. But there are situations when something more powerful is required, and the severity does not matter much (cleaver, for example, or an ax). Heavy tanks are needed when it is impossible to take or bypass the fortified positions with a quick swoop, and a methodical break is required, a strong frontal strike, all-overwhelming and merciless.
In December 1939 there were heavy and bloody battles in Karelia. A terrible cracking frost, snow cover to the waist, bogs beneath it, and non-freezing. If the weather conditions add mines, the detection of which is very problematic; the work of snipers; unexpectedly occurring classified firing points protected by thick reinforced concrete; polar night, depressing effect on the psyche; the inability to start a fire and generally keep warm; boulders, hidden, again, under the snow, and much, much more, it becomes clear, "why so long fiddling with some kind of little Finland." In the difficult business of breaking through the Mannerheim Line, heavy tanks played an important role for the first time. The USSR, represented by the Stalinist leadership, decided to create an ultra-powerful armored fist earlier than other countries. In the Finnish War, experimental samples, in particular the QMS, took part. On December 17, trying to overcome the Khottinen fortified area, one of them, at the disposal of the 20th Brigade, was blown up on an anti-tank mine. The crew did not suffer losses, but was forced to leave the car. This was one of the first cases of the use of new weapons.
Heavy tank as a reflection of Soviet military doctrine
In the military industry, nothing is done for nothing. It is difficult to imagine a situation in which JV Stalin calls the designers of armored vehicles and, puffing his pipe, tells them: “And make me a heavy tank. I really want this. I have such a whim ... ". In this case, no state will have enough funds to carry out the most urgent tasks of protecting its borders. No, all the tasks that were assigned to specialists in the Kremlin were justified.
Designing a combat vehicle that meets modern requirements for assault weapons began in early 1939, following the decision of the State Defense Committee, adopted in December 1938. According to the military doctrine of the USSR, military operations in the event of a probable (and expected) war were to take place on the territory of the enemy in the conditions of his stubborn opposition at the initial stage. This nature of the conflict required certain technical means, in connection with this, the designers were given the corresponding TK. It was understood that through wide gaps in the defensive lines, large formations, equipped with light BT high-speed tanks capable of moving on roads at high speed, would move forward. In such a likely scenario, under the condition of complete air supremacy, victory was guaranteed with minimal losses.
The beginning of design work
J. Y. Kotin, general designer of the Kirov Leningrad plant, led the design of the SMK tank. The title commemorates the recently murdered leader, leader of the cradle of the revolution party organization. Another machine was developed under the direction of A. S. Ermolaev at the neighboring factory No. 185, it was called the T-100. The design idea of those years was multidirectional, in particular, one of the main directions was a multi-tower scheme, in which the fire sector could be circular. At the QMS, the weight turned out to be too large, and instead of three towers it was decided to install two on it in order to improve driving performance and booking.
However, shortly after the start of design work, a group of graduate students of VAMM (Military Academy of Mechanization and Motorization) named after Stalin, led by N.F. Shashmurin, proposed to go further: remove another tower (which young specialists considered unnecessary), install a diesel engine instead of a carburetor engine and reduce the running gear by two rollers. In fact, the team intuitively came to a scheme that has become classic for many decades, ahead of all foreign colleagues who accepted this idea only in the fifties.
So the Soviet tank KV-1 was born.
From drawings to metal
The lead designer N.L.Dukhov was assigned to bring the single-turret tank. Reminding that in the Stalin years it was dangerous to procrastinate, today no one needs. Any delay could cause a change of work to a less prestigious one, in a quilted jacket and with a saw or ax. The chief designer of the KV tank, Comrade Spirits, coped with the task. Already by August, the heavy KV and SMK tanks were ready and presented to the state commission, and in September the Kubinka training ground shook from the roar of engines during the demonstration of new samples. Equally promptly, they were accepted into service, there was already a "liberation campaign" in Finland, and this technique was extremely necessary. The designers were interested in the effectiveness of the development. The Klim Voroshilov tank went into battle.
How did the KV-2
The Mannerheim Line was thoroughly strengthened. Unlike the French Maginot, it rested its edges on the coast (in the west to the Gulf of Finland, in the east to Ladoga), and it was impossible to get around it. Fortifications were built competently, with a high degree of autonomy and all the necessary infrastructure for defense. In general, the KV heavy tank proved to be good, but 76 mm guns were clearly not enough to destroy reinforced concrete structures covered with a layer of soil. Something more effective was required, for example, a 152-mm howitzer, which was already in service, though for its transportation a powerful tractor tractor was needed. Leningrad designers were given a new task: to connect two important elements, a huge cannon and a caterpillar undercarriage, and also provide reliable protection for the crew with gun crew. This is how the KV-2, a hammer-thrust tank, was designed to crush any fortifications.
In the interwar period
The Finnish war, although it was bloody, ended quickly, but, despite this, the production of heavy vehicles, including the siege type, continued. Since February 1940, the Klim Voroshilov tank was launched in two versions with a series at the LKZ (Leningrad Kirov Plant), and starting in June at the ChTZ (Chelyabinsk Plant, called the Tractor Plant). The enthusiasm in those years was extremely high, the first HF Ural assemblies left the workshop soon, and a separate building was built to build capacity, the dimensions of which suggested very great possibilities. Design teams did not stop work, continuing to improve technical indicators and eliminate deficiencies identified during the fighting. In the autumn of the fortieth, two new models were supposed to appear with armor reinforced up to 90 mm with more powerful artillery weapons (85 mm, a caliber that tankers of the rest of the world could not even dream of). By the end of the year, another giant was planned, this time with 100 mm protection. These machines were secret developments, they were called objects 220, 221 and 222. That no one knew ...
Comparison with a likely adversary
In 1941, it was planned to manufacture 1,200 heavy vehicles, in particular KV-1 - 400, KV-2 - 100 (it had a very specific function, and the need for it was lower), and KV-3 - as many as 500 pieces. And this is only in Leningrad! ChTZ was supposed to give another 200 units. In 1949, the KV-1 heavy tank and the KV-2 superheavy were also produced, and in considerable numbers (243). In total, there were 636 of them in the arsenal of the Red Army. Is this a lot or a little? Soviet historians, explaining the causes of the disaster in the summer of 1941, expressed the opinion that we did not have enough modern tanks . At the same time, they forgot to mention that the Wehrmacht crossed the USSR border, having at its disposal a little more than three thousand tanks, and all of them, without exception, were light. Moreover, it is extremely difficult to name them new. The European Blitzkrieg was, of course, a fun walk, but the engine doesn’t care, it wears out even when driving on a very good autobahn. Machines captured in France and Czechoslovakia also could not be compared to even our light BT. Romania, an ally of Nazi Germany, was armed with the Renault 17 (17 is the year of manufacture, 1917), in the USSR there were 2 of these, they were in museums.
And yet, it's time to remember that in the Soviet Union not only heavy tanks were produced. There were also medium ones, T-34s, the best in the world, and they were built very actively. And light, they produced unprecedented circulations. Both in armament, and in armor protection, and in the characteristics of engines (mainly, by the way, diesel, B-2, which no one else in the world could ever repeat during the whole war) they exceeded Wehrmacht equipment. The Soviet KV tank as of mid-1941 had no analogues at all.
Design
At the time of the creation of the first prototypes, the capabilities of Soviet tank plants allowed the use of the most advanced technologies. We didn’t even talk about any riveted joints, the case was made by a welded method. The same applied to the gun turret, which was further improved using the casting method. The thickness of the armor plates was 75 mm. The modification capabilities of the design made it possible to further increase protection to 105 mm due to the installation of additional armored screens on bolts, but in 1941 not a single German side gun could hit the KV-1 tank without it.
The general scheme was classic for Soviet armored vehicles of the second half of the thirties (later accepted as a model by engineers around the world): a rear transmission that excludes a cardan shaft, inclined armoring, a powerful diesel engine and a 76-mm gun (L-11, F-32, and later ZIS -5).
Chassis
The V-2K engine was the heart of this car, its power was 500 horsepower at a rotation speed of 1800 r / s. The multi-disk friction transmission had structural defects, it often failed, because it was not designed for the efforts needed to change the speed of such a heavy machine as the KV tank (its mass exceeded 47 tons), especially in the first two gears (there were 5 in total).
The basis of the chassis was an individual torsion bar suspension for relatively small road wheels (there were six on each side). Sagging tracks were eliminated by additional supporting rollers, three for each. Until 1942, they were covered with rubber to reduce noise, but due to a shortage of materials, this “luxury” had to be abandoned. Caterpillars made wide (700 mm) to reduce the specific load on the ground.
Armament
The experience of operations against a desperate enemy, ready to go against a tank with a Molotov cocktail bottle , set a new demand - the possibility of creating a defensive fire curtain. To solve this problem, the machine was equipped with three machine gun points, one of which was directed back to protect the engine compartment. Another machine gun was a turret, he covered from an attack from the air. The free internal space was ergonomically filled with ammunition sufficient for a long, grueling battle (135 shells and 2770 rounds). The accuracy of the shooting was ensured by optical equipment consisting of sights (TOD-6 telescopic, PT-6 periscopic). The commander’s panorama provided a good overview. Five people were in the tank according to the combat schedule, they could communicate using the intercom, and external communication was provided by the 71-TK-3 or YuR radio.
Almost 48-ton colossus could reach speeds of 34 km / h and had a motor resource of 250 km. This is a lot.
At the beginning of the great war
It is well known that the war began in extremely unfavorable conditions for the USSR. On the one hand, various intelligence sources warned of the Nazi attack, on the other hand, it was extremely illogical. If the rate was known about the concentration of German troops, the Wehrmacht’s unpreparedness for military operations against the Soviet Union, consisting in the absence of warm uniforms and frost-resistant fuel and lubricants, was not a secret for it. However, Hitler ordered an attack on our borders, and a huge number of Soviet military stocks were destroyed or captured by the aggressor. The KV tank caused a real shock, both among the German command and among the soldiers on the Eastern Front. The very presence of such a monster in the enemy, despite the successful advance into the USSR, caused a vague feeling of his own technological backwardness. With amazement, the Germans examined the KV-2 huge self-propelled howitzers they captured and learned that in the neighboring sections one KV-1 tank was holding back the superior forces of the advancing battalions. Another issue was the poor performance of these monsters in defensive battles. If during the offensive it is necessary to “smoke” the enemy from the trenches, then the hinged trajectory of the projectile is just what you need. Fire falls on the heads of soldiers sitting in shelters right from the sky, and there is nowhere to hide. But when repelling an attack, you need a flat trajectory to mow the advancing chains and smash equipment. Both light and heavy tanks proved useless. The USSR was not ready for defense.
Wehrmacht military experts, of course, understood what the captured equipment was intended for. Her study, in addition to understanding the power of the Soviet defense industry, made it possible to draw other conclusions. He confirmed Stalin's intention to strike at Germany and the KV tank. Goebbels propaganda also used photos of damaged armored siege weapons as evidence of the Bolsheviks' aggressive intentions. The Wehrmacht used some captured vehicles for its own needs.
Light BT and other offensive vehicles were soon discontinued as unnecessary in the current situation. The same fate befell the armored 152 mm howitzers. It seemed that such a fate would befall all Klima Voroshilov. But history decreed otherwise. Despite the fact that the KV series tanks were inferior to the T-34 in almost all respects, their production continued even in besieged Leningrad. For obvious reasons, it was impossible to reconstruct the technological cycle here, and the front demanded armored vehicles, so that the production of vehicles was not only not curtailed, but even increased by connecting the Metal and Izhora plants. The same thing happened in the “Tankograd” of the city of Chelyabinsk. There were difficulties with the V-2 engines: the main production facilities were located in Kharkov before the war, and the Nazis occupied it. They got out of this difficulty by installing M-17 gasoline engines, which, of course, reduced the combat capabilities of the equipment.
“C” means “fast”
Despite the fact that the modern nature of hostilities implied the abandonment of low-speed armored vehicles, the history of the KV-1 tank did not end. With many shortcomings of this car, it also had obvious advantages, such as good protection and high passability. The low speed characteristic of siege equipment made us attempt to adapt the characteristics of Klimov to the conditions of modern maneuverable combat. So the KV-1C tank appeared, the mass of which decreased to 42.5 tons. This "lightness" was achieved by thinning the armor, narrowing the tracks and reducing the ammunition load to 94 shells (later 114). We took into account the claims of front-line soldiers to the gearbox, it was replaced with a more perfect one. The medium tank still did not work, the T-34 weighed a little more than 30 tons, and with the same power plant it was much more maneuverable. And the letter “C” added to the name meant “fast”.
Other modifications
In August 1942, the unit received a new model of armored vehicles, the KV-85 tank. It was a deep modification of the same KV-1C, the difference was in the caliber of the turret gun (the DT-5 gun, as their names are clear, it was 85 mm), reducing the crew to four people (the radio operator was unnecessary), cutting ammunition while maintaining the same chassis. The tower was cast.
There were other attempts to use the good sides of HF. Self-propelled guns were built on their basis, tracked "armored trains" were created, armed with two or more guns of different calibers (KV-7), 122-mm howitzers U-11. After the victory near Moscow, it became clear that a counteroffensive was inevitable, and again samples of offensive weapons were required. The KV-8 tank was very similar in appearance to the prototype, and even its silhouette was imitated due to the special decoration depicting the artillery barrel, but it was flamethrower. The gun was also installed in the tower, a modest “forty-five” modem at that time.
And there were other types of auxiliary equipment based on the HF chassis: tow trucks from the battlefield of damaged vehicles and tractors.
HF and Tiger
The fate of the KV tank was historically not very successful. In the first half of the war, it was not in great demand, a completely different equipment was needed, and by the time the Soviet troops launched a decisive offensive, it was outdated. New heavy IS tanks appeared, the characteristics of which corresponded to the qualities of HF, as the political weight of Joseph Stalin exceeded the influence in the political bureau of the “first red officer”.
At the turn of 1942 and 1943, the Germans appeared "Tiger". This machine was extremely slow and heavy, its chassis was even less reliable than the KV, but the 88-mm gun gave him the opportunity to hit powerfully armored targets at distances that did not allow return fire. In February 1943, 10 KV-1s were killed in one day near Leningrad, which shot three Tigers from afar with impunity. Since 1943, their production has been curtailed.
The KV tanks nevertheless made their contribution to the Victory cause, and many monuments erected in honor of our tankmen in many cities through which the fire shaft of battles rolled through confirm this. They once reminded menacing cars of the feat of the home front workers who forged the winners' sword and selflessly brought our bright holiday closer.