Early KV-1 Flamethrower Tanks

Yuri Pasholok recently posted an article on Yandex, describing the initial attempts to mount the ATO-41 flamethrower in the hull of the KV-1. I had previously described these attempts on page 387 of KV - Technical History and Variants, as the KV-6. As it turns out, the designation 'KV-6' was used for a proposal to mount the ATO-41 flamethrower in the experimental T-222 chassis, but that proposal never got past the design stage.

LKZ prepared 10 hulls for flamethrowers in August 1941, but only received 4 flamethrowers. The remaining 6 hulls were converted back to regular KV-1s, by welding patches over the openings for the flamethrower embrasures.

All 10 vehicles were assigned to the 124th Tank Regiment and saw action near Leningrad in October 1941. All were knocked out, but several were recovered by the Germans, repaired and placed into service with the 58th Infantry Division.

You can read Yuri's article (auto-translated from the original Russian) here.