When the Soviets entered the Winter War, the SMK, KV and a third design, the T-100, were sent to be tested in combat conditions. The heavy armour of the KV proved highly resilient to Finnish anti-tank weapons, making it more effective than the other designs. It was soon put into production, both as the original 76-mm-armed KV-1 Heavy Tank and the 152 mm howitzer-mounting assault gun, the KV-2 Heavy Artillery Tank.

The 45-ton KV outweighed most other tanks of the era, being about twice as heavy as the heaviest contemporary German tanks. The KV's strengths included armor that was impenetrable by any tank-mounted weapon then in service except at pointblank range, good firepower, and good floatation on soft ground. Along with these strengths, its flaws were quite serious. It was very slow and difficult to steer. The transmission was unreliable. The ergonomics were poor, with limited visibility and no turret basket.

Designation for the upgraded KV-3 heavy tank was initially approved on March 15th, 1941 for the production version of the Object 150 tank design. Further developments were made on the basis of the Object 220, in the form of the Object 221 (with an 85 mm gun), Object 222 (with the F-32 76.2 mm gun) and Object 223 (built to develop a new conical turret to housing the 107 mm gun, now specified to be the ZiS-6 cannon). Series production was intended to start in late 1941, but the German invasion of the USSR halted these plans and the only prototype hull was destroyed. The design was accepted for service May 1941 and was to have entered production at the Kirovsky Plant in August 1941, but the German invasion forced this to be abandoned.

Shown here is a 1:72 scale replica of a Soviet Kliment Voroshilov KV-3 heavy tank in a partial winter camouflage scheme. Now in stock!

Dimensions:
Length: 3-1/2-inches
Width: 1-1/2-inches

Release Date: September 2020

Historical Account: "Figurehead" - Between 1941-1944, during World War II, Kliment Voroshilov was a member of the State Defense Committee. Voroshilov commanded Soviet troops during the Winter War from November 1939 to January 1940 but, due to poor Soviet planning and Voroshilov's incompetence as a general, the Red Army suffered about 320,000 casualties compared to 70,000 Finnish casualties. When the leadership gathered at Stalin's dacha at Kuntsevo, Stalin shouted at Voroshilov for the losses; Voroshilov replied in kind, blaming the failure on Stalin for eliminating the Red Army's best generals in his purges. Voroshilov followed this retort by smashing a platter of roast suckling pig on the table. Nikita Khrushchev said it was the only time he ever witnessed such an outburst. Voroshilov was nonetheless made the scapegoat for the initial failures in Finland. He was later replaced as Defense Commissar by Semyon Timoshenko. Voroshilov was then made Deputy Premier responsible for cultural matters.

Voroshilov initially argued that thousands of Polish army officers captured in September 1939 should be released, but he later signed the order for their execution in the Katyn massacre of 1940.

After the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, Voroshilov became commander of the short-lived Northwestern Direction (July to August 1941), controlling several fronts. In September 1941 he commanded the Leningrad Front. Working alongside military commander Andrei Zhdanov as German advances threatened to cut off Leningrad, he displayed considerable personal bravery in defiance of heavy shelling at Ivanovskoye; at one point he rallied retreating troops and personally led a counter-attack against German tanks armed only with a pistol. However, the style of counterattack he launched had long since been abandoned by strategists and drew mostly contempt from his military colleagues; he failed to prevent the Germans from surrounding Leningrad and he was dismissed from his post and replaced by the far abler Georgy Zhukov on September 8th, 1941. Stalin had a political need for popular wartime leaders, however, and Voroshilov remained as an important figurehead.