The KV-220 was an experiential tank prototyped in 1941. It was an attempt to level-up the KV-1 series. The armor was increased, a new gun was mounted - the 85mm F-30, and the hull was extended one road wheel station to reduce the ground pressure from the increased weight.
The design didn't meet expectations and was abandoned. The Turret was used as a static defense and the hull was reequipped with a KV-1 turret with the 76.2mm gun and used around the defense of Leningrad.
The kit is the Trumpeter 05553 Soviet KV-220 "Russian Tiger". I decided to add a few upgrades to the rather basic kit. The taper-less F-30 looked like a dummy gun so I used a spare ZIS-S-53 barrel from a Dragon T-34/85 kit this wasn't large enough so I upgraded it further to a 100mm D-10S. These weren't introduced until 1943 so this is more of a what-if build.
I added appliqué armor plates to protect the turret ring. All hull welds were created with stretched sprue. There are no aftermarket fenders available for the KV-220. I tried to scratch my own from brass but wasn't too happy with the results so I just left most of the fenders off. It looks more aggressive this way and is good way to show off the tracks. The stowage boxes are from an ET Models set that had to be modified to fit the narrow style fenders. I cut about 2mm off the back end and patched it up with brass I was using for the fenders. I scratched the brass bits used for the light and horn mount and left that hardware off because I just didn't want to deal with them.
The tracks are from MasterClub. Fortunately the set contained just enough links to make the extended run of the KV-220. Unfortunately between breaks and losses, I came up short by 2 of the resin nuts that face the outside so I will need to scratch some replacements. The tracks were a real bear to deal with on this build. Besides cleaning up flash on the knuckles, I had to drill out the holes on each link for the exterior pins for a press fit while the interior ones all required a tiny drop of superglue to retain them. Very tedious work.
Initial images with 85mm Barrel
Now with 15mm more power. I also started a small base to display the beast.
Now with paint. I applied a base color of Mission Models 4B0 but found the color to be too dull so I mixed a custom green with Tamiya acrylics. The camo was masked off with poster putty and the HS technique was used to create the chipping. Markings are airbrushed through a set of Montex Masks.
Additional Historical info on the KV-220 can be found here - Tank Archives: T-220 Prototype in Combat
