Thursday 10 August 2017

KV Visibility Diagram

The issue of visibility was a known sore spot in early war Soviet tanks. The commander's cupola was not a popular feature until the T-50, but it took until 1942 for such a cupola to be developed for the KV-1 and T-34 tanks. The book Tank Observation Devices documents the improvement in observation range between the KV-1 and its successor, the KV-1S.


The dead zones of the KV-1 tank were as follows:
  • Driver's large observation slit: 3.6 m
  • Driver's small observation slit: 6.7 m
  • Driver's periscope: 6 m
  • Turret observation slits: 6.5 m
  • Turret periscopes: 4 m


The dead zones of the KV-1S tank are as follows:
  • Driver's large observation slit: 9 m
  • Driver's small observation slit: 12 m
  • Driver's periscope: 7.5 m
  • Turret observation slits: 23 m
  • Turret periscopes (front and rear): 17 m
  • Commander's cupola: 28 m, 18 m, 14 m, 11 m, 9 m, depending on the observation device.

6 comments:

  1. Wow, I had no idea the KV was as bad as that. The tank commander is blind in some important zones.

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    Replies
    1. Yup, there were two 360 degree periscopes, but the visibility was far from ideal.

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  2. The craptastic visibility was a key reason that Manstein was able to get things stabilized after Stalingrad.... The Russian would attack and Balk would move his unit (all 6 or 8 of them) in behind an entire battalion and just kill them and they couldn't figure out where the incoming fire was coming from. Killed about 3 battalions worth of tanks that way..... pretty nuts.

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    Replies
    1. White Tiger wasn't a documentary.

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    2. Please confirm you're joking

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    3. Peter,

      Straight from vonMellinthen's book. (which admittedly has incredible Nazi bias)

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