KV-1 m1942 Revisited: some answers, some new Q's

[Denizen]

Several weeks ago I made a post stating that an up-armored 1942 model of the KV-1, the enigmatic "KV-1C" was left out of CMBB. Kwazydog quickly responded to say that there was no proof that the "KV-1C" ever existed. From then on I have been gathering as much information as possible to sort this issue out. This is what I found:

Despite references in many books to the Russians calling one of tanks in the KV series the "C" model, this is actually a misinterpretation of Cyrillic characters. It seems that many a ignorant westerner has seen a variant called (in Russian characters) "KB-1C". It just so happens that the "C" is actually the Cyrillic "S", so that these are actually references of the KV-1S!

I almost gave up my search when I found out this fact, but I still couldn't explain how a misinterpretation of language could cause so many armor experts to repeatedly put in print works that declared that a 120mm thick fully cast turret was put on a major production variant of the KV-1. At this point I became so frustrated that I dug out the smelly old books printed in the hotter days of the cold war, and to my surprise I discovered a very helpful quote from Colonel V D Mostovenko in John Milson's 32 year old work on Russia?s tanks: "...it was rather a complex task to make 7-ton turrets with a 100-120mm armor retaining high immunity. But this problem was successfully solved and as a result manufacture of turrets never limited tank output during the war"

Unfortunately I know not what context Mostovenko's words came from, nor how accurate his data is, but his statements suggests that at least one variety of tank in the war had a 120mm cast turret. Yet if the BFC figures are correct, not even the IS-2 had a turret casting greater than 100mm at the thickest parts. If a 120mm cast turret existed there would certainly be a photograph of it somewhere, but of course photos can only show the exterior. Even so, two distinctly different cast KV turrets dating to the months preceding the introduction of the KV-1S are photographically present, one having a curved back, the other having a curved back with four vertically angular corners and a thick armored ring around the rear turret MG. Although other Russian tanks from the period were built differently according to their production facility, the series KV was only built in one location, (tankograd) so it would seem that the factory had a good enough reason to change the turret design. Further examination of the turret in question showed that the turret that Steven Zaloga claims is 120mm thick looks identical to the cast turret of the experimental KV-9 of late 1941, which according to http://www.battlefield.ru/kv_exp.html is 135mm thick at the front! Could it be that the turret first intended for the KV-9 found its way to series production in 1942 on the KV-1. If so, doesn't this explain the "KV-1C" referred to in so many western sources? Is this the turret Mostvenko was talking about? And, if I am correct about this whole thing, shouldn't we see a KV-1 m 1942 in CMBB?????

:cool:

[ October 26, 2002, 03:13 AM: Message edited by: Denizen ]

[Denizen]

bump

[Amedeo]

While it's indeed true that a cyrillic "S" resembles a latin "C" (as in CCCP, that transliterated is SSSR), I think that no one ever claimed that the Soviets called a tank the KV-1C and I presume that the C designation stems from some German war intelligence designation, like those that tried to sort out variants of the T-34 and KV tanks by adding an alphabetical suffix to the tank name. Thus the 'German' designations like the T-34A, T-34B, T-34C etc. that were also used in some Western cold-war era sources)

I think this firstly, because the Soviet themselves didn't use any official sub-type identifier. The different versions in post-war sources are indicated as 'obraztsa' or 'vypuska' (that is 'of model...' or ' of production run...') followed by a year.

The fact that the C suffix could never be considered of Soviet origin is also proved by the fact that the actual Russian alphabetical order is rather A, B, V, G, D etc.

So I presume that the KV-1C 'myth' was created around some German mis-identification.

Regards,

Amedeo

[ October 26, 2002, 04:44 AM: Message edited by: Amedeo ]