i think id rather have the power of the tiger than the armour of the kvs.
Kv-2 wasn’t serious opponont for Tiger. It’s not tank in strong sense -it was powerfull self-propelled howitzer (152-mm short gun).
Yes , for its time (1939-1941) it was masterpiece. Germans obtained shock from the first encounters with KV-2.
German’s tank commander wrote :
From the morning 2 battalion of the 11th tank regiment together with von shekendorf’s group began along the road, going around swamp to the right. Entire day of part constant attacks of Russian 2 tank division reflected.
Unfortunately, Russian 52- ton heavy tanks showed that they are almost insensitive to the fire our 105- mm of instruments. Several entries our 150- mm of projectiles also proved to be ineffective. Nevertheless, as a result of constant attacks of tanks Pz Kpfw THE IV large part of the tanks of enemy was knocked out, which allowed our parts to advance to three kilometers of western than Dubisy. For group “Routh” it was possible to hold its bridgehead, but at noon, after obtaining reinforcements, enemy counterattacked on the left flank in the northeastern direction to Rasenyay and turned into the flight troops and staff 65- GO of tank battalion. At this time Russian heavy tank cut the way, which connected us with the group Routh, and connection with this part was absent throughout day and subsequent night. The battery 88- mm of the anti-aircraft guns was directed for dealing with the tank. Attack proved to be the same unsuccessful as the previous battle with the battery 105- mm of howitzers. To entire other, the attempt of our razvedgruppy to be selected to the tank and to burn by its igniting bottles fell through. For group could not be been selected up to the sufficiently close distance because of the strong machine-gun fire, that conducted the tank.
Only a small fraction of the tanks was disabled by the fire of German artillery. In basic crew left tank when it concluded fuels or ammunition.
Kv-2 didn’t play inportaint role in ww2. It could be effective weapon of offensive against dots and forced points of enemy. But its time closed in 22 june 1941. Since 1940 was made 334 Kv-2.
more interesting photo of Kv-2 look here
http://bronetehnika.narod.ru/kv2/kv2.html
I think that in the duel of the Tigris and KV-2 it will win that who first will fall in to the enemy.
88-mm tiger’s gun will easily open armor KV, but 152-mm projectile KV -2 or ISU-152 easily detaches the tower of any tiger .
Both tanks were formidable machines.
Reading quote from German commander memoir/report, I just connected it to reports from first Gulf War. Iraqi T-72 - even if their “reactivnyi” armour did not give up to sabot missile - the crew was not able to fight - these blokes were f…ed for at least 4 hours.
What was the diffrence between solid armour of KV-2, beside TNT placed all over T-72?
Impact of 105mm shell would make an impression like being inside the church bell which is banged with sledgehammer.
Who would stand it?
Do you know more about effect of “near misses”, which not penetrated, on the crew?
Cheers,
Lancer44
Mate , we don’t compare here the contemporary methods of tanks defeat and ww2-methods.
As it was showed in ww2, the crew of Kv-2 or Tiger was able to fight after the entry of projectile if armour wasn’t penetrated or the tank wasn’t ignite.
It is OFF TOPIC but this bother me…
Were WWII tank crews superhumans?
I’m not talking about KV-2 or Tigers in particular. I’m interested why now it’s different than 60 or more years ago.
60 years ago there were not such effective weapons to defeat tanks.
If you doubt, read memoirs of famouse tankists: germans crews often had nothing problems after hiting soviet 85 or even 100-mm projectiles if armour wasn’t penetrate ( it depend of what part of armour it was hited )
Germans crews didn’t need to be superhumans.
The KV2 was an infantry support tank and not a very sucessfull one at that.
what about the kv-1 i just havent heard much about these two tanks is why i ask. i know that the kv-1s had much more armour than german tigers but the tigers had an 88 on it. also the russians operated on a minimum crew, tigers had the max and they had txo way radios. the kvs only had one way.
43 tonns KV-1 had less armor than Tiger ( 75-mm front against 100-mm tigers).
76.2 mm gun was too weak against tiger. KV-1 was transition model to IS-1/2( used chassis and engine of KV).
KV-1 appeared befor Tiger im 1939. It was great heavy tank for its time.
interesting KV-1 photo are here
http://www.armsgallery.com.ru/foto_rus_kv1.htm
Lancer 44 stated:
“Were WWII tank crews superhumans? I’m not talking about KV-2 or Tigers in particular. I’m interested why now it’s different than 60 or more years ago.”
i.e. Why could WW2 crews carry on fighting after a non-penetrating hit compared with modern day non-penetrating hits.
I would suggest two things:
1 - Firstly the amount of energy dissipated by the impact of a modern projectile on impact is much higher than in the WW2 era. This leads to more shock, more noise, more damage to optics, machinery, etc than in WW2 era. Add to this reactive armour that no doubt increases the energy dissipated even further and it shouldn’t be too surprising that someone sat inches away from all that energy will be less than 100% efficient.
2 - Some modern rounds aren’t designed to penetrate, merely to knock scabs of material of the tank inner which may or may not kill the crew. In WW2 this could happen as well but tended to be metal splinters rather than scabs or molten lumps of metal.
A 3rd - more controversial - possible reason why WW2 era tank crews apeared to be able to take more punishment than their modern counterparts could be psychological. The modern day soldier doesn’t expect to get hurt in combat so possibly is more shocked when his MBT gets hit by an RPG than a WW2 crew member’s tank being hit by a shell.
I think this rhetorical question of “fight Armor and Projectile”
Of course 60 years ago projectiles wasn’t such power but the means of protection of the tank was much less also.
It also depends on how you define non penetrating hit. I have heard of a ‘duel’ in Desert Storm between and Abrams and a Shilka (related in another forum by someone who witnessed it). The Shilka poured 23mm fire at the Abrams, an amount of which hit, but none of which penetrated. The crew of the M1A1 simply aimed and fired one, very penetrating, round at the Shilka, thus ending the affair.
I’ve seen an interview of a US Marine Korean War veteran who was relating about fighting in, I believe, Pyongyang, North Korea after the Inchon landing. He claimed they “knocked-out” NK T-34s using thousands of .30 & .50 machine rounds in street fighting. He didn’t elaborate, but I assume they grazed parts of the track off, or damaged the engines, effectively immobilizing them.
Depending of course how many machine guns were being used over what time frame. It could also come under the category of the golden BB, a few rounds slip in through the muzzle of the main gun, a few other rounds slipping in through the air intakes and bouncing around in the mechanicals. Destruction of vision devices and if then tank commander unbuttoned to get any view them almost certainly, with enough machine guns firing, some rounds would get into the crew compartment.
Then I have read an account of a Churchill hit by a panzerfaust, which penetrated. The jet didn’t hit anything vital, and the overpressure blew all the hatches open, the crew, after collecting themselves, closed the hatches and kept fighting. There is a good chance that the tank smelt pretty bad for a while afterwards though.
In WW2 the standard ‘A-T’ round used by the British 5.5in gun was the normal HE round with the transport plug in place and no fuse. Whilst on paper it could not penetrate a Tiger it was quite capable of delivering a blow capable of lifting the turret off a Panther and anything smaller, and seriously inconvenience the continued fighting effectiveness of a Tiger.
Im inclined to vote for the tiger given the kv-2 is older and wasnt produced with the purpose of fighting an existing tank. The tiger however was made in an attempt to dominate superior russian armour in the t-34 and kv-1 though it did perform well its shortcomings meant it was of more use against western tanks.
This might be stupid but I thank the KV-2 would win. Disagree with me if you want. I was thinking about this very much. Now if they went one on one the Tiger would win with no doubt. In a battle with 50 Tigers and 50 KV-2’s I believe the KV-2 would win if they stayed back during the battle. I also think that if the KV-2’s would take up Anti-Tank positions they would win the battle in a few minutes.
Here are some KV-2 is a picture I thought some people might enjoy!
You are of course so wrong Chevan. A KV-2 was absolutely no match for a Tiger. Even a PzIV with a long 75mm would defeat it. It was never meant to fight enemy armour. It was an infantry support gun.
Fun to play with though.
Another nice KV-2 Model.
Who is you are talking?
Furstly there were no Tigers in 1941 and no long 75mm PzIV, secondary read above my posts.
Good point GermanSoldier. 
Sertainli the KV-2 gun was not specialized anti-tank gun but and its armor was to thin for the Tiger but…
definitely the 152-mm shell was able to crash any german tank including the Mouse.
Cheers.