#35084 Heavy Tank KV-1 Mod 1941 Early Version

This kit represents an early production KV-1 Model 1941 manufactured by ChKZ in October/November 1941. 

The kit provides a hull with regular curved rear overhang, pressed steel two-part resilient road wheels, cast rubber rimmed return rollers and an up-armored welded turret with ZIS-5 gun.

The kit shares a number of components with other Eastern Express kits, including a number of inaccuracies.  For example:

• The tracks provided in the kit are the narrow split link type, which were not introduced until mid-1942 and are not appropriate for a fall 1941 production example.
  
• The road wheels are the pressed steel two-part resilient wheels with lightening holes and six cooling vents on the inner disc.  These were introduced in October 1940 and persisted until late June/early July 1941.  By October/November 1941 however, when the ZIS-5 gun appeared, the cast steel reinforced two-part resilient wheels had replaced the earlier pressed wheels, and the single-piece all-steel wheels were beginning to appear.
  

While it is certainly possible that the rebuilding program may have resulted in the combination of components depicted in the kit, it would have been quite unusual, so check your references for the vehicle you intend to model.  Various aftermarket manufacturers provide suitable alternatives for the tracks and road wheels.

The combination of the ZIS-5 gun and up-armored turret makes for a somewhat unusual subject, since relatively few KV-1 Model 1941s mounted the up-armored welded turret.  A number of photographs of this variant do exist however, so it is certainly prototypical.

Early production Model 1941s were typically fitted with appliqué armor on the hull front, driver’s front plate and upper hull sides as depicted in the kit.