August 13, 2019

Zvezda 1:100 KV-1
Mod. 1941 With F-32 Gun

A closer look at the Soviet KV-1 Mod. 1941 1:100 model kit by Russian producer Zvezda. This kit belongs to Zvezdas "Art Of Tactic" wargame, which features a lot of 1:100 tankmodels. The overall level of detail differs from kit to kit.

But no further words, let us take a look at the modelkit from this box:

This Zvezda kit comes in 2 green sprues, including all 6 parts to build the KV-1. You have the choice of 2 different guns, but only one of them is mentioned in the instructions. It seems that the other barrelpiece may come from the KV-1 Mod.1940 kit, but I can not say this for sure.
As in all other Zvezda 1:100 tank kits, also a flag (which can be attached to the tank) is on one of the sprues, but since this is for use in "Art Of Tactic" only, it will be unused.

The overall quality of this modelkit is good. The used plastic is pretty hard, just as the stuff they use for their newer 1:100 kits.
Neither sinkholes nor visible injectormarks can be seen, but the grade of detail could, while in general it is ok, be more distinct. I did find only minor mouldlines, except for the tracks, which will need some work. As usual, the tracks lack of detail, especially the inner side of them, what is sadly shared among all other 1:100 wargaming tank models of Zvezdas various wargames.

I only checked the dimensions of the hull, 67,8x33,5mm, compared to Wikipedias data of 6,75 x 3,32 meters, the difference is minimal and this fits in scale. And while I am at the lower parts of this model, this kit shares some parts with at least 1 other Zvezda kit.

This kit uses the same hull and track parts as the KV-2 which I reviewed in the next post, and I would say, that the same 4 parts are used on the KV-1 Mod.1940 too, you may look for yourself in this review at Modellingmadness.com.

The building instructions are on the back of the box and clear to understand. Actually, cleaning the parts took more time then building the tank. While glue would not be needed to built this tank, I used some Revell modelglue and the plastic took it without issues and binded very fast.

I added decals from the sparebook, since decals are not included in this box, and this is what I got as final result:

Building this kit went without issues as I wrote above. After it got primed with the Russian primer by AKinteractive (great stuff), I painted it by hand before it got its matte varnish seal, again via airbrush. May be I will make it dirtier, but it is already a nice proxie unit for "TANKS".

By the way, yesterday was another productive Montagsmaler session, somehow I managed to assemble my crude interpretation of a Soviet truck with a 3,7cm flak, but look for yourself:

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