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Erda

2022-02-16T12:39:33Z

2A02:1811:3B7C:6600:F0EC:59E9:196F:DE02: /* Biography AKA The Skubian Heresy: Erda would like to Speak to your Manager */

{{Spoilers}}
{{WTF}}
{{Fail}}
{{Skubby}}
[[File:ErdaArt.jpg|300px|right|thumb|For a 40,000 year old Karen, she is quite the [[PROMOTIONS|MILF]]. But please for the love of the Emprah's rotting testicles, please don't tell [[Fulgrim]] [[Slaanesh|of her existence. Or do, she honestly kinda deserves it.]]]]
{{Topquote|In the Grim Darkness of the 41st Millennium, not even the Emperor of Mankind is safe from the horrors of Child Custody.|Erda in a nutshell.}}
{{Topquote|So basically, the entire [[Horus Heresy]] has been reduced to [[Fail|'Karen took the kids']].|Some anon's description of Saturnine.}}
{{Topquote|Woman moment|The Emperor of Mankind}}
{{Topquote|All this over a family squabble.|The Bullet Farmer, Mad Max: Fury Road}}

Woo boy! Where do we begin. First appearing in the Horus Heresy novel: Saturnine (<s>an overall good novel</s> <s>not really</s> [[TTS|'''I gave it a 5/10 It was OK review''']]), Erda (Old High German for Earth. Get it? [[Derp|''Mother Earth'']]...) is a [[Perpetual]] who used to be one of the [[Emprah]]'s most closest allies/fuckbuddy. Some [[Heresy|Heretics]] even believe that she was Big E's first and only girlfriend/waifu/onahole/babyfactory throughout the aeons. Whether or not E-Money actually [[/d/|''fertilised'' Mother Earth]] with his [[Dick|big, throbbing Power Sword,]] we have no idea, but we do know that Erda would have had the Galaxy's strongest ovaries to handle the genetic makeup of Big E's manly bits. DUN DUN DUN! Yes, Erda is the [[Primarch|Primarch's]] mummy, not sure how [[Roboute Guilliman|Big Bobby G's]] foster mom, Tarasha Euten, is gonna feel about this. Maybe we can get them on Jeremy Kyle?!

==Biography AKA The [[Skub|Skubian]] Heresy: Erda would like to Speak to your Manager==

A warning on what you are about to read: with the release of Saturnine, her entire backstory has caused [[Skub]] and [[Rage|Nerd Rage]] on a scale not seen since [[Matt Ward]]'s Ultramarine Fanwank and Grey Knight Power Scaling. You have been warned.

For all intents and purposes, as a Perpetual, Erda was one of the oldest living beings in the Imperium. She met the Emprah in [[Terra|Terra's]] ancient past when he was a warlord king known as [[Conan the Barbarian|Neoth in the age of the First Cities.]] At that time, the Golden Daddy was already shepherding Mankind into the path that would lead to the creation of the Imperium. Erda grew the hots for him and we can't really fault her for this because any normal women could not resist that guy. I mean, just look at that ''hair'' and those ''pecs''... Aaaannnyways, Erda became one of the Emprah's closest and most loyal advisers and, during the [[Unification Wars]], was his chief geneticist along with Astarte in the creation of the [[Primarch]] project.

However, this is where the true [[Skub]] begins. While it makes sense that the Emprah has chosen Erda as the Primarch's mom due to the fact that they are both Perpetuals and their genetics complement each other, Big-E prevented Erda from taking part in their lives so he could prepare them for the upcoming [[Great Crusade]]. This understandably pissed off Erda to no end as anyone with an overbearing mum would understand. On the other hand, she was horrified of the idea that her sons would be used by the Emperor as automaton-like yes-men as generals of the Astartes legions, especially as he and Malcador were all but disowned by the other Perpetuals as fringe radicals who were pushing the evolutionary envelope too fast to guide mankind's evolution into a superior species. Apparently she was one of the last to leave his inner circle.

Unfortunately for all of us, Erda's way of 'saving' her children [[What|involved the creation of a Warp vortex which scattered the Primarchs across the galaxy.]] Yes, turns out it wasn't the interference of those [[Chaos Gods|Warp Goblins]] that scattered the Primarchs, but the action of a woman. This essentially means that rather than [[Erebus|this fucktard]] ruining everything, humanity was doomed and its future stolen by a [[-4 Str|woman,]] [[Religion|again.]] [[FAIL|It was an act of such idiocy and lunacy that by 'saving' the Primarchs from the Emprah,]] [[Leman Russ|it condemned]] [[Angron|some of them]] [[Konrad Curze|to a childhood]] [[Mortarion|worse than death.]] One wonders how the likes of [[Angron]] and [[Mortarion]] are gonna react to [[RAGE|''this'']] [[RIP AND TEAR|revelation.]] Not to mention Konrad Curze and the Lion. Due to this, Erda officially wins the [[EPIC FAIL|Galaxy's worst Mom award]] and seeing as how some like to chastise the Big-E as being a shitty father, maybe those two truly deserve each other in the end. However, in the Valdor novel it is stated that residual Chaos energy could be sensed in the room, making it plausible that Erda simply lowered the shield and let the Four do the heavy lifting. If that's the case though, then fuck, Space-Karen's offence becomes all the more unforgivable, given that she knows enough about Chaos to understand its corrupting nature. What a bitch.

That is a big part of the skub. Not only is it a stupid move, it is redundant. Chaos already had the means and motive to scatter the primarchs. Both Horus and Argel Tal were even shown visions of them going back in time to be the agents of Chaos that did it, with Argel Tal's vision implied to have actually happened. Though given that both of said visions were shown in the Warp, at very important moments, in highly scripted scenes by entities with more than enough power to manipulate what was being depicted (what Horus was shown was at the behest of the four Chaos gods themselves for fuck's sake), to individuals absolutely imperative to the plans of Team Chaos, their believability could at best be called dubious and suspicious. Welp, with the release of ''The Siege Of Terra: Warhawk'', it's been confirmed from the lips of [[Erebus]] him-motherfucking-self that actually, yeah, Erda did it. What Horus and Argel Tal were shown in the Warp by the Ruinous Powers and [[daemon]]s respectively was a lie. Shock. Even going so far as to reveal that "the scattering wouldn't have been possible without your [Erda's] intervention," and Erebus makes it very clear that the Chaos Gods are REEEAL glad that she did, but that they apparently aren't sure '''WHY''' she did it. For all that Erebus thrives on deception, we can probably believe him on this one. What does it say about your decision-making skills when the Ruinous Powers themselves effectively say your plan was silly? Even though they directly benefited from her not-plan plan. Oh! And then she even has the shitting gall to claim that actually, it wasn't her fault what happened to the primarchs and those that fell to Chaos have only themselves and Big-E to blame. For all that they disagree with [[Emperor|Daddy]] on many things, [[Konrad_Curze|Konrad]], [[Angron]], and [[Mortarion]] in particular [[RAGE|would likely take a rather dim view of that assertion]]. As indeed would anyone who values cause and effect or observable reality. Jesus of Christ. Worst. Mom. EVER. Though she gets a bit of comeuppance when Erebus attacks her with some kind of Psi-mind-rape, and floods her consciousness with the truth of the consequences of her actions, making it very clear to her that this was HER fault; she had just come off an engagement with 4 greater daemons that she killed fairly easily (even implying that they were ''true deaths'', a prospect made even more likely if she had utilized Enuncia), but Erebus' attack brought her to her knees as the true horror of the truth, it's magnitude, and the consequences of what she'd done was laid bare. It gets even funnier though because more than a few of the Primarchs thought that the Scattering was deliberate on the part of the Emperor. If only they knew...

And so it was that now, very late in the series, after the [[Cabal]] arc was dead, [[Fail|we get her helping forge the setting by being a bad mom on a galactic scale. While perhaps not to the same level as say, the Old Ones being dicks to the Necrontyr, setting in motion the War In Heaven, which ultimately would result in both the birth of Chaos and the rise of the C'tan, thus forming 40k's bedrock, Erda's bullshittery still literally imperiled the very survival of mankind as a whole. What a TWEEST!]]

After Erda pulled an oopsy, she then went into hiding for many years. [[RAGE|E-Money understandably, had the mother of all God rage,]] but strangely enough, he never sought to retaliate against Erda (possibly having figured out through divination that the current timeline of eternal stalemate and war was the only option), even when he knew where she was. Or maybe he just uncharacteristically forgave her due to his love of playing favourites. By the time of the [[Siege of Terra]], Erda was living in exile at Guelb, an ancient site in Mauritania close to her birthplace, with a group of servants and even her own personal Space Marine called Leetu. Leetu claimed to be an original Astartes predating the creation of the Legions and the diversification of the [[Gene-seed]] that came with the Primarch project; an odd statement since other lore claims that the Dark Angels were the baseline and the other Legions had their gene-seed cultivated from modified DA stuff. Alternatively, he could just as easily be an unrefined prototype much in the way that Cawl's Primaris prototype, Alpha Primus, is in the current era. His name comes from "LE 2", which might mean "Legion Two" and trigger our missing [[Primarch]] sensors but is really a reference to the prototype Space Marine miniature.

She was eventually visited by [[John Grammaticus]] doing his best Nathan Drake impression. Grammaticus sought Erda's help in getting into the Imperial Palace and had also arranged to rendezvous with [[Ollanius Pius|Oll Persson]] at her home. Erda was shocked to hear that Oll had become involved in the affairs of the Human race again, and expressed worry over his fate when he did not arrive. Though sympathetic to John's cause she ultimately said she had no way to help him enter the Palace due to, you know, a [[Emperor of Mankind|certain couple's quarrel.]] In Warhawk, Erebus visits her to convince her to join Chaos because of...[[Derp|reasons]]. Seriously, Erebus just...appears out of nowhere. How that [[Dick]] knew about Erda or why he was even remotely interested in that dumb broad, we have no clue. Predictably, she says no and gets jumped by 4 Greater Daemons and wins due to [[Mary Sue|super-special-psychic-mumbo-jumbo]][[Games Workshop|™]] [[Bullshit]] and/or utilizing Enuncia, but was severely wounded in the process by Erebus. He tells her again but this time, to worship him if she wants to live. She spits at him, which predictably leads to Erebus poking her face with the Athame, killing her...sort of, it cuts off before the finishing blow. Overall, pretty fucking lame way to go on [[Fail|both parties,]] both from Erebus thinking a [[Derp|48,000 year old Karen would help in anyway to the Heresy]] and for Erda in getting [[Herp|punt to the face.]] So yeah, Erda came and went, which again asks the question on what was the point of her existence if you give her less screen time than fucking [[EPIC FAIL|''Calliphone''!?]]

Thank you [[Dan Abnett|Dan Abnett]], for this [[C.S. Goto|fine addition to the established story.]] Why [[Chris Wraight]] was allowed to kill her off we can only guess. Though at least 99.95% of the fandom are hoping her death sticks. Unfortunately, that might prove unlikely since truly killing a perpetual makes truly killing a daemon look like a mundane task, and Erebus only used his athame; while ordinarily a formidable pokey-stick, multiple previous books in the Horus Heresy have pretty firmly established that (unless your name is Magnus or you're Big-E himself) to permakill a Perpetual requires fulgurite. Indeed, one in particular, ''Old Earth'', has an entire B-Plot about this very topic, and suffice it to say that if it had been as simple as acquiring an athame, that would have been a much shorter book. Nor indeed would this be the first time Erebus prematurely declared victory. Add to that, there's also the unfortunate aside that Erebus apparently "killed" her offscreen, which is so often a narrative copout (and a blatant one at that) to provide an opening for an easy possible return at some point later on in the future of the story. BUT even if she doesn't stay dead, there's NO need to show the readers that. If nothing else, it provides an out. Thank fuck.
{{Imperium}}
[[Category:Imperial]]
[[Category:Warhammer 40,000]]

KV

2022-02-15T21:44:06Z

2A02:1811:3B7C:6600:F0EC:59E9:196F:DE02: /* In Real Life */

The KV series is a family of heavy tanks produced and fielded by the Soviet Union from 1939 to 1943. These proved to be nasty surprises for the invading German forces in Operation Barbarossa, as they were practically immune to the guns equipped on the Panzer-III and Panzer-IVs of the time. Only the 8.8cm Flak gun set on direct fire could penetrate their thick armor.

Their battlefield roles were eventually supplanted by T-34s and the IS series of tanks, respectively.

==Mid-War==
===KV-1===

===KV-1S===

===KV-8===

==Late War==
===KV-1===

===KV-1S===

===KV-8===

==In Real Life==
All right. Buckle up people, because just like with his successor the [[IS-2]] there is a lot to be told about this one too!

To understand the origin of the KV series of tanks, one needs to start in 1926. The Reds wanted to modernise their armies, and Marshal of the Soviet Union Mikhail Tukhachevsky draweed up a plan to modernise the Red Army. Something of a visionary, Tukhachevsky in his ''Field Regulations of 1929'' (amongst many other things) saw three main roles for tanks on the battlefield, and accordingly the need for three classes of machines:
* Infantry tanks, whose main role is to support the infantry directly. Those need not go very fast and be armed with howitzers and machine guns and be reasonably well armored.
* Fast tanks, who need to flank, envelop and strike at the enemy's rear: artillery, airfields, logistical lines and command centres. Speed is of the essence, along with decent firepower.
* Breakthrough tanks, whose role was to go straight for the enemy and blast them to smithereens, and needed to be heavily armed.
Now, at that time, the whole concept of [[Baneblade|land battleship]], i.e. multi-turreted tanks that could engage multiple targets at once and either be mobile rally points for the infantry or heavy attackers able to punch through the enemy's battle line was ''en vogue''. A first such tank entered service in the mid-thirties, the T-28. The T-28... worked, but not in its intended role. With a 76mm howitzer, 4 machine guns and rather weak armour; it could not fulfill the role of a breakthrough tank and was quickly relegated to infantry support. Undaunted, the Reds kept going and came up with the much larger and heavier T-35. [[Awesome|With five turrets, two sporting 40mm AT guns, one with a 76mm howitzer and two with machineguns; it is truly the only ''land battleship'' ever put into production.]] But, for all it was bristling with weapons, the 45-ton heavy monster was plagued with problems: engine and transmission suffered from the excessive weight, and worse, the lessons from Spain showed that the modest armor of ~30mm steel would not stand up to dedicated AT weapons; rendering it useless as a breakthrough tank. [[Fail|Just like his predecessor, the T-35 wouldn't do.]]

In the meantime however, things had changed in Russia and not for the better. [[God-Emperor of Mankind|Stalin]] had decided to [[BLAM|purge anyone who disagreed with him]], and the Red Army was left in a state of total confusion, with those few remaining high-ups terrified of being next in line. One of Stalin's many victims was Mikhail Tukhachevsky himself, and the task of developing the tank arms further felt to a man named Kliment Voroshilov. ''Klim'', as the Russians nicknamed him was... a complicated man, both in the good and the bad sense. Of importance here is that he alone amongst the remaining Marshals of the Soviet Union (and up to a point, against Stalin's wishes) championed tanks, and he was accordingly put in charge of equipping the Red Army with better machines. Thus, in 1937, two tenders were put out:
* one to replace to the now aged fast tanks, a design that would eventually culminate in the [[T-34]]. (More info on that vehicle's page)
* one for a proper breakthrough tank, with three turrets and enough armor to take a beating.
The latter order proved a though nut to crack. Ultimately, only two design bureaus dared put a design and prototype forward in 1939: the OKMO bureau under Nikolay Barkov proposed the T-100, and the Kirowsky works under Zhosef Kotin proposed the SMK. Both were eerily similar and only sported two turrets one above the other; because three turrets was just too damn impractical to build.

As luck would have it, Stalin decided to flex his muscles and invade Finland in late 1939, [[derp|which turned out to be a terrible idea]]. It was however a good occasion to field-test the two designs, and they were sent to support the attack on Summa. At the last moment, Kotin prevailed on Voroshilov to also take two other prototypes of his 'SMK' along, that sported only a single turret but better armor, which he named the ''Kliment Voroshilov'' tank in his honour. [[Rape|the first battle for Summa didn't go well for the Reds]], and, insult to injury, both the T-100 and the SMK [[fail|performed abysmally]] during the live test. The KV prototypes, on the other hand, did okay. The Finns lacked any big AT gun to deal with them and they managed to do relatively well for themselves. Voroshilov (the man) saw the writing on the wall and ordered the single-turret model into production just before having a big fall-out with Stalin and getting sidelined. Thus entered the KV-1.

The KV-1... was not a good design: let us not kid ourselves, it was just as problematic to the Russians in 1941 as the late-war heavies were to the Germans: too big, too heavy, too prone to breakdowns, too sluggish; poor visibility and ergonomics, hard to drive (the driver had to sometimes hit the lever with a mallet to switch gears, so bad the transmission could get), collapsing bridges under their weight; and final insults to injury, weighing half the time more and costing almost three times more to produce that the true winner the [[T-34]] despite sporting the same gun. It had however one big saving grace: armour. Lots of armour that was evenly placed all-around the tank and turned it pretty much into a mobile fortress early into the war. The KV-1 was virtually impenetrable by the early-war German ''Heeresanklopfgerät'' 37mm AT gun except at the most point-blank of ranges, early [[Panzer III]]'s and [[Panzer IV]]'s didn't fare any better; and only the mighty [[Flak 88mm|''Acht-acht'' Flak guns]] could take one out with ease. While few of them actually made it to the battlefield in the early days of the war, The Germans quickly came to dread encountering the ''Russischer Koloss'' or ''Monster'' due to the insane amount of punishment a KV-1 could take before going down. Interestingly enough, at the same time [[Ragnarok (tank)|another small batch of a different version sporting a 152mm howitzer was created in order to try and make the howitzer more mobile called the KV-2]]. That one was a tremendous failure and quickly discontinued.

By 1942, however, the Krauts had learned their lessons and were bringing bigger guns up to deal with the T-34's and KV-1's. [[Fail|Kotin then doubled down and started adding extra appliqué armour to the base KV model, creating the KV-1E (E standing for ''Ekranami'', with extra armor)]]. Now, adding weight to an already strained chassis was [[derp|really not a good idea]] and the KV1-E... was still a tough nut to ctrack but even more of a maintenance nightmare, to the point Russian tank units started requesting T-34's instead. [[Herp|Undaunted, Kotin kept trying to add more armor and bigger guns to his already far too heavy machines, creating a staggering amount of prototypes that weren't ever approved for production.]] The only one that made it in small numbers was the KV-8, that had a smaller main gun but a coaxial flamethrower in order to fry the damn Schnitzels in their trenches or bunkers.

Soon enough Stalin's ears were buzzing with complaints about the KV tank, and Kotin saw the noose tightening around his neck. He thus put one of his ambitious young engineers forward, Nikolay Shashmurin, and ordered him to "fix" the KV-1. Dtalin agreed to give them a chance, with the condition it should not impeach mass-production (i.e. no completely new design). Shashmurin went to work, read AAR's and interviewed succesful commanders; and came up with a fix: replace the old transmission (based on the one of an old a Caterpillar tractor) with a much improved planetary one similar to those the Germans used, add some quick'n'dirty ergonomical improvements making the life of the crew easier (like a cupola for the tank commander). Finally, he also critically assessed where armor was needed and where it wasn't, and cut out over five tons of 'superflous' steel from the original design. Entered the KV-1S (''Skorostnoy'', Russian for 'speedy').

[[Just as planned|For all purposes and intents, the KV-1S delivered at first: the reliability issues that so plagued the earlier models had been dealt with.]] But the cincher came when the first AAR's came in: while tank crews praised the multiple improvements, [[not as planned|said improvements had come at the cost of losing the heavy armour that made the earlier tanks so valuable, making the KV-1S more of a big medium tank than a true heavy tank.]] While it was definitely useful, the thinning-out of the armour called into question why the bigger model was being produced at all since the T-34 could do everything the KV-1S could, while being much cheaper to produce.

This became so much of a problem than in mid-1943 the Soviet heavy tank program was close to termination. And then the Battle of Kursk and the [[Panther]] happened. Faced with a hard as nails death machine that could dish out the pain from long range, the Reds realized they too had to up-gun their armour park. This was the KV-series (and in a sense the heavy tanks as a whole) swan song, as at first only the larger KV-1S could easily be equipped with a bigger gun and KV-85's rolled off the assembly line to fight those damn pesky big kitties. But when it became clear that the T-34 could also be equipped with said 85mm gun without sacrificing too much mobility or reliability, both the KV-85 and its planned successor the IS-1 were scrapped. The only one that manage to pull through was the [[IS-2]] equipped with an even bigger 122mm gun, but ultimately the hour of the Main Battle Tank was at hand, and heavy tanks were sidelined after WWII until Nikita Khrushchev outright cancelled them in the sixties.

KV

2022-02-15T21:31:56Z

2A02:1811:3B7C:6600:F0EC:59E9:196F:DE02: Okay. Next up, the T-34 himself!

The KV series is a family of heavy tanks produced and fielded by the Soviet Union from 1939 to 1943. These proved to be nasty surprises for the invading German forces in Operation Barbarossa, as they were practically immune to the guns equipped on the Panzer-III and Panzer-IVs of the time. Only the 8.8cm Flak gun set on direct fire could penetrate their thick armor.

Their battlefield roles were eventually supplanted by T-34s and the IS series of tanks, respectively.

==Mid-War==
===KV-1===

===KV-1S===

===KV-8===

==Late War==
===KV-1===

===KV-1S===

===KV-8===

==In Real Life==
All right. Buckle up people, because just like with his successor the [[IS-2]] there is a lot to be told about this one too!

To understand the origin of the KV series of tanks, one needs to start in 1926. The Reds wanted to modernise their armies, and Marshal of the Soviet Union Mikhail Tukhachevsky draweed up a plan to modernise the Red Army. Something of a visionary, Tukhachevsky in his ''Field Regulations of 1929'' (amongst many other things) saw three main roles for tanks on the battlefield, and accordingly the need for three classes of machines:
* Infantry tanks, whose main role is to support the infantry directly. Those need not go very fast and be armed with howitzers and machine guns and be reasonably well armored.
* Fast tanks, who need to flank, envelop and strike at the enemy's rear: artillery, airfields, logistical lines and command centres. Speed is of the essence, along with decent firepower.
* Breakthrough tanks, whose role was to go straight for the enemy and blast them to smithereens, and needed to be heavily armed.
Now, at that time, the whole concept of [[Baneblade|land battleship]], i.e. multi-turreted tanks that could engage multiple targets at once and either be mobile rally points for the infantry or heavy attackers able to punch through the enemy's battle line was ''en vogue''. A first such tank entered service in the mid-thirties, the T-28. The T-28... worked, but not in its intended role. With a 76mm howitzer, 4 machine guns and rather weak armour; it could not fulfill the role of a breakthrough tank and was quickly relegated to infantry support. Undaunted, the Reds kept going and came up with the much larger and heavier T-35. [[Awesome|With five turrets, two sporting 40mm AT guns, one with a 76mm howitzer and two with machineguns; it is truly the only ''land battleship'' ever put into production.]] But, for all it was bristling with weapons, the 45-ton heavy monster was plagued with problems: engine and transmission suffered from the excessive weight, and worse, the lessons from Spain showed that the modest armor of ~30mm steel would not stand up to dedicated AT weapons; rendering it useless as a breakthrough tank. [[Fail|Just like his predecessor, the T-35 wouldn't do.]]

In the meantime however, things had changed in Russia and not for the better. Stalin had decided to [[BLAM|purge anyone who disagreed with him]], and the Red Army was left in a state of total confusion, with those few remaining high-ups terrified of being next in line. One of Stalin's many victims was Mikhail Tukhachevsky, and the task of developing the tank arms further felt to a man named Kliment Voroshilov. ''Klim'', as the Russians nicknamed him was... a complicated man, both in the good and the bad sense. Of importance here is that he alone amongst the remaining Marshals of the Soviet Union (and up to a point, against Stalin's wishes) championed tanks, and he was accordingly put in charge of equipping the Red Army with better machines. Thus, in 1937, two tenders were put out:
* one to replace to the now aged fast tanks, a design that would eventually culminate in the [[T-34]]. (More info on that vehicle's page)
* one for a proper breakthrough tank, with three turrets and enough armor to take a beating.
The latter order proved a though nut to crack. Ultimately, only two design bureaus dared put a design and prototype forward in 1939: the OKMO bureau under Nikolay Barkov proposed the T-100, and the Kirowsky works under Zhosef Kotin proposed the SMK. Both were eerily similar and only sported two turrets one above the other; because three turrets was just too damn impractical to build.

As luck would have it, Stalin decided to flex his muscles and invade Finland in late 1939, [[derp|which turned out to be a terrible idea]]. It was however a good occasion to field-test the two designs, and they were sent to support the attack on Summa. At the last moment, Kotin prevailed on Voroshilov to also take two other prototypes of his 'SMK' along, that sported only a single turret but better armor, which he named the ''Kliment Voroshilov'' tank in his honour. [[Rape|the first battle for Summa didn't go well for the Reds]], and, insult to injury, both the T-100 and the SMK [[fail|performed abysmally]] during the live test. The KV prototypes, on the other hand, did okay. The Finns lacked any big AT gun to deal with them and they managed to do relatively well for themselves. Voroshilov (the man) saw the writing on the wall and ordered the single-turret model into production just before having a big fall-out with Stalin and getting sidelined. Thus entered the KV-1.

The KV-1... was not a good design: let us not kid ourselves, it was just as problematic to the Russians in 1941 as the late-war heavies were to the Germans: too big, too heavy, too prone to breakdowns, too sluggish; poor visibility and ergonomics, hard to drive (the driver had to sometimes hit the lever with a mallet to switch gears, so bad the transmission could get), collapsing bridges under their weight; and final insults to injury, weighing half the time more and costing almost three times more to produce that the true winner the [[T-34]] despite sporting the same gun. It had however one big saving grace: armour. Lots of armour that was evenly placed all-around the tank and turned it pretty much into a mobile fortress early into the war. The KV-1 was virtually impenetrable by the early-war German ''Heeresanklopfgerät'' 37mm AT gun except at the most point-blank of ranges, early [[Panzer III]]'s and [[Panzer IV]]'s didn't fare any better; and only the mighty [[Flak 88mm|''Acht-acht'' Flak guns]] could take one out with ease. While few of them actually made it to the battlefield in the early days of the war, The Germans quickly came to dread encountering the ''Russischer Koloss'' or ''Monster'' by the Germans due to the insane amount of punishment a KV-1 could take before going down. Interestingly enough, at the same time [[Ragnarok (tank)|another small batch of a different version sporting a 152mm howitzer was created in order to try and make the howitzer more mobile called the KV-2]]. That one was a tremendous failure and quickly discontinued.

By 1942, however, the Krauts had learned their lessons and were bringing bigger guns up to deal with the T-34's and KV-1's. [[Fail|Kotin then doubled down and started adding extra appliqué armour to the base KV model, creating the KV-1E (E standing for ''Ekranami'', with extra armor)]]. Now, adding weight to an already strained chassis was [[derp|really not a good idea]] and the KV1-E... was still a tough nut to ctrack but even more of a maintenance nightmare, to the point Russian tank units started requesting T-34's instead. [[Herp|Undaunted, Kotin kept trying to add more armor and bigger guns to his already far too heavy machines, creating a staggering amount of prototypes that weren't ever approved for production.]] The only one that made it in small numbers was the KV-8, that had a smaller main gun but a coaxial flamethrower in order to fry the damn Schnitzels in their trenches or bunkers.

Soon enough Stalin's ears were buzzing with complaints about the KV tank, and Kotin saw the noose tightening around his neck. He thus put one of his ambitious young engineers forward, Nikolay Shashmurin, and ordered him to "fix" the KV-1. Dtalin agreed to give them a chance, with the condition it should not impeach mass-production (i.e. no completely new design). Shashmurin went to work, read AAR's and interviewed succesful commanders; and came up with a fix: replace the old transmission (based on the one of an old a Caterpillar tractor) with a much improved planetary one similar to those the Germans used, add some quick'n'dirty ergonomical improvements making the life of the crew easier (like a cupola for the tank commander). Finally, he also critically assessed where armor was needed and where it wasn't, and cut out over five tons of 'superflous' steel from the original design. Entered the KV-1S (''Skorostnoy'', Russian for 'speedy').

[[Just as planned|For all purposes and intents, the KV-1S delivered at first: the reliability issues that so plagued the earlier models had been dealt with.]] But the cincher came when the first AAR's came in: while tank crews praised the multiple improvements, [[not as planned|said improvements had come at the cost of losing the heavy armour that made the earlier tanks so valuable, making the KV-1S more of a big medium tank than a true heavy tank.]] While it was definitely useful, the thinning-out of the armour called into question why the bigger model was being produced at all since the T-34 could do everything the KV-1S could, while being much cheaper to produce.

This became so much of a problem than in mid-1943 the Soviet heavy tank program was close to termination. And then the Battle of Kursk and the [[Panther]] happened. Faced with a hard as nails death machine that could dish out the pain from long range, the Reds realized they too had to up-gun their armour park. This was the KV-series (and in a sense the heavy tanks as a whole) swan song, as at first only the larger KV-1S could easily be equipped with a bigger gun and KV-85's rolled off the assembly line to fight those damn pesky big kitties. But when it became clear that the T-34 could also be equipped with said 85mm gun without sacrificing too much mobility or reliability, both the KV-85 and its planned succesor the IS-1 were scrapped. The only one that manage to pull through was the [[IS-2]] equipped with an even bigger 122mm gun, but ultimately the hour of the Main Battle Tank was at hand, and heavy tanks were sidelined after WWII until Nikita Khrushchev outright cancelled them in the sixties.