Clearwater Models: KV-85 TANK (Ogonek)

This is the giant 1:30 scale model of the Kliment Voroshilov KV-85 tank from the Московский Завод Пластмассовых игрушек "Огонек" Moscow Plastic Toy Factory "Spark" in the USSR, circa 1975. It was purchased from the John Gil memorial sale 22 August 2020.

Although the kit is 45 years old, and a somewhat rough production from a Soviet toy factory, it is well designed and made. After 45 years the rubber tracks are still in perfect condition. The only annoying aspect was that the sole alignment pin (on the nose glacis plate) is off by about 1 mm, and had to be removed after an ill-timed gluing. The giant beast is just over a quarter metre long. I added a hand-made real wound steel tow cable, and fuel lines to the four external fuel tanks. I also replaced the machine gun barrels with better rod. One of the railings around the turret was broken and missing half, so a new one was built as were all the attachment points. A log and chains were added to the rear, as were fabric packs and a duffel roll.

Wiki says: "The KV tanks is a series of Soviet heavy tanks named after the Soviet defence commissar and politician Kliment Voroshilov The German Wehrmacht at that time (early in the war) rarely deployed its tanks against KVs, as their own armament was too poor to deal with the "Russischer Koloss" – "Russian Colossus". A stopgap upgrade to the KV series was the short-lived KV-85 or Objekt 239. This was a KV-1S with the new turret from the Object 237 (IS-85) still in development, mounting the same 85 mm D-5T gun as the SU-85 and early versions of the T-34-85 (not yet in production at the time). The 85 mm proved capable of penetrating the Tiger I from 1000 m and the demand for it slowed production of the KV-85 tremendously (only 148 were built in the end). The KV-85 appeared on the front beginning in September 1943 and its production ended by December 1943. Soviet industry was therefore able to produce a heavy tank as well armed as the Tiger I before the end of 1943. Although the KV-85 was an excellent opponent to the Tigers and Panthers, it was a stopgap and thus was built in small numbers. The complete Object 237 was accepted into service as the IS-85 and was produced in the autumn and winter of 1943-44; they were sent to the front as of October 1943 and production of the IS-85/IS-1 was stopped by the spring of 1944 once the IS-122/IS-2 entered full-scale production. A few KV-85s were used in Crimea in the summer of 1944."

The Online Tank Museum says "The KV-85 had the same engine as its predecessors and weighed 46 tons, with armour thickness of 60 mm in (hull), 75 mm in (frontal glacis), to 100-110 mm in (turret front, sides and rear). Top speed was around 40 km/h and range 250 km. The D-5T gun was a shorter derivative of the original 85 mm AA gun (792 m/s muzzle velocity) and was considered an absolute killer. However, it was much cheaper to make, and a lot less technically impressive."

Overall this was a fun build in a rather large scale. There is so much room for you to do anything you want to customize it. I suspect tens of thousands of children had a blast with this model during the last 15 years of the USSR. For me this was a fun Covid-19 project.

Paints are all Vallejo acrylics along with Vallejo powders and washes.