KV-4 Mikhailov [USSR, HT-8]
Historical Reference:
In April 1941, the Council of People’s Commissars of the USSR set the task of designing new super-heavy tanks, with the requirement to produce a prototype by October 1, 1941. Due to the tight deadlines and the high priority of the assignment, the head of SKB-2, Zh. Kotin, was forced to involve almost all engineers of his design bureau in a competitive process.
One of the projects with the lowest mass among those submitted in the competition was a vehicle designed by engineer P. Mikhaylov. It was planned to install a 107 mm ZiS-6 gun in a conical turret, along with two “rear” machine guns in the turret bustle. To protect the turret ring, it was proposed to increase the height of the fighting compartment, which made it possible, in addition to the hull machine gun, to install a 45 mm 20-K gun in the hull with a horizontal firing arc of 45°. A flamethrower installation was also provided in the hull. An original solution by Mikhaylov was the shape of the track run, determined by the relatively high placement of the drive and idler wheels to improve obstacle-crossing capability. However, design work on the KV-4 was soon curtailed in favor of the KV-5, and Germany’s attack on the USSR, together with the subsequent evacuation of industry, put an end to the serial production of super-heavy tanks in the USSR.
