The Second World War showed the world a huge number of different tanks, some of them went down in history forever, creating a real historical and cultural code, familiar to almost everyone. Tanks such as the Soviet T-34 medium tank, the German Tiger heavy tank or the American Sherman medium tank are widely known today and can often be seen in documentaries, in films or read about them in books. At the same time, before and during the Second World War, a huge number of tanks were created, which remained, as it were, behind the scenes, although they also personified examples of the development of tank building in different countries, albeit not always successful.
Let's start our series of articles on little-known tanks of that period with the Soviet heavy tank KV-85, which was released in 1943 in a small series of 148 combat vehicles. We can say that this tank was created in a hurry, as a response to the appearance of new heavy Tiger tanks in Germany. Despite the relatively small series, the KV-85 tanks were actively used in hostilities in 1943-1944, until the complete retirement from the Red Army units. All tanks sent to the front were irretrievably lost in battles or written off due to irreparable breakdowns and malfunctions. Only one fully authentic KV-85 has survived to this day.
The name of the KV-85 tank is quite informative, we have a version of the Soviet heavy tank "Klim Voroshilov" with a new main armament - an 85-mm tank gun. This heavy tank was created by specialists from the Design Bureau of Experimental Plant No. 100 in May-July 1943. Already on August 8, 1943, a new combat vehicle was adopted by the Red Army, after which the tank was launched into mass production at the Chelyabinsk Kirov Plant. The production of this model was carried out in Chelyabinsk until October 1943, when on the assembly line it was replaced by a more advanced heavy tank IS-1, which, by the way, was produced in an even smaller series - only 107 tanks.
The KV-85 was a response to the appearance of the new German Tiger and Panther tanks on the battlefield. By the summer of 1943, the KV-1 and KV-1s were already morally obsolete, primarily due to their weak armament, the 76-mm tank gun could no longer cope with the new German tanks. It did not penetrate the Tiger in the forehead, it was possible to confidently hit a German heavy tank only on the sides of the hull or stern and from very short distances - 200 meters, while the Tiger could calmly shoot KV tanks at all distances of the tank battle of those years … At the same time, one should not assume that the idea of equipping Soviet tanks with more powerful weapons appeared only in 1943. Even before the start of the war in 1939, the first attempts were made to arm tanks with more powerful guns of 85-95 mm caliber, but with the beginning of the war, such work was temporarily stopped, and the guns themselves at that time seemed excessively powerful. The fact that the cost of 85-mm guns and shells for them was higher than that of the standard 76-mm also played a role.
However, by 1943, the issue of rearmament of Soviet armored vehicles was finally ripe, requiring urgent decisions from the designers. The fact that the army's need for new tanks was enormous is evidenced by the fact that the KV-85 was adopted by the Red Army on August 8, 1943, even before the end of the full cycle of its tests. Then in August, the tank was put into mass production. The prototype of the tank was built at Experimental Plant No. 100 using the chassis of the KV-1s tank and the turret from the unfinished IS-85, the rest of the tanks were produced by ChKZ. When assembling the first combat vehicles, the accumulated backlog of armored hulls for the KV-1s tank was used, therefore, cutouts were made in the turret box for the extended shoulder strap of the tower, and the holes for the ball mount of the course machine gun had to be welded. For tanks of subsequent series, all the necessary changes were made to the design of the armored hull.
At the same time, the KV-85 heavy tank was initially considered as a transitional model between the KV-1s tank and the new IS-1 tank. From the first, he fully borrowed the chassis and most of the parts of the armored hull, from the second - a turret with a new gun. The changes concerned only the armored parts of the turret platform - for the KV-85 tank they were made anew to accommodate a new and more overall tower compared to the heavy KV-1s tank with a shoulder strap of 1800 mm. The KV-85 had a classic layout, which was typical for all serial Soviet medium and heavy tanks of those years. The hull of the tank was sequentially divided from bow to stern into a control compartment, a fighting compartment and an engine-transmission compartment (MTO). The tank driver was located in the control compartment, and the other three crew members in the fighting compartment, which united the turret and the middle part of the armored hull. Here, in the fighting compartment, there was ammunition and a gun, as well as part of the fuel tanks. The transmission and engine - the famous V-2K diesel engine - were placed in the rear of the tank in the MTO.
As a transitional tank, the KV-85 combined the advantages of the new, more spacious turret with the 85-mm cannon of the IS-1 tank, and the disadvantages of the undercarriage of the KV-1s tank. In addition, the KV-85 inherited from the last hull armor, which was insufficient for the second half of 1943 (the largest armor in the forehead - 75 mm, sides - 60 mm), which made it possible to provide acceptable protection only against the fire of German guns of caliber up to 75-mm. At the same time, the Pak 40, the most common German anti-tank gun at that time, was quite a sufficient means of successfully fighting the new Soviet tank, although with an increase in the distance and at some directional angles, the KV-85 was enough to protect against its shells. At the same time, the long-barreled 75-mm Panther cannon or any 88-mm gun easily penetrated the KV-85 hull armor at any distance and at any point. But the turret borrowed from the IS-1 tank, in comparison with the standard KV-1s turret, provided more reliable protection against artillery shells (gun mantlet - 100 mm, turret sides - 100 mm), also increasing the convenience of the tank crew.
The main advantage of the new KV-85, which made it stand out among all Soviet tanks of that time, was the new 85-mm D-5T cannon (before the launch of the IS-1 tank in serial production in November 1943). Previously tested on the SU-85 self-propelled artillery mounts, the D-5T tank gun was a really effective means of fighting even new German tanks, ensuring their defeat at a distance of up to 1000 meters. For comparison, the 76-mm ZIS-5 cannon, which was installed on the KV-1s tanks, was almost completely useless against the frontal armor of the heavy Tiger tank and could hardly hit it on the side at distances beyond 300 meters. Moreover, the increase in the caliber of the gun to 85-mm had a positive effect on the power of high-explosive fragmentation ammunition. This was especially important, since the KV-85 tanks were used in the Red Army as heavy breakthrough tanks. On the other hand, the practice of combat use has shown the need to further increase the caliber of heavy tanks to confidently defeat powerful enemy bunkers and bunkers.
The installation of a new, more powerful weapon on the tank required a change in the ammunition rack, the tank's ammunition was reduced to 70 shells. At the same time, instead of a frontal machine gun located in a ball mount to the right of the mechanic drive, a fixed course machine gun was installed on the KV-85 tanks. Unsighted fire from this machine gun was conducted by the mechanic drive itself, which made it possible to reduce the crew of the tank to four people, excluding the radio operator from the crew. At the same time, the radio moved to the place next to the tank commander.
The KV-85 became the first Soviet serial tank that could fight new German armored vehicles at distances of up to one kilometer, inclusive. This fact was appreciated by both the Soviet leaders and the tankers themselves. Despite the fact that the muzzle energy of the 85-mm D-5T gun in 300 t * m was superior to that of the Panther KwK 42 gun (205 t * m) and was not so much inferior to the Tiger KwK 36 cannon (368 t • m), the manufacturing quality of Soviet armor-piercing ammunition was lower than that of German shells, therefore, in terms of armor penetration, the D-5T was inferior to both of the above-mentioned guns. The conclusions of the Soviet command from the combat use of the new 85-mm tank gun were mixed: the effectiveness of the D-5T gun was not in doubt, but at the same time, it was noted that it was insufficient for arming heavy tanks, which were supposed to surpass similar enemy combat vehicles in this indicator. As a result, in the future, it was decided to equip the T-34 medium tanks with an 85-mm cannon, and new heavy tanks were to receive more powerful 100-mm or 122-mm guns.
Despite the fact that the KV-85 hull still allowed the placement of more powerful artillery systems, its modernization potential was fully exhausted. The designers of Plant No. 100 and ChKZ understood this even in relation to the KV-1S tank. This mainly concerned the impossibility of enhancing the armor of the tank and improving its engine-transmission group. For this reason, in light of the planned imminent launch of new tanks of the IS family, the KV-85 heavy tank was considered from the very beginning as a temporary solution to problems. Although the production process of the KV-1S tank (and then the KV-85) was perfectly fine-tuned at Soviet enterprises, the front needed new tanks with more powerful armor and weapons.
Organizationally, the KV-85 tanks entered service with the OGvTTP - separate guards heavy tank regiments. Tanks went to the front literally from the factory, they began to arrive in units already in September 1943. Each such regiment had 21 heavy tanks - 4 companies of 5 combat vehicles each plus one tank of the regiment commander. In addition to tanks, each regiment had in its composition several unarmored support and support vehicles - trucks, jeeps and motorcycles, the regular strength of the regiment was 214 people. The shortage of heavy SU-152 self-propelled guns in the frontal units led to the fact that in some cases KV-85 tanks could be regularly added to individual heavy self-propelled artillery regiments (OTSAP), where they replaced the missing self-propelled guns.
At about the same time, at the end of 1943 - beginning of 1944 (with some delay necessary for the formation of new units and sending them to the front), heavy KV-85 tanks entered the battle with the enemy, they were mainly used in the southern directions of the front. Somewhat inferior in their characteristics and capabilities to the new German heavy tanks, battles with the participation of the KV-85 went on with varying success, and the result of the confrontation with the enemy was largely determined by the training of tank crews. At the same time, the main purpose of the KV-85 at the front was not tank duels, but breaking through prepared enemy lines of defense, where the main danger was not the enemy's armored vehicles, but its anti-tank weapons, engineering and mine-explosive obstacles. Despite the insufficient booking for the end of 1943, the KV-85 tanks carried out their task, albeit at the cost of tangible losses. Intensive use at the front and a small volume of mass production led to the fact that by the fall of 1944 there were no KV-85 tanks left in combat units. This was caused by irrecoverable losses and write-off of faulty machines. Any mention of the combat use of the KV-85 tanks later than the autumn of 1944 has not survived to this day.
The performance characteristics of the KV-85:
Overall dimensions: body length - 6900 mm, width - 3250 mm, height - 2830 mm.
Combat weight - 46 tons.
The power plant is a V-2K 12-cylinder diesel engine with a capacity of 600 hp.
The maximum speed is 42 km / h (on the highway), 10-15 km / h on rough terrain.
Cruising range - 330 km (highway), 180 km (cross country).
Armament - 85-mm cannon D-5T and 3x7, 62-mm machine gun DT-29.
Ammunition - 70 shells.
Crew - 4 people.
