KV-1 Heavy Tank

[asioasioasio]

This is the remake of my first model, wich can be download here I've done three years ago. 860 triangles, but much more details this time. It cames in two versions - standard with texture 256x256, and high quality with 512x512 texture.

The Kliment Voroshilov (KV) tanks were a series of Soviet heavy tanks, named after the Soviet defense commissar and politician Kliment Voroshilov. The KV series were known for their extremely heavy armour protection, which was capable of resisting all German anti-tank weapons up to 75 mm and 88 mm calibre, both of which were comparatively rare at the time of the initial German invasion of the Soviet Union in World War II. Prior to the invasion, about 500 of the over 22,000 tanks in Soviet service at the time were of the KV-1 type.



Download here:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=12590

 

[avain]

Woooohooo! You deserve five stars! Five red stars, that is!

Top quality unit! Does it have damage states?

 

[Walter Hawkwood]

You should probably also make KV-2, based on the same chassis, then.

And a very nice unit! Love to see Russian phrasing on armor not messed up for a change - even serious "real-life" model makers sometimes write total gibberish.

 

[The_Coyote]

awesome as ever, much more worth than five stars

 

[Agent327]

Very cool, asioasioasio!

(BTW 22,000 tanks for mid-1941 seems like an enormous amount; I guess that doesn't equal the number of operational/combat ready tanks, as well as include a considerable amount of outdated and/or very light 'tanks' - a large part of which was destroyed in the first few months of 'Barbarossa'.)

 

[Walter Hawkwood]

Very cool, asioasioasio!

(BTW 22,000 tanks for mid-1941 seems like an enormous amount; I guess that doesn't equal the number of operational/combat ready tanks, as well as include a considerable amount of outdated and/or very light 'tanks' - a large part of which was destroyed in the first few months of 'Barbarossa'.)

I believe the number is for operational ones, but indeed most of it was total junk and/or experimental prototypes that not always functioned as intended: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMK

 

[asioasioasio]

Thank You

I think operational. But most of them was T-26 and BT series - light tanks, wich (especially T-26), burned really good - good for 30,s, but to obsolete for early 40's. KV-1 and KV-2 was better projects - very slow (so they couldn't broke much blitzkrieg tactics of germans) but they were very well protected against fire, especially KV-2.

Yeah i'll probably work on KV-2 and IS-2 too - it would be cool to recreate my old units

 

[avain]

asio, just out of curiosity, how much time does it take you to create a quality model as this one?

 

[asioasioasio]

4-6 hours for modelling, and 10-15 h for making texture. It would be more if everything would be hand drawed (like wheels, lights etc, wich i usally cut from photographies). It's much, but i like it so it doesn't matter much for me that i spend three afternoons on mkaing model The airplanes and buildings took less amount of time

 

[frekk]

I think operational. But most of them was T-26 and BT series - light tanks, wich (especially T-26), burned really good - good for 30,s, but to obsolete for early 40's.

The BT series wasn't such a bad idea, for a light tank. The problem wasn't that it was technologically obsolete - in fact, it was quite advanced as tanks of the early war go - the problem was with the doctrine behind it. Light tanks were no good for infantry support, they were really only useful as reconnaisance.

 

[avain]

And not to forget, from the BT series they made the T-34!

 

[asioasioasio]

Yup those famous christie suspension, used later in T-34

About damage texture, gloss and shaders - sorry but no, i'm modelling for three years, but i wasn't able to make those things work properly. If someone wants to make it, it would be cool. I can send .psd file of texture if it might help.

 

[frekk]

Christie suspension, plus the BT's were the platform they used to develop the sloped armour.

 

[Acronym2]

asioasioasio, this is a nice KV-1 and with about 800 polygons; comparable to a CivIV nif.

Yes, the KV-1 caused some nausances to the Germans in 1941. There are a few notable instances but there were too few of the newer models (T-34, KV-1) in the field at that time. Unfortunately for Russia, when larger numbers were deployed, poor training negated much of the advantage these two tanks had over those of the Germans.

(The famous Walter Christie type suspension that is standard on all "Eastern" tanks was actually the invention of an American in the 1930's who prototyped a tank using the design. The U.S. as well as others weren't interested in the design, but the Soviet Union was and this efficient suspension system became synonamous with Soviet tank developement.

 

[Agent327]

KV-2 and IS-2 would be great too, yes!

@avain/frekk/Acronym2: Cool - didn't know that.

 

[General Tso]

This is awesome! I'm planning on adding the Russians to my WW2 mod in the next week or so. Thanks for the excellent unit (and good timing).

 

[Xenomorph]

About damage texture, gloss and shaders - sorry but no, i'm modelling for three years, but i wasn't able to make those things work properly. If someone wants to make it, it would be cool.

I'm on it.
BTW, I've heard that the armor panels on the T-34 were very loose due to poor
production tolerances in manufacturing. Can anyone confirm the veracity of these statements? I mean, the guy said they dug pits in the ground to use as the molds for the armor, which I find highly unlikely.

[EDIT]
I have one request regarding the skin; could you set the treads so that they are the same shade and lighting down the whole length of the track? I can set up the model so that the treads actually move when the unit moves, but it will look really odd if the texture has all these light and dark areas moving across the tread model.
On another note, are the animations in the file custom? If so, what animation are they based on?

 

[frekk]

I'm on it.
BTW, I've heard that the armor panels on the T-34 were very loose due to poor
production tolerances in manufacturing.

All tanks designed during the war had teething troubles, and many of them entered service before those were resolved. The T-34/76 model 1940 was no exception. It would be hard to know *all* the various problems that this early T34 model suffered, because each plant did things slightly differently and there were many minor differences in the same series, depending on where it was made. There were also many ad-hoc adjustments made, including welding additional plating to the hull.

Most of the mechanical defects were rectified in later series (some in model 1941/1942; most of the big problems like transmission finally resolved in the redesigned model 1943).

One of the problems with evaluating different tanks used during the war is that people often talk about "the" Sherman or "the" T-34 or "the" Panther, as if there were just one and it remained the same until it was replaced by a completely new tank. This just isn't true. For all the tanks produced and used during the war, there were numerous changes and upgrades during the course of their service, and, in many cases, differences in the same series at the same time because they were underwent a variety of different modifications during service, or they were produced at different plants. Nothing about a model 1940 T-34 was like a model 1943 T-34. The model 1940 had a puny, short-barrel L11 gun, 45mm of armour, and a 4 gear transmission; the model 1943 had a powerful F34 gun with new shells, 90mm (double!) the armour, a totally redesigned turret, a 5 gear transmission, and so on. Likewise there were manufacturing differences between the tanks built at Stalingrad and the ones built at Leningrad. And in 1943, you'd have all the model 1940s running around each one of which may or may not have got any particular upgrade or may have been individually modified to suit.

Digging pits in the ground to mold plates though? Idunno ... I don't think that would work, at least not for the ones fitted to the body. It sounds like something that might possible to do for extra plating added as a modification, though.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

Digging pits in the ground to mold plates though? Idunno ... I don't think that would work, at least not for the ones fitted to the body. It sounds like something that might possible to do for extra plating added as a modification, though.

It is called "open mod casting" and it is completely normal.
When ever you see a cast iron or steal structure that has one side smooth, but the other is all rough, that is the sign it was cast in an open mold.

Usualy this meens that you have a factory floor covered with sand and you make a cast inside of that sand, (in the form of a hole) and pour the metal into it.


Since large parts of the body of the T-34 was often cast in a single go I don't see why they would not use this method as it is the cheapest while still being higly relibable.

 

[General Tso]

One can learn all kind of things in this forum.