KV Tank: The Impenetrable Soviet War Machine That Blocked The German Advance | Tanks! | War Stories

the KV tank symbolized the Iron Will of communist Russia to outproduce out armor and outgun the capitalist West during the second world war it proved its worth in the war against Finland and by 1941 it was the most powerful tank in the world the KVs robust design even forced German designers to come up with a tank strong enough to take it on by 1945 it had evolved from a brutal fighting machine to a war-winning [Music] weapon [Music] [Music] in the first half of the 20th century Russia transformed from a rural Backwater into an industrial Colossus which by 1941 had produced the world's most indestructible tank by the end of the second world war it had produced more tanks than Germany and the United States put together but Russia was a relative latecomer to tank design and production the Russians had no experience of tank warfare in the first world war the Eastern Front Wide Open Spaces Mass Cavalry was effective on the Eastern Front which it never could be on the Western Front so there was really no push towards mechanization on the Eastern front first time the Russians come up against tanks in any number is during the Russian Civil War 1919 onwards when the Bolsheviks who've seized power uh in 1917 are fighting the white Russians uh a mixture of menik and monarchists now the British the French and the Americans are supporting the white Russians and they Supply them with a number of Tanks the Bolsheviks capture some of them uh and use them now tanks were not crucial in the Russian Civil War they they really had very little effect armored cars and armored trains were far more important than than tanks but the idea was s but there's clearly a division here between Russian military professionals and those informed by Marxist leninist ideology and many of those informed by Marxist leninist ideology who had served with the first Cavalry Army who are were loyal to Stalin in his uh struggle with Trotsky people like Bui and vorov are people who are very much wedded to the idea still of Cavalry and mass infantry assault rather than use and application of armor during the 1920s Russia's military thinkers set about studying tactical Maneuvers in great depth by analyzing various military engagements such as the Great War they planned to outline how a war might be waged in the future their thinking led to the development of a theory which eventually became known as deep battle the Russians accepted that whatever form future War might take it would involve Wide Open Spaces the Deep battle concept which was the Russian idea of what future War might be was not dissimilar to little Hart's idea of the expanding torrent in England or the German version which was Blitz Greek essentially they are they are all the same what the Russians thought was that you would need a tank of some sort probably a heavy tank to support the Infantry and create breaches in the enemy defenses and then you would need a medium tank or a light tank to exploit those breaches what you would do is you would break through enemy defenses you would drive deep into enemy territory and then you would carve up your enemy so it's a very offensive concept it's a way of breaking down the trench lines of the first world war the Russians like it because they want to fight an offensive war and because they believe in independent mubile operations of the kind of Cavalry used in the Civil War and because they are very on Motorcars and vehicles of all kinds so they these things all come together and so in the early 1930s uh tukki who was the head of material for the Red Army becomes the main advocate of the deep battle concept and it's really adopted in 1932 33 as the main doctrine of the Red Army the Soviets knew that in order to defeat a capitalist Coalition they would need to modernize and equip their army with weapons and armor far superior to those of their enemy but Russia lacked the industry to equip a 20th century Army Stalin soon found a radical solution to this [Music] problem in 1928 Stalin introduced a drastic program to Kickstart production it was industrialization at a speed never witnessed nor attempted before Russia was defeated in the 1914 to 1918 War because it was backward It Was Defeated lots of other Wars because it was backward and trying to catch up with other states and Stalin's whole idea in the 30s is that Russia won't be backward anymore and it will have modern Armed Forces he's not alone in that because uh Russian governments really from the time of Peter the Great have been trying to catch up with the west and carry forward state sponsored modernization for military goals Stalin planned to use his position as leader to impose a harsh program of industrialization this would mean taking money away from his people and injecting it into his meager Army so improving military output called the 5-year plan this project would allow Russia the opportunity to modernize its army and eventually surpass the capitalist West as the 1930s beckon Russia stood on the brink of an industrial campaign of modernization the likes of which the world had never seen before whilst effectively starving his own people Stalin poured money into the development and production of military hardware in 1927 to 1932 uh Stalin carries out the first 5year plan and this first 5ye plan is about industrialization it's about steel mills it's about importing technology it's about uh building tractors uh it's about building uh cars and other kinds of vehicles it's about building aircraft it's also very much geared towards National Defense and when Stalin is trying to sell the idea of industrialization and to sell the idea of the fast pace of industrialization he justifies it on the grounds of economic modernization of the military Stalin has this very very strong view of socialism in one country the idea that capitalist countries are out to destroy the Soviet Union and this alternative Marxist leninist vision and so that's clearly something that in forms the ideologues and and and Stalin himself in terms of how he reacts in relation to Western Powers there's no question about that and I think armor is plays a part in all of this and and and and it certainly some much concerns the Soviet Union in terms of making sure that it has got a large armored force in 1931 an enormous tank building program was launched over the years that followed a number of heavy tanks were produced as Soviet designers experimented with different features the main heavy tank that emerged from Russia during the 1930s was the t26 a number was sent to Spain to help the Republican cause it was a baptism of fire and the experience marked a turning point for Russian tank Evolution the Spanish Civil War had a large impact on Soviet armored vehicle development it was here that they came up against the Germans for the first time uh the tanks were exposed to High Velocity anti-tank fire um first of all from the the small 37 mm anti-tank gun but increasingly towards the end of the conflict the Germans the Condor Legion started using the 88 mm gun as an anti-tank weapon as a result of this the um Russians soon realized that they would have to dramatically up armor and up arm their their vehicles and this started a race which they took far more seriously in fact than the Germans did so as a result of the experience of uh being in Spain tactically uh the Russians learn important lessons they have better armored tanks and they go for the diesel engine as a more reliable power source so you have a kind of paradox on the one hand uh the kind of operational lesson is the wrong one that you can't use tanks independently but technically they do produce better tanks as a result of what they learn in Spain but while Russian tanks were being put through their Paces in Spain Stalin embarked on an 18-month Campaign Of Terror that later became known as the purges the stronger the Red Army grew the more Stalin suspected it of harboring sist sympathizers who were plotting to overthrow him so Stalin drafted a list of supposed enemies and had them killed or sent to concentration camps discover the past with exclusive military history documentaries and AD free podcasts presented by world-renowned historians all on History hit watch them on your smart TV or on the go with your mobile device download the app now to watch everything from the gripping story of the Band of Brothers to operation Barbarosa and D-Day immerse yourself in the dramatic stories of this remarkable era by signing up via the link in the description the effect on the Red Army was devastating three of the five Marshals of the Soviet Union are made to disappear and of the core commanders these are Lieutenant generals and Generals 75 out of 85 of those senior officers are eliminated in in in really effectively 12 to 18 months uh at a divisional level over half of the divisional commanders are also uh essentially uh killed uh or in some cases and placed in gulags um some of those officers actually are going to be resurrected of course once the war with Germany begins and they're actually going to reappear again in 1941 and 1942 but not before as I say over half of the division offic officers are killed 75 out of 85 of the core commanders and three of the five Marshals of the Soviet Union those that are left from all levels from from General down to second Lieutenant are very careful about taking a decision themselves they're very careful about using their initiative they're very very careful about doing anything that might draw the unfavorable attention of the commissar and the party upon them so in a sense it stultifies the Russian army it brings their Professional Standards way and they suffered for it in 1941 Stalin's paranoia and subsequent purges had caused Great damage to the structure of his army and power base as a result he was left with a massive Armed Force but little Military Intelligence or confidence to back it [Music] up [Music] by the end of the 1930s Russian designers were experimenting with a number of heavy tank designs the experience of Soviet tanks in the Spanish Civil War had clearly demonstrated the weakness of their armor against German 37 mm anti-tank guns so in 1937 the directorate of armed forces issued a new specification further heavy tanks would have to be sufficiently armored to withstand fire from a 76.2 mm gun and be powered by a diesel engine several models were produced one of which was the KV the KV was named after clti voroshilov the Soviet people's commissar for defense it had a fiveman crew it mounted a 76.2 mm gun with three 7.62 mm machine guns its armor was up to 106 mm thick the KV was powered by a V2 diesel engine capable of 500 brake horsepower a range of 225 km and a top Road speed of 35 kmph the tank was 46 tons quite heavy and one of the drawbacks already was at the time that it couldn't keep up with the t-34s and that was a setback to it it had however quite a few Advanced Things Incorporated like where you like the uh torsion bar suspension and uh also had a compressed air starter but in general it was a bit long for its design and the steering was rather primitive and gave often trouble that was its weakest Ling really the steering system despite its low speed the kv1 used its Workhorse V2 diesel engine to great effect the V2 was an excellent engine it was simple it was easy to maintain and it had the great benefit of being diesel which meant that it was easier to start in the cold Russian Winters less problems with ignition less problems with damp but when you think about it that engine didn't really change very much right up until the late 60s the Russians were still using essentially that same engine on all their tanks by the late 1930s Stalin had become increasingly worried that Russia would be invaded from the West this fear was intensified by the fact that Leningrad with its population of 3 and A2 million was just 32 km from The Finnish border Stalin approached the Finnish government with requests including one to build a naval base all of which were refused so in November 1939 he ordered the invasion of Finland on paper the Red Army had an enormous Advantage outnumbering the small Finnish Force by more than 5 to one it was backed up by over 1 and a half thousand tanks a number of which were KVs yet the campaign turned into a complete disaster for Russia war in F is a rather strange War because it isn't really suited for the kind of independent operations which deep battle takes into account it's much more like the first world war than anything that will come later on and in particular there's a problem of getting through the manaheim line which is the line of finnished field fortifications between Leningrad and uh and Finland it's very hard to break through those those lines they got mines they anti-tank guns they've got concrete pill boxes and so on and so in a way the KV is suited for that more than it is suited for operations in the open steps of Ukraine or or even in in in B Russia uh because it's a a relatively slow tank but a very heavily armored one in order to successfully overrun The Finnish fortifications the Soviets knew their attack would need to be well concentrated and executed perfectly however the effect of Stalin's purges on the Red Army was also starting to show men were poorly trained and most of their tanks were not equipped to deal with the anti-tank guns and minefields of the manaheim line that is except for one now the KV tank is going to be one of the few success stories in relation to this war against Finland in the sense that it is uh very very effective against destroying Finnish uh entrenched positions and Finnish bunkers and does have a a a significant impact upon the battle but it's literally about the only Soviet success story in relation to to this conflict and in fact the Russians uh lose extensively in this conflict they lose uh uh hundreds of Tanks literally hundreds of Tanks uh their air power isn't effective because of course much of this fighting is north of the Arctic Circle and of course so much of the time of dark because it's north north of the Arctic Circle and therefore airp power can't be deployed and the fins using ski troops are extremely mobile very very effective and well LED under Manheim and put up a very very good fight really despite the Fin's Fierce resistance the Red Army broke through the manaheim line in February 1940 although the KV had contributed to this success its performance in battle had also highlighted a number number of faults besides needing another crew member to take the pressure off the commander the KV needed a larger gun that could blast open bunkers but mounting a bigger gun meant enlarging the turret so the kv1 was adapted the resulting tank was called the kv2 but was named dreadnut by its Crews leading on from the kv1 we have the development of a new high silhouette tank called the kv2 now this was to be a a real attempt at mounting a a large gun on a tank chassis and if initially they start with a 122 mm but that quickly as upgraded to a 155 mm gun which they mount on the kv2 now mounting this kind of gun or in the same chassis as a kv1 obviously meant that the actual tank uh whole balance of the tank the whole center of gravity of the tank uh and the actual weight of the tank were all dramatically altered the addition of a larger gun totally changed the shape of the KV it could accommodate a six-man crew its main gun was increased to a 152 mm Howitzer alongside which were mounted two 7.62 mm machine guns it shared its predecessor's V2 diesel engine and and 600 brake horsepower the kv2 had a range of 200 km and could hit a top Road speed of 26 km [Music] hour the KVs real baptism of fire came in 1941 despite signing a non-aggression pact Hitler did not trust Stalin and decided to launch a preemptive strike codenamed operation barar Rossa Hitler launched his most ambitious attack of the second world war to defeat the Red Army sent a force of over 3 million men backed up by hundreds of thousands of armored vehicles horses and aircraft their aims were to capture Leningrad Moscow and [Music] Kiev the main German battle tanks were the Panza marks 3 and four but despite this show of strength Hitler did not expect a struggle his panzas had demolished every Allied tank in their path and he believed that Russia an inferior nation was simply unable to produce anything to match German technology as it awaited the arrival of the German Force the Red Army deployed the KV and its main medium tank the t34 when German troops met both tanks their shock was palpable when the Germans initially met the KV there was consternation uh in some cases Panic even the Germans find here's this huge tank rumbling along or perhaps not even rumbling along perhaps just staying still at a Crossroads and however much they fire at it they can't do it it has absolutely no effect everything bounces off there are instances of a KV driving rather slowly uh through the seried ranks of German tanks and nobody can do anything about it the only way they can take it out is by about tearing driving alongside it uh and getting it up the rear so it certainly worries them initially so what message they get the Germans in June July 1941 is not that the Russians have a very mobile tank or or a very good allpurpose tank which is the t34 what they learn is that the Russians have a very heavily armored tank which is the uh KV and that tank cannot be pen the armor can't be penetrated by the 37 mm anti-tank gun or by the 50mm anti-tank gun or by any tank gun carried by uh German tanks of the time the Germans quickly realized there were few ways to successfully attack and destroy a KV tank one way was simply to outnumber it overpower it with Firepower from all sides the other more reliable method was to use an 88 mm anti-aircraft gun but even then artillery troops would need to erect and aim the gun first an extremely timec consuming maneuver during the heat of [Music] battle so the KV prompted the German Army to step back to realize the limitations of their own tanks and to create something to match [Music] it by 194 to Hitler's Army had pushed well into Russia seizing towns Villages and cities hundreds of thousands of prisoners had been captured and countless numbers had died in combat but the battle raged on Hitler thought that the defeat of the Red Army was possible but dependent on a steady Relentless onward March he knew his army did not have time to get bogged down in battle and that to fail in the north of Russia would also mean failure in the South but the sheer robustness of the Russian KV tank had become a painful thorn in the fur's side German troops reported again and again of how the KV tank had prevented their advance and of their frustrating inability to effectively destroy it but perhaps the Germans should have recognized the Russian threat earlier back in the late 1930s the two Powers had sustained an uneasy partnership after expressing their Mutual desire to control Poland they had worked together closely to discuss the possibility of eventually dividing it up between them both countries had been privy to one another's Affairs as well as to one another's military [Music] capabilities it is said that during that very artificial German Soviet Alliance C cobbled together by ribbentrop to allow them to divide Poland between them that a Russian armored delegation uh visited German tank factories uh and were shown the mark four and they said to the Germans yes don't you have anything bigger than that the Germans said no no because they hadn't and the Russians believed that something was being hidden from them the Germans surely must have something bigger than the markv the Russians of course knowing that they had the the KV and the t34 under development both of which were considerably bigger or would be than the Mark 4 the KV was not only shell proof but it could overcome virtually any obstacle once the Germans discovered the CV's power their conation turned into to outright Panic Hitler's plan to secure Moscow before the onset of winter was fading fast and as more and more KVs got in their way the progress of the German Army became unbearably slow the bitterly cold weather soon kicked in the German Army was not prepared for a winter War panzas continually broke down as they could not deal with the mud and snow and their dependence on petrol meant that their engines wouldn't start in the plunging temperatures there was no antifreeze their weapons wouldn't work and there were not even enough supplies to clothe and feed German soldiers these problems delayed the march on Moscow and allowed the Soviets enough time to call up reinforcements to defend the capital however the situation remained precarious for the the Red Army as new tank divisions were employed to defend the front line Soviet commanders became increasingly aware that their tank Crews were extremely inefficient and unable to control their own Vehicles effectively thanks to Stalin's Infamous purges years earlier there was no longer a coherent training regime or anyone with enough knowledge and experience to train new recruits having built up this um tremendous Doctrine um the whole oper ational art concept the the ability to carry it out the necessary training um the training base of of trained officers was wiped out so it was in many respects all for nothing and all that was left really was the tanks at a sort of U NCO level and at a a sort of level of a basic level if you like uh the training was um no more than in some cases an hour on tanks and so you were expected to be able to drive a KV tank or a T30 four tank perhaps after 1 hour's instruction and so this clearly was not very effective you you've been drafted in from the Infantry or the Cavalry on that basis in terms of the junior grade officers in terms of the second lieutenants and lieutenants many of them also had no real training in the operation of tanks in terms of how tanks should operate on the battlefield either individually or collectively and so in terms of crew training there is a real problem in in terms of Soviet armor really right up until the end of 1942 despite the inefficiency of Soviet tank Crews Moscow had been saved from occupation at least for the time being but north of Moscow another Calamity beckoned by the end of 1941 Leningrad had become encircled by German forces its imminent Invasion caused anxiety amongst the Russian hierarchy not only from a territorial standpoint but also because inrad was home to KV tank production for Stalin it was time to think the unthinkable in a way the most dangerous moment for the Russians comes in the autumn and winter of 1941 and early 42 when the tank plants are being moved back into in into Siberia and into into the urals and it's not really until the spring of of 42 that production uh picks up again so how do the Russians survive when they can't actually build tank for about 6 to 9 months Russia remained defiant in the face of German adversity although he would have to do without a steady stream of new KV tanks Stalin knew that at some point his factories would still have to produce a surplus to help sustain tank numbers during the break on top of all this by mid 1942 the Tank's design faults were really beginning to surface the kv2 although an awesome site on the battlefield was limited in several critical ways for example the ball bearings that operated on the turrets actually were not effective at dealing with this kind of gun and and the weight of this gun and in fact the gun although it could Traverse 360° It could only do that when the tank was stationary and when it was also on flat terrain and so basically although it isn't a very impressive weapon it does have serious limitations it does have this very very powerful gun but it's a gun which cannot be used effectively uh on the battlefield you know you have to stop to actually fire the weapon it's amazing how the Russians whom we placed up all the while now with a t34 got the idea of putting out the kv2 which of course was a chass of the kv1 and had a big steel box on top like a rabbit hatch with a hefty 15.2 mm gun in there again for Bunker busting uh things meant I suppose but uh even the Russians got fed up with it because there was no way of uh camouflaging it in any position you it was so big and cumbersome they just uh didn't like it anymore you couldn't miss it you see even if if you shot at it it must belong to the sort of school in the Russian army here okay that everything bit must be good you see after narrowly failing to conquer Russia in 1941 Hitler had to reassess his options he could not afford to mount another attack on nearly the same scale but he was not willing to remain on the defensive and consolidate his gains as 1942 wore on the Red Army began to hit back with avengeance inflicting huge defeats on the Germans at Stalingrad and at the gates of the caucuses these defeats severely dented the German Army's belief in its own invincibility but the German Army was far from beaten a brutal Counterattack in the summer of 1942 was enough to remind Stalin that the war was not lost worse still it marked a turning point for the KV the real swans song of the KV is a battle of HOV in the summer of 1942 and they Ed K KVs in in quite large quantities and it's a Russian disaster uh and really from that time I think the Russians realized that the KV is too awkward uh to be used effectively as a as a as a a battle tank one of the problems of the KV is is quite slow it's also a very heavy tank so you know it may seem like an obvious problem but you can't get through a bridge with 45 ton tank you'll red destroy the bridge as you go over it and it's very hard to operate t-34s and KVs together because KV is slower and it destroys the bridges so in the end what the Russians go for is all t34 formations without uh very many [Music] KVs there was one other source of Hope for the German Army it finally had an answer to the KV in 1941 the Germans are astonished by how good the Russian tanks are the KV the t34 are mechanically much better than any German tank they're not operated as well but in terms of their gun and their armor their Mobility they are better than the German tanks between June of 41 and the summer of 43 the Germans make every attempt to match the Russians in terms of quality if if not of quantity so they're trying to have tanks that are as good as the KV so they build a tiger to really have the same kind of armor as as the KV and with gun that can penetrate the armor of either the t34 or the KV it's an 88 mm High Velocity gun it's it's ideal for knocking out other tanks the Tiger tank was more than a fitting match for the Russian KV but at kusk the axis forces discovered they could not compete with the sheer number of Russian tanks on the battlefield the original plan had been straightforward enough by July 1943 Hitler had recognized that a large Soviet Salient had formed around the city of KK this Salient was creating a bulge in the German front nearly 200 km wide and over 75 km long the bulk of the Red Army was stationed in this bulge for Hitler it was too good an opportunity to miss he ordered his army to crush the Salient and to put all tigers into battle this was was however against the advice of his generals who had argued that there were not nearly enough tiger tanks to ensure decisive success nevertheless in what became one of the biggest set peace battles in history and the largest tank engagement of the war Soviet tank Crews came face to face with the Tiger [Music] Hitler took a big gamble at kusk and lost heavily it extinguished any hopes he had of securing victory in the East but this loss could not be entirely blamed on the ratio of tank numbers in the field the Soviet Army's Triumph at KK had also been the result of a quiet Revolution that had been taking place within the Red Army by mid 1943 it was a different Soviet Force to the one that struggled against the German tidal wave in 1941 Stalin had been compelled to reorganize his troops following the humiliating performance of his army in 1941 he had replaced his circle of Copans with honest generals and the role of the commissar had been downgraded so that soldiers would start to use their own initiative again nepotism had at last been replaced by a meritocracy the Red Army motorized divisions had also been reorganized along German lines with the t34 leading the way as the Soviet tank of choice as time goes on uh the KV becomes less and less relevant it becomes less and less relevant for two reasons uh first of all once the tide of the war on the Eastern Front shifts and the Russians are no longer on the defensive then for offensive work the KV is not the ideal tank uh nevertheless they keep producing them because the assembly lines are there uh it is still useful uh they do upgrade it as time goes on they up armor it it's the same tank but they improve it eventually of course they get to the point where there's been so much extra armor put on it that it can no longer work with the t34 so it is then put into separate units but the Russians are still thinking in terms of heavy tank uh eventually the ysf Stalin heavy tank comes on stream that then becomes the latest the modern Russian heavy tank but essentially it's a KV it's just a better KV better armor better transmission better gun better turret but it's it's a spin-off from the C [Music] the changing tide of the war and the threat of the Tiger tank spurred Soviet designers to come up with an upgraded version of the KV and in 1944 it emerged it was called the is after Stalin himself and it evolved steadily to become the tank that finally liberated [Music] Russia first of all there was the kv85 which put in the new 85 mm gun in a modified turret that was a was was an incremental step um that was needed to address particular shortcomings however a redesign was also undertaken and basically the automotive parts of the of the KB design and and the chassis became the basis for the for the the is-1 and the um is-2 tanks development of the is tank series had only started in 1942 but due to the impressive performance of The Tiger tanks during the C battle Soviet officials decided to push their new tank into General production much earlier than initially planned just one year later the first is tank were rolling off the production line various versions of the tank were tried and tested until eventually the is-2 emerged by 1944 the is-2 was in general production and had become a staple ingredient in the red Army's Arsenal it worked well to symbolize Russia's evolution in the tank development process and served as a fitting statement of strength against the dying Nazi Dream well armored mounting an enormous gun it was extremely reliable and spearheaded the Victorious Soviet push towards Berlin the is-2 was one of the most powerful tanks to emerge during the second world war it had a four-man crew the is-2s enlarged turret housed a 122 mm gun the largest gun ever to be mounted on a tank during World War II its armor was up to 160 mm thick using the tried and tested V2 engine the is-2 had a range of 150 km and it could hit a top speed of 37 kmph at the end of 1943 Allied Leaders Joseph Stalin Winston Churchill and Franklin D Roosevelt met up in the Middle East to discuss plans to launch a major offensive against Germany in the coming year it was decided that Churchill and Roosevelt would lead an Allied offensive from the western coast of Europe camed Operation Overlord the aim of the attack would be to force the axis Army eastwards back into the very Heartland of Germany similarly Stalin promised to launch his own offensive to coincide with the Allied invasion operation bagration as it was known was eventually launched on the 22nd of June 1944 the third anniversary of hit invasion of Russia the Armed Force consisted of 1,700,000 Soviet troops supported by 6,000 aircraft 24,000 artillery pieces and nearly 3,000 tanks the attack destroyed Army group Center releasing Moscow from the axis grip and became the most disastrous defeat suffered by Germany in the entire War it cost the vermar more men and material than their notorious route at Stalingrad and it was the is tank that helped inflict this punishing defeat operation bation begins in June of 1944 now this operation was meant to coincide with the Normandy Landings in on 6th of June uh 1944 in reality the ever cautious Stalin held those operations back for uh a couple of weeks just to see how the Allies were going to get on in Normandy before he actually committed his forces but towards the end of June they do launch this massive series of offenses in fact nine separate offenses with the massive use of armor Uh Russian heavy tanks with with great dramatic effect and big gration actually is going to have a a huge success in the late Summer and Autumn of 1944 effectively liberating most of the Soviet Union and really driving the whole of the German Army back to uh back to Eastern Eastern European boundaries history tells us how the German forces were eventually defeated by the allies and how Russia chased its fleeing enemy all the way back to Berlin where the Third Reich was destroyed in May 1945 following Hitler's death and the subsequent dissection of the German Capital the career of the is tank continued to flourish in an ironic twist the very same tank that had helped the Russians to defeat Nazi Germany became the machine that would threaten the capitalist West during the Cold War although it eventually became known as the T10 the tank remained inservice for Russia until the late [Music] 1960s the KV was one of Russia's longest serving tanks of the second World War when it was designed in 1939 the KV was the most advanced heavy tank in the world it emerged as a valuable battle tank during the notorious Finland campaign and proved its worth when it halted the German Advance at the gates of Moscow but by mid 1943 it had become a liability and its German rival was starting to pose a real threat to the Red Army undeterred Soviet designers saw an opportunity to transform the KV into the tank that would ultimately push Hitler's Army back to Berlin the cave one could go through anything and it yes it terrified and demoralized the Germans the only problem was the CVS weren't available in in in large enough numbers um they were difficult to deploy they were difficult to get across Bridges and things like this because they were so big and heavy although the engine is excellent there are huge problems with the transmission to change gear you had to stop the tank so Al Lord was quite fast you very rarely actually achieved its its highest speed the KV suffered because it was compared with really a First Rate tank in the form of the t34 the KV uh wasn't as fast it was more awkward it didn't have a better gun it didn't have a better a better motor it wasn't any easier to use tactically but it was still by the standards of the time much better than any comparable uh German or British tank in in 1941 [Music] e

Channel: War Stories

Views: 137,674

Keywords: military history, war, war documentary, military tactics, war stories, history of war, battles, Full Documentary, Tanks!, KV Tank, WW2, Operation Barbarossa, Soviet Tanks

Id: XBrJcR234lE

Length: 47min 37sec (2857 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 15 2024