KV-5 Guide

Avaibility: none, it's removed from the store, but there's lots of them in game already and from time to time you may be able to buy one from the gift shop. It's first of the two soviet prem heavy tanks, and also much bettee known than the IS-6.

First the main statistics of the tank and gun.



+ gun elevation -7/+22 degrees

What we have here is really heavy t8 tank with t9 hp pool and interesting gun. Engine is also great with that speed limit. Also, nice armor isn't it? Well let's find out!

Armor
Main explanations for the colours (not the absolute and only truth):
Green: main weakspots, try to shoot at there, or if you're driving KV-5 try to hide these.
Green..ish(?): pretty much like green but may actually bounce something.
Yellow: with something like 175 - 220mm penetration you can try to shoot these, if there's absolutely nothing else to shoot at. NOTE: driver cupola is a bit weaker.
Orange: over 220mm pen guns can go trough most of the time.
Red: bounces most of the time, I wouldn't recommend shooting these areas at all at given angles.

FRONT

Spoiler:

There's actually no real need to shoot those 180mm plates on the hull at any point. Because there's this big green box, known as R2D2 (btw that's where your radioman lives, and he's quite often dead), it's actually the only reliable weakspot with the commander cupola on the top of the turret, also as green. I won't recommend shootin turret-top R2D2 since it's back of the turret and behind viewports(?) etc. Turret is quite weak for 180mm armor, since doesn't have too much angle. Also, the mantlet is pretty weak but has ability to eat shells so it isn't the best place to shoot at.

ANGLED

Spoiler:

Now were getting to it! Properly angled, you can hide your R2D2 behind something and hold your position without taking too much damage. With some forward-backward movement t8 and maybe even t9 tanks will have hard time to get you down. When sidescraping notice that small area behind the turret, it's weakest point right after R2D2 (the small turret on the front with a little gun sticking out).

SIDE

Spoiler:

Again, best place to shoot at is R2D2 and the turret-top one since it's clearly visible now, from the other side there's no driver covering R2D2. Tracks give that 150mm hull a bit more protection, so depending of the angle you'd better shoot either the turret or engine area.

REAR

Spoiler:

They say that my ass is thoug so.. well yeah but really, look at that small orange part, it's the only par that really dings things. Even rest of the ass isn't so thick, it's better armoured than R2D2 (top of the turret you can see it), so I think it deserves this more yellow color. Turret back then, isn't really worth it under 200mm pen guns.

Mobility
With a bit over 100 tons KV-5 is really heavy tank. But thanks to some superb engineers (or WG?), it has really nice 1200hp engine which is enough to keep this mountain rolling about 35km/h on flat, and downhill it goes like a maniac, 40km/h speedlimit with 180mm front armor makes this one of the best ramming machines downhill. Turning may fell a bit sluggish, but after many other heavies and meds and things (JpzE100), it turns really well. Unsurprisingly swamp makes it really slow.

Gun
Many players whine about the gun and how it's useless and so on, well actually it isn't gun's fault. Main problem is, that players don't know what to shoot, where to shoot and why to shoot and no one can really tell all that to you. You're going to need hell lot of experience to get everything out of the gun, and that requires fun/enjoyable games instead of just raging and whining. Try to shoot sides, lower-tier tanks or permtrack enemy on the corner, even when you can't get enemy killed by permtracking him, you can still save yourself and/or teammates, rof is your best friend.

Equipment
Rammer+ventilation+stabilizer is pretty good choice, tho stab. can be replaced with EGLD. Best choice is find out yourself what you like most.

Crew
Huge tank needs huge crew, so KV-5 has 5 crew members + radioman which is usually dead.

But like with equipments, I recommend using own brains, what you fell your tank lacks? What would you like to have more? Repair anyway is quite important with view range skills since KV-5 is semi-blind.

Pros & cons
+ mobility for a heavy tank
+ overall armor and hitpoints
+ good RoF

+- not many weakspots, but some of them are huge
+- depression

- bad penetration
- turret, mainly mantlet armor

Personal opinions
When I bought this tank a quite while ago, I didn't really knew why I did it, because I thought I knew it was total shit. But then, after some games I realized that if you really wanna know if some tank is good or bad, you must drive it by yourself. Until this day I haven't come across anything better or funnier (ram ftw) than KV-5. I've also forgotten how "bad" the gun is, or the whole R2D2, tank is much more than it's negative sides and this is so much more that I'm still amazed by how good it actually is. Quite fast I also realized that this is that tank that really punishes you if you don't know how to play it, because then KV-5 is totally useless.


Originally written by Proscribo

Probably my favourite all round tank the mighty brawler KV5!

It's a decent tank, and a very good side-scraper, but I always struggle to stay alive in it. My radioman in that crew actually ended up being several percent behind everyone else in skill just because he got killed so often; it evened out once I started playing it less though.

The gun is weak, there's no getting around it, a lot of games I struggle to "pull my weight" (do as much damage as my HP pool is worth, which is a higher bar to start with); I still have fun in it, but not as much as I used to. Since the prem-ammo change, more players are lazy and don't bother with the astromech (especially at range), they just switch to APCR and pen you through the turret front, which is a large target. I also really dislike that it sees any tier 9s, there are enough difficult tier 8s to deal with already, but at least there's usually only a handful.

I still like it, just less so than when I first got it.

Alright I will share my insight about this tank.. I am not part of the SGTA but in similar sense FTC Tank Academy's top boss.

If you play KV-5 I suggest trying to use 40 degree angle and go towards your enemy by reversing. With angling your armor becomes 250mm something andd with experience you start watching enemys gun where it is pointed and change angle accordingly.

So what we get from showing tail towards the enemy?
First you hide R2D2 behind your hull, most of the players are not used to shooting KV-5 from behind and often mistake your hull is still weakest part of your armor at that point even though you should shoot turret at that moment.
Second, thanks to kv-5 is quite fast turning its hull you can change the angle easily when you use arcade view very fast and make enemy ding from you multiple times and he becomes really frustrated.

My suggestion for equipment: Spall Liner, Rammer and Coated Optics (you need to cover that view range!)
My suggestion for consumables: Repair kit + First Aid kit/Lend-lease oil + Fire Extinguisher/Speed governor (bolded ones that I use in my KV-5)

KV-5 engine can hold using speed governor about 7 minutes, so when stopping and turning off you can use it till the very end of the battle.
When using lend-lease oil and speed governor you get whopping 1378 horse powers and KV-5 runs 40km/h on flat ground and climbs hills 17-20km/h at angle of 20 degrees or 12km/h 50 degrees (himmelsdorf)

Commander: Repair + Jack of All trades + Recon + Firefighting
Gunner: Repair + Deadeye + Armorr + FireFighting
Driver: Off-road driving + Controlled Impact + Clutch Breaking + FireFighting
Radioman: Repair + Situational Awareness + FireFighting
Loader: Repair + Firefighting + Adreline rush
Loader: Repair + Firefighting + Safe Stowage

finishing 3rd skill takes approx 1000 battles with average experience of ~800.

Ammunition: 40 AP + 10 APCR (for E-75, Proto mainly) + 5 HE (cap reset, aim around tracks)

You can watch some of my KV-5 matches in Youtube | FireFloweristWOT

Hey FireFlower!

Thanks for giving us your insight! I'm sure many will find it helpful, I know I did

It's very nice to have more people sharing insights, the guides are only really a suggestion, so more perspectives equals more accuracy is some ways haha!

KV-5 will most likely be available for purchase in the Gift Shop from 11.04.13 to 14.04.13.

Just had a look at the special, don't think they put it on sale

Ding760 wrote:Just had a look at the special, don't think they put it on sale

Its available on the NA server and a mod there said our special would be identical. Well its not...

Well probably it will still be available in the giftshop later on:
http://forum.worldoftanks.eu/index.php?/topic/233285-special-second-anniversary-of-world-of-tanks-server-in-europe/page__st__40__pid__4496390#entry4496390

CountOfTuscany wrote:Well probably it will still be available in the giftshop later on:
http://forum.worldoftanks.eu/index.php?/topic/233285-special-second-anniversary-of-world-of-tanks-server-in-europe/page__st__40__pid__4496390#entry4496390

lol, here it is:
http://worldoftanks.eu/news/6789-mid-april-offer-gift-shop/

Cheap ammo means you can make a pretty decent profit with it; I've probably made more per battle generally than the Super Pershing (and it's actually more mobile than the SP too); the gun means that some battles are just going to be a total flop though, and there aren't that many tanks you can sit head to head with and slug it out. Still, I have fun in mine.

havent played kv-5 a lot since update 8.6, but it's more vulnerable it seems. How do other KV-5 drivers cope with this? don't you feel more vulnerable? did you change tactics and role on the battlefield? or do you leave the tank to rust in the garage?

CountOfTuscany wrote:havent played kv-5 a lot since update 8.6, but it's more vulnerable it seems. How do other KV-5 drivers cope with this? don't you feel more vulnerable? did you change tactics and role on the battlefield? or do you leave the tank to rust in the garage?

Believe it or not.... hull down is the tactic I use now...and it works relatively well!