Soviet KV1 Heavy Tank

When Russia was invaded during Operation Barbarossa a lot of people seemed to think that Russia had no real tank forces. This was far from the truth - Russia actually had a quite a number of tanks - over 20,000 of them. What went wrong? They just had the wrong types of tanks.

When the Germans invaded they were using a lot of Panzer III/IV tanks which were more of a medium tank than anything else. The Russians had the KV1 and T-34s but in very limited numbers. The crews were also poorly trained and Russian tank tactics and organization just wasn't even close to the German tank forces. They'd had years of experience with Blitzkreig by now and the Russians simply got caught off guard. That and Stalin didn't expect the invasion until 1942 at the earliest - an attack in 1940 came as a total surprise.

The KV1 itself got its name from Kliment Voroshilov who was the Soviet defense commisar at that time in Russia. It was designed as a breakthrough tank - capable of destroying any tank or fortification it came across. Basically its armor was so heavy that no German weapon could penetrate it - except in rare cases at point blank range.

So how did the Russian tank forces do so badly against the Germans? The KV1 was big but unreliable and the T-34 just wasn't available in big enough numbers to make a difference. The Soviet Union had all the wrong types of tank at the wrong time. As the Russians moved their tank production facilities back behind their lines the KV1 was still being manufactured. It became obvious though that it was way more expensive and difficult to manufacture than the T34 (which had a bad habit of blowing up at times) and Russian needed numbers as opposed to super heavy tank and bunker destroyers.

The 1/16th scale airsoft replica of the heavy KV1 has a fully movable turret, realistic gun and engine sounds,a powerful Hop-up airsoft main fun that can fire BBs up to 75 feet and is ready to use out of the box - you won't need to paint it.