Tuesday 18 February 2020

Long Living KV-1S


"Award order
  1. Name: Ivan Agapovich Podkosov 
  2. Rank: Guards Lieutenant
  3. Position: Commander of the "Papanin" tank, 80th Guards Idritsa Order of the Red Banner Order of Suvorov 3rd class Heavy Tank Regiment
    is nominated for the Order of the Red Star.
  4. Year of Birth: 1920
  5. Nationality:
  6. Party affiliation: none
  7. Participation in the civil war and subsequent actions to defend the USSR and in the Patriotic War: Patriotic War: Central Front, 1st Belorussian Front, 2nd Belorussian Front.
  8. Wounds in the Patriotic War: light wound, light contusion.
  9. In the Red Army since: 1941
  10. Recruited by: Glyadinsk recruitment office, Chelyabinsk Oblast
  11. Prior awards: Order of the Red Star
Brief and specific description of heroism and achievements: Guards Lieutenant I.A. Podkosov, commander of the Papanin tank, fought in this tank since the Battle of Kursk. He took part in defending the foothold on the western side of the Vistula river and in the subsequent offensive. 

During the fighting at Danzig on the Oder he proved himself a brave and courageous warrior. His crew destroyed 3 guns, 2 machine gun nests, and up to a company of fascists in these battles.

Thanks to good care, the "Papanin" tank travelled for about 4000 km and finished the war on the shores of the Baltic Sea. The tank is presently in full battle readiness.

Comrade Podkosov is worthy of the Order of the Red Star.

Chief of Staff of the Armoured and Mechanized Forces of the 65th Army, Major Gorelik
May 12th, 1945"

8 comments:

  1. Do you know how many overhauls that tank required? (Wasn't the recommended maintenance to be done every 1000 km or so?). Did they end up scavenging spent KV-1s for parts?

    I am left wondering how long the supply chain of spare parts was maintained for 'obsoleted' equipment like the KV-1S. Obviously they didn't switch over to the IS series overnight, but you'd think that the spare parts supply chain for KVs would have had to be terminated too past a point. Not a point usually considered in most tank discussions.

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    Replies
    1. It would be very unlikely for a tank to return to the same unit after a factory overhaul, so I don't think that it went further than the Army level repair depot.

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    2. Complete speculation on my part, but since the SU-152 was still in production and was using the KV chassis, it might've been relatively easy to get spare parts.

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    3. The ISU-152 replaced the SU-152 in production as soon as the KV-1S was phased out in favour of the IS.

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  2. Although it was replaced by newer design, it shares a lot of same parts with other tanks. Engines are variations of the same, transmissions, gun. I don't think there would be any issue of getting parts for a 2 year old tank.

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  3. "9. In the Red Army since: 1931"
    Correction: 1941. Transcription typographic error.
    I do not read Russian, but it looks like the typewritten date on line 9 in the original document has a year of 1941, not 1931, which makes more sense than if he joined the Red Army at age 11 in 1931.

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