On September, 19, 1941 the troops of Leningrad Front forced the Neva river and seized the bridgehead, which was later named “Neva spot”. Number of crossings were arranged immediately and supply of ammunitions and equipment was delivered over the river. Later that fall some 20 tanks crossed the river to support fighting units. The last one was the heavy tank KV-1. Unfortunately, it came to another bank 60 years later.

At the fall of 2002 the river ship “Kaunas” had collided with the Liteiny Bridge and due to this reason the Neva river was closed for shipping for about one week. That moment is considered as the starting point of the KV-1 uplifting process. Divers were able to search the river floor in the former combat area. The result came quite fast: the absolutely intact heavy tank KV-1 was discovered 20 meters off shore  during second day of diving. Nearby the tank another war time item was found - submerged pontoon. It was known many years before that there was some kind of ship or something similar on the floor, but it was always considered as the sunk ammunition barge. It was looking very real, because a lot of munitions covered the river bottom all around. The situation was fully clarified in 2002 when the KV-1 was found. The tank was transported over the river on that pontoon together with artillery munitions. Then pontoon heeled and  sunk, probably as a result of German artillery barrage.

The KV-1 heavy tank was introduced into Red Army service on December, 19, 1939. Initially it was equipped with 76.2 mm gun L-11 and three machine-guns DT (one of them was installed inside the rear part of the turret). Later on, in 1940 the L-11 gun was replaced with F-32 gun. In 1941 fall KV-1 was modernized again: better ZiS-5 gun (with  barrel of 41.6 calibers long) was mounted and front armour  plates became thicker.

KV-1 was superior against T-34 in armour, equipped with the same armament, but slower and less maneuverable. It was the most protected tank till the end of 1942. No one German tank or antitank gun had a capability to penetrate its armour. However, KV-1 also possessed certain limitations (result of too fast designing process) - it was not very reliable, mostly in relation to the gear box, main and cushion frictions. The maneuverability also was low. But anyway, if mechanical part worked well there was no match to this tank in combat till the end of 1942.

In case of correct exploitation KV-1 was a very serious counterpart. For instance, on August, 19, 1941 near the agricultural farm “Voiskovitsy” in Leningrad region single KV-1 under the command of Zinovi Kolobanov destroyed in combat 22 German tanks (the second result during entire WW II). In response his tank received 135 direct hits, but still was capable to fight.

In total 4775 tanks of all KV models were produced during the period of 1940-1943. They participated in all fronts of the Great Patriotic War. Initially they were included into mixed tank brigades, later separate guard penetrating tank regiments were organized. So, the KV-1 heavy tank is very famous.

There are only few real KV type tanks exist now, not more then ten in total. Taking into account the historical value of this item, the decision was made to uplift the tank from the river. Specialists from the Club “Poisk” were assigned for this task together with professional divers from the  Russian Club “Otkrytoe more” (“Open sea”). Joint work begun on March, 3, 2003.

Entire process was divided in three steps - (1) preparation of the uplifting, (2) uplifting itself and (3) cleaning and loading for further transportation.

There were a lot of difficulties during the preparation process: the tank was covered with silt, a lot of armed munitions and wooden logs laid around. All this created additional problems for the access to the vehicle. The Neva river was then still covered with ice. Two steel ropes were fixed across the river and allowed people to walk around. Then the ice above and around the tank was crashed and hydro-monitors for silt eroding were set. Divers worked in an icy water, eroded the silt, cleaned hooks for ropes, etc. They found and delivered to the surface great number of munitions. It was quite deep - the tank located 9 meters below surface under the 65° angle.

Ropes were fixed on the tank while the Neva river was still covered with ice, but there was no proper towing equipment available. Therefore, the following uplifting method was proposed.

First step is reducing the force 5 times, second - 3 times, and third - 2 more times. In total, 5x3x2=30 times reduction. So, with the tank total weight together with ammunition (about 50 tons), sand inside the tank (about 10 tons), bank slope, pivot friction, the pick off exertion must be about 150 metric tons. 30 times reduction gives us the final figure as much as 5 tons. This calculation resulted in the decision to use the 5 tons  hoist installed on the ZiL-157 truck as a lifting mechanism. However, this was correct only in case, if the KV-1 gear box was left in the neutral position. Otherwise it was impossible to predict anything. Our personnel  had only hope that the tank engine was ignited at the moment of sinking, so the tank could be able to start moving immediately upon mooring.

The local road alongside the river bank created additional problems - there was not enough space for all mechanisms which we used in accordance with diagram above. Club’s specialists decided to slightly change the system. They used the correction pivot together with natural anker (the sewer laid under the road). Steel ropes were passed through the sewer and fixed behind the road with the wooden lag. Totally, 500 meters of rope and 8 pivots were used. Different ropes were of 14 to 50 mm in diameter.

The main problem of uplifting itself appeared to be the necessity to block pivots each time when the tank moved 1.6 m. This happened because the ratio between the move of the KV-1 tank and the rope  was 1:30, which meant that the tank moved 1 m and the hoist must roll up 30 m of rope. Due to that, it was essential to tighten ropes quite often, because the ZiL-157 hoist was capable of rolling only 50 m of rope at the time. The ropes were tighten as strings and ones one of them bursted, and people around were really in danger - a pivot flu over their heads like the projectile.

The tank came out of the water at the second day of operations. The main part of the job was successfully done. At the end the KV-1 was cleaned, the sand was washed out. All ammunitions were disarmed. 

It appeared that the tank was equipped with the F-32 gun designed by P.Grabin and three DT machine-guns. There were 140 projectiles ( about twenty of them contained shrapnel  with French shells produced in 1910-1912), near 3000 cartridges and 16 hand grenades of F-16 type. The tank itself was produced on Kirov production plant in Leningrad. Very probably, this KV-1 just came out of workshop after repair: there was a patch on the front armour plate and full set of ammunitions inside.

It is possible to say that this particular KV-1, taken from the Neva river, is really unique  historical military vehicle taking into account its conditions. Currently it is fully restored and exhibited as the honorable item in the “Breakthrough of the Leningrad Blockade” Museum. 

club "poisk"

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