@knp7765:
Well, the name for this set is “Russia: Early War” and the T-34/85 didn’t come out until mid to late war. All of the items in this set I believe are things that the Soviets had in their arsenal up until the Germans invaded them in June 1941.
Some are a surprise to me, like the Katyusha and KV-2. I didn’t know they had those that early. I didn’t think they even had T-34/76s until late 41/early 42 during their first winter offensives against the Germans. Perhaps they did have them before, but they just didn’t use them is such large quantities before then.
Yeah, actually the KV-2 is very much an early-war vehicle. Â If you look at it closely, it is essentially a KV-1 with a turret that is twice as tall… which is essentially what it is. Â It was designed to be an assault/ SP artillery version of the KV-1 (which, remember, had basically the same armament as the contemporary T-34/76.) Â The idea of putting a howitzer in a big (rotating) turret on top of a standard tank chassis was similar to the British Bishop SP gun, with similar downsides: it did make an exceptional target, leading to the Soviets switching to the fixed-gun casemate concept for later Assault/ SP/ TD guns to give them a lower profile. Â At long range, the disadvantage of having to turn the whole vehicle was minimized and at short range it was eventually decided that a lower profile was more important than the rotating turret. Â
The T-34/76 was also a fairly early entrant into the war. Â The Soviet 76 mm was a relatively low-velocity weapon, not much better than the oft-criticized US 75 mm tank gun; it was, however, perfectly adequate against anything up to a Panzer IV. Â It was the German Panther and Tiger tanks that caused the Soviets to upgrade to 85 mm and the US (and UK) to upgrade to a higher-velocity 76 mm. Â The Soviets just ran into Panthers in significant numbers earlier, and so were a step ahead of the Western powers in the tank gun/ armor race. Â (Remember guys, diameter isn’t the whole story with tank guns; velocity is often far more important. Â The Panther’s HV 75 mm was better than the Soviet 85 mm, and arguably just a good as the Tiger’s version of the 88 mm.)