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The KV-4 (Object 224) was a proposed Soviet heavy break-through tank, developed during World War II as a part of the Kliment Voroshilov tank design series.
| | This article needs additional citations for verification .(October 2011) |
The KV-4 (Object 224) was a proposed Soviet heavy break-through tank, developed during World War II as a part of the Kliment Voroshilov tank design series.
In early 1941, Soviet intelligence reported on the production of new German heavy tanks. Prior to the start of Operation Barbarossa, the main heavy tank in service in the Red Army was the KV-1, which armour was, at the time, impenetrable by any tank-mounted weapon then in service. However, this new report caused alarm within the Soviet high command, and thus they decided to work on the design of a new heavy tank destined to counter the new threat.
In the spring of 1941 the director of the Kirov Plant (LKZ) was instructed by a decree of the NKO of the USSR to work on a design of a new tank with two guns, 125-130 mm armor of the frontal part of the hull. This new tank was intended to use the new 107mm ZiS-6 gun which was being developed at Plant #92, and the 45mm 20-K gun as a secondary armament
Since there was no experience of such work at the Kirov plant, in April 1941 the head of SKB-2 Zh. Kotin involved almost all the engineers of his design bureau in the design of this tank and put it on a competitive basis. Sources differ as to the designers involved in the project, but there were about 20 different design proposals, each with varying solutions for the positions of the guns, turrets and hull mountings, armour and overall weight.
Basic armour was to be 125 to 130 mm and up to 150 mm over vulnerable areas. The lightest design was 82.5 tonnes and the heaviest was 107.7 tonnes. All had a 107mm ZiS-6 main gun and all but one had a second tank gun. Different variants had various auxiliary weapons: 45 mm 20-K guns, 76 mm cannons, machineguns and flamethrowers in addition to the main gun. Crew requirements were from 5 to 9 men. [1]
The F-42 107 mm tank gun was created in Plant #92, in a design bureau under the supervision of V. Grabin. The F-42 was based on the F-39 95 mm tank gun (see 107mm divisional gun) and it was finished in the autumn of 1940. By the beginning of 1941, the new gun had been factory tested in a field casemate. In March 1941 it was tested in the turret of a KV-2 tank. The ZiS-6 gun passed factory testing by June 1941, after which it was sent to the Artillery Scientific Test Range at Leningrad.
According to V. Grabin ("Oruzhie Pobedy" - "Weapons of Victory") about 600 ZiS-6 guns had been finished by the autumn of 1941. Those guns were all destroyed because the tanks were never going to be made. The plants chief designer wrote that "five serially-produced ZiS-6 cannons were manufactured in July–August 1941, after which their production was halted because the heavy tanks were not ready". Those documents had been signed by V. Grabin. [1]
The project was cancelled due to the outbreak of the war. In June 1941, all work on the KV-4 was curtailed in favor of the KV-5, which was being designed in parallel and was deemed more feasible. However, all the capacities of LKZ and ChTZ were directed to the construction of serial KV and T-34 tanks, so no prototypes of the KV-4 or KV-5 were built, and they remained only in blueprints.
The IS tanks were a series of heavy tanks developed as a successor to the KV-series by the Soviet Union during World War II. The IS acronym is the anglicized initialism of Joseph Stalin. The heavy tanks were designed as a response to the capture of a German Tiger I in 1943. They were mainly designed as breakthrough tanks, firing a heavy high-explosive shell that was useful against entrenchments and bunkers. The IS-2 went into service in April 1944 and was used as a spearhead by the Red Army in the final stage of the Battle of Berlin. The IS-3 served on the Chinese-Soviet border, the Hungarian Revolution, the Prague Spring and on both sides of the Six-Day War. The series eventually culminated in the T-10 heavy tank.
The Kliment Voroshilov (KV) tanks are a series of Soviet heavy tanks named after the Soviet defence commissar and politician Kliment Voroshilov who operated with the Red Army during World War II. The KV tanks were known for their heavy armour protection during the early stages of the war, especially during the first year of the German invasion of the Soviet Union. In certain situations, even a single KV-1 or KV-2 supported by infantry could halt German formations. The German Wehrmacht at that time rarely deployed its tanks against KVs, as their own armament was too poor to deal with the "Russischer Koloss" – "Russian Colossus".
The T-28 was a Soviet multi-turreted medium tank. The prototype was completed in 1931, and production began in late 1932. It was an infantry support tank intended to break through fortified defences. The T-28 was designed to complement the heavier T-35, with which it shared turret designs. The type did not have great success in combat, but it played an important role as a development project for Soviet tank designers. A series of new ideas and solutions that were tried out on the T-28 were later incorporated in future models.
The T-35 was a Soviet multi-turreted heavy tank of the interwar period and early Second World War that saw limited production and service with the Red Army. Often called a land battleship, it was the only five-turreted heavy tank in the world to reach production, but proved to be slow and mechanically unreliable. Most of the T-35 tanks still operational at the time of Operation Barbarossa were lost due to mechanical failure rather than enemy action. It was designed to complement the contemporary T-28 medium tank; however, very few were built.
The Panzer II is the common name used for a family of German tanks used in World War II. The official German designation was Panzerkampfwagen II.
The SU-152 is a Soviet self-propelled heavy howitzer used during World War II.
The T-44 is a medium tank first developed and produced near the end of World War II by the Soviet Union. It was the successor to the T-34, offering an improved ride and cross-country performance, along with much greater armor. Designed to be equipped with an 85 mm main gun, by the time it was fully tested the T-34 had also moved to this weapon. Both tanks offered similar performance, so introducing the T-44 was not considered as important as increasing T-34 production. Fewer than 2,000 T-44s were built, compared to about 58,000 T-34s. Although the T-44 was available by the end of the war, it was not used in any battle. It was 1 ton lighter than the T-34-85 and slightly faster. The T-44 was heavily influential on the design of the T-54/55 main battle tank, most notably the removal of side sloping, thick frontal armor, and a low profile. Also notable was the T-44-100, a 100 mm D-10T-armed prototype, which would be the same 100 mm gun mounted on the T-54/55, bar some minor changes.
The 76-mm divisional gun M1942 (ZiS-3) was a Soviet 76.2 mm divisional field gun used during World War II. ZiS was a factory designation and stood for Zavod imeni Stalina, the honorific title of Artillery Factory No. 92, which first constructed this gun.
The T-60 scout tank was a light tank produced by the Soviet Union from 1941 to 1942. During this period, 6,292 units were built. The tank was designed to replace the obsolete T-38 amphibious scout tank and saw action during World War II. The Kingdom of Romania had used the T-60 chassis to build some locally-designed tank destroyers.
The ZiS-2 is a Soviet 57 mm anti-tank gun used during World War II. The ZiS-4 is a version of the gun that was meant to be installed in tanks. ZiS stands for Zavod imeni Stalina, the official title of Artillery Factory No. 92, which produced the gun first.
The 76 mm tank gun M1940 F-34 was a 76.2 mm Soviet tank gun used on the T-34/76 tank. A modified version of the gun, the 76 mm tank gun M1941 ZiS-5, was used on KV-1 tanks during World War II. Nowadays, the two versions are often referred to just by their factory designations, as "F-34" and "ZiS-5", respectively.
The 76-mm divisional gun M1939 was a 76.2 mm cannon produced in the Soviet Union. It was adopted for Red Army service in 1939 and used extensively in World War II. The gun was designated as "divisional" - issued to batteries under the direct control of division headquarters. The F-22 USV was an intermediate model, coming between the F-22, which had limited anti-aircraft capability, and the simpler and cheaper ZiS-3, which eventually replaced it in production and service.
The 85 mm air defense gun M1939 (52-K) was an 85 mm (3.3 in) Soviet anti-aircraft gun, developed under guidance of leading Soviet designers M. N. Loginov and G. D. Dorokhin. This gun was successfully used throughout the German-Soviet War against level bombers and other high- and medium-altitude targets. In emergencies they were utilized as powerful anti-tank weapons. The barrel of the 52-K was the basis for the family of 85-mm Soviet tank guns. After the war some 52-Ks were refitted for peaceful purposes as anti-avalanche guns in mountainous terrain.
A super-heavy tank or super heavy tank is any tank that is notably beyond the standard of the class heavy tank in either size or weight relative to contemporary vehicles.
OKMO was the tank design team in the Soviet Union during the early 1930s. Located in Leningrad, it produced the design of the T-26 infantry tank, of which about 12,000 would be produced. Most other designs from the bureau never saw the light of day, but it was here that Mikhail Koshkin, designer of the famous T-34 medium tank gained his early experience. The bureau was gutted in the Great Purge and broken up by the beginning of the Second World War.
The T-100 was a Soviet twin-turreted heavy tank prototype, designed in 1938–39 as a possible replacement for the T-35 heavy tank. The T-100 was designed by N. Barykov's OKMO design team at S.M. Kirov Factory No. 185 in Leningrad. The T-100 was originally conceived with three turrets and was eventually built with two. It was in competition with a similar design - the SMK - but neither were adopted and instead a single turret version of the SMK was ordered as the KV-1. All three prototypes were tested at the same time in the Battle of Summa during the Winter War with Finland.
The SMK was an armored vehicle prototype developed by the Soviet Union prior to the Second World War. It was named after Sergei Mironovich Kirov, a Communist Party official assassinated in 1934. The SMK was discovered and classified by German intelligence as the T-35C, leading to the misunderstanding that the T-35 took part in the Winter War.
The L-11 76.2 mm tank gun was a Soviet tank gun, used on the earliest models of the T-34 Model 1940 medium tank and KV-1 Model 1939 heavy tank during World War II.
The Tiger I was a German heavy tank of World War II that operated beginning in 1942 in Africa and in the Soviet Union, usually in independent heavy tank battalions. It gave the German Army its first armoured fighting vehicle that mounted the 8.8 cm KwK 36 gun. 1,347 were built between August 1942 and August 1944. After August 1944, production of the Tiger I was phased out in favour of the Tiger II.
The IS-2 is a Soviet heavy tank, the first of the IS tank series named after the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. It was developed and saw combat during World War II, and saw service in other Soviet allied countries after the war.
Tanks of the First World War | |
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| Light | |
| Medium | |
| Heavy | |
| Prototypes, experimentals | |
| In service | |
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| Experimental, prototypes | |
