I suspect it will be like the Hungarian Tiger situation; albeit photos prove that at least one Tiger in Hungarian service had the applique track armor, I don’t believe the same can be said for the MG on the Klimi.
I will still hold out for a 4.7 BR, but at this point you might be correct about 5.0 unfortunately.
If it is 5.0 like ive been so upset about considering if its 4.7 its more than likely gonna be food. Same with a full uptier and even worse at 4.7 you dont get a lineup. At 5.0 it has a lineup but its trash and not worth using.
Im hoping to make a suggestion for our mystery KV since its unique and would actually fit around 3.7 though its no KV-1B replacement
Ill forgive gaijin if we dont get the KV-1B if we get the KV-2 instead
Soldiers beat the machine guns with iron rods until they were bent and couldn’t fire after the vehicle had gotten stuck. Eventually the comabt engineer placed a 30kg satchel charge on the back of the turret.
Hey if sweden can get a tiger 2 in the same condition finland can get a atomized KV-2
/s
Don’t forget about the armored variant
Wouldn’t make a big difference but a small boost to survival is better than none
Still no examples with only the extra turret armor, but I stumbled across a post with more images of this modification. The author claims they are 75mm plates installed on vehicles produced at the Leningrad Kirov Plant in St. Petersburg. Wouldn’t be all too suprising as Soviet factories in WW2 were known to produce their own individual deviations and subtypes of specific model tanks.
Photos
Yeah thanks, though the biggest problem im gonna have if the history of the vehicle it really isnt a whole lot which is the biggest reason i cant see it being accepted
https://www.jaegerplatoon.net/TANKS7.htm
Only place ive seen which mentions the photo outside of a few other sites featuring the photographers other photos by Military official A. Viitasalo.
It isn’t in Finnish archives by chance?
Mm not entirely sure, my finnish is to put it bluntly quite shit lol. Thought the biggest clues we have is the date, the company who dealt with the vehicle, and the photos of it.
KV-1 knocked out by 26th (Antitank) Gun Company in 5th of September 1941 in Aleksandrovka in Carelian Isthmus. Captured 45-mm antitank-guns used by the Gun Company proved ineffective against this tank, but satchel charge broke its track and allowed Finnish Army to capture the tank. Series of archive photographs shows that by the time the tank was photographed its track had been repaired, but the tank was also equipped with demolition charge in case of counter attack. Since the tank never made into Finnish inventory, it was probably blown up. Photographed by Military official A. Viitasalo.
SA Kuva seems to have the photos, but nothing that isn’t already known, however, I found a livejournal post with more information and photos that I believe you may find useful.
Too much to put in a post here so I will just link it.
That definitely is our mystery tank but now the question comes down to why repair the tank only to destroy it? Seems like they may have tried repairing the track to potentially get it to move then only realized something else was wrong and decided to destroy it? Seems odd but this is the most insight ive seen on it.
Indeed it is a conundrum, and the livejournal author seems unknowledgable of the reasons behind this. They suggest that it could’ve simply been for propaganda, or to prevent the Russians from immediately putting it back into service if it was ever recaptured.
The tow cables indicate there was an active attempt to capture it, so it may have been damaged once that plan was deamed unfeasible.
I assume it must’ve been damaged more than they suspected. That or the vehicle brought it to move it were unable. Regardless it seems kinda wastful to go through the effort of fixing the track without checking the rest of the vehicle out and to see if the satchel had broken something else.
I suppose our two sources contrast then. Yours presumably claims that attempts to tow the tank happened after the track was destroyed via the satchel charge and subsequently repaired. The livejournal I provided claims the opposite, that the satchel was detonated after attempts to tow it failed.
Not entirely FINNISH ARMY 1918 - 1945: KV-1 and PzKw IVJ TANKS
They claim this “KV-1 knocked out by 26th (Antitank) Gun Company in 5th of September 1941 in Aleksandrovka in Carelian Isthmus. Captured 45-mm antitank-guns used by the Gun Company proved ineffective against this tank, but satchel charge broke its track and allowed Finnish Army to capture the tank. Series of archive photographs shows that by the time the tank was photographed its track had been repaired, but the tank was also equipped with demolition charge in case of counter attack. Since the tank never made into Finnish inventory, it was probably blown up. Photographed by Military official A. Viitasalo.”
They state that a satchel was planted to stop the vehicle which is why the Soviets abandoned it as per your source. Duing the night the crew fled on the 7th. So 2 days or so if i was reading the dates. Of which the fins repaired the track and then couldn’t move the vehicle at which point the vehicle was destroyed possibly to prevent capture. Makes sense, they nay not jave had the materials to reciver the vehicle as per their orders and thus destroyed it instead.
Well here is a photo of explosives nestled in between the front rollers. Obviously it can’t be the initial disabling satchel charge because nobody would have taken a photo like this one in the middle of combat.
We have to assume that it’s the “booby trap”, which is what the caption under this image said when I found it. Issue is that the damage is consistent with the tank after the supposed first explosion, you can see the track guard damage and crater line up with the explosives in my photo.
So either the demolition charge prepared for the counterattack was detonated even when no attack happened, or there was no trap to begin with. Very confusing, but the only definite proof (images) just don’t line up with the story to me.
Yeah, comparing the vehicle it seems unlikely they wouldve placed explosives on it like in the photo while combat was happening. But it does seem they inspected the vehicle and planned on taking it. Regardless they ended up destroying it. My guess is that they were unequipped to recover the vehicle and decided to activate the charge before an attempt of recapture could occure.
The men shown here look to potentially be the ones who may have placed the charge as they are also seen here.
Additionally i see no vehicle tracks on any of the roads (aside from the KV’s) which to me tells me they either didn’t have any recovery vehicles or perhaps they didn’t bring them on to the roadm regardless other finnish documents puts the recovery of vehicles as a top priority for finnish forces as finland had a servere lack of armor. Especially after the Christie Battalion was disbanded due to the poor reception of the BT series.
Here is the one and only KV-1B before it was captured by finnish forces. Of course going by sources its most likely either or but as for the reasoning im more inclined to believe the finnish sources for why they attempted to recover the vehicle before ultimately giving up on it.
Good point about the demolition team, I did not realize their connection to the scene.
You seem to be correct about the lack of any tracks from recovery vehicles, considering that the tow ropes are clearly visible before the charges are detonated. Perhaps there was a change of mind or miscommunication that resulted in the ropes being applied before it was realized that no recovery teams would be available, or some other reason as to why the attempted towing failed.
Regardless, I think enough information has been uncovered that it may be possible to create a suggestion, if not before finding out which sources are actually correct of course. I’m gonna head out now, but I’ll probably return tomorrow if I happen to find anything else. At the very least I hope the images I found will be useful to you :)