General Comments

Tamiya have released two generations of KV kits. Their early kits, #35142, #35066 and #35063, date from the 1970s. In 2020 however, they released #35372, which is a completely retooled kit and shares no common parts with their earlier releases.

Tamiya’s early kits share a common hull, running gear and tracks, and differ only in details and their turret configurations.  This has resulted in a number of detail discrepancies since the kits’ common parts often fail to capture differences between the different production variants.

The kits share a common lower and upper hull molding.  The hull itself is approximately the correct width.  However, the fenders, which are molded integrally with the upper hull, are approximately 2mm too wide.  The lower hull molding also includes a number of holes and slots for mounting the motorization gear, which should be plugged and filled.

The bolt configurations on the engine compartment and transmission compartment roof plates are appropriate for a Model 1941 hull from the winter of 1941/42 onward.  This makes the configuration correct for the KV-1 Model 1941 with early cast turret (KV-1C) depicted by kit #35066, but not for a KV-1 s Ehkranami as depicted by kit #35142 or a KV-2 Model 1940 as depicted by kit #35063.  These variants carried eleven equally spaced bolts across the front and rear edges of the transmission compartment roof plate, the rear edge of the engine compartment roof plate.

The kits provide the early pattern radiator intake screens as fitted prior to May 1941.  All of the variants depicted by the Tamiya kits typically carried the late pattern screens with flattened front ends.  The screens are also 0.5mm too narrow, mainly due to their frames being too narrow.  The bolt detail surrounding the screens is appropriate for a Model 1941 hull from the winter of 1941/42 onwards and is therefore correct for the KV-1 Model 1941 with early cast turret (KV-1C) depicted by kit #35066, but not for a KV-1 s Ehkranami as depicted by kit #35142 or a KV-2 Model 1940 as depicted by kit #35063.

The engine access hatch represents the domed pattern with two lifting eyes and the inspection port in the center of the dome.  This type of hatch appeared at the end of 1941, which makes it appropriate for a KV-1 Model 1941 depicted by kit #35066, but not for a KV-1 s Ehkranami as depicted by kit #35142 or a KV-2 Model 1940 as depicted by kit #35063.  The hatch cover is also approximately 3mm too wide compared to measurements of actual vehicles.

All of the kits include one-piece vinyl tracks that represent the Omsh pattern with a guide tooth on every link.  However, the tracks are also incorrectly proportioned; they are correct in width but the pitch (ie. the distance between adjacent track pins) of each link is slightly too short.  This means that there are in fact too many links on each track run.  The tracks also lack detail on their inner surfaces.  

I recommend that you replace the kit tracks with after-market items.  However, be aware that the Tamiya drive sprockets have an incorrect number of teeth and these are spaced closer together in order to accommodate the shorter pitch of the track links.  If you replace the tracks with correct after-market items, you must also replace the drive sprockets since the correctly sized tracks will not fit around the Tamiya sprockets.  Thankfully a number of after-market vendors include sprockets with their track sets, or provide them as separate products.

The drive sprockets in all three kits have 16 retaining bolts on the hubs.  While this is correct for early production variants up to and including early Model 1941 vehicles, later vehicles used sprockets with only 8 hub retaining bolts.

Similarly, the torsion bar hubs have three retaining bolts.  This is correct only for late KV-1 Model 1941 and Model 1942 vehicles with all-steel road wheels, and for later variants such as the KV-1S, SU-152 and KV-85.  Earlier variants including the ehkrany-equipped vehicles and the KV-2 depicted in Tamiya kits, had six retaining bolts on the torsion bar hubs.