KV-4

Pros and Cons

Pros:

-Excellent armor profile, especially when highly angled can deflect most incoming fire

-Good penetration for 107mm Zis-24 gun

-High hitpoint pool allows for survival

-Frontal turret armor profile very strong

Cons:

-Extremely slow. Almost impossible to retreat when necessary

-Becomes quite vulnerable to higher tiers as armor looses some effectiveness

-Turret hatch is an obvious weak spot

-Mediocre gun depression and poor accuracy

Performance

The KV-4 is a large, massive, hulking heavy tank and the universal bane of inexperienced enemies everywhere. KV-4 drivers should attempt to use their armor at all times to take advantageous forward positions and act as a bunker for their teammates. The frontal armor does have a decent volume of weak areas, especially the lower glacis when pointed head on at the enemy. However given the very thick side armor, the KV-4 can be angled steeply at around 35 degrees when facing targets to increase effective armor on the frontal weak spots and continue to deflect rounds with the sides. As such when approaching enemies, KV-4 drivers should tack like a sailboat. Furthermore with such strong side armor, drivers should sidescrape whenever possible. Stuff that weaker frontal armor into a building, behind a hill, or behind a dead tank hull and hide those frontal weak spots. The turret is mounted rear-enough to offer excellent sidescraping at all times. Take care though, the sides of the KV-4 turret are quite weak and if not aimed properly towards incoming fire, the turret is not strong.

The trade-off of such thick and strong armor is exceedingly poor mobility. While KV-4 does have a high top speed and is devastating when rolling down hill to ram enemies, its' ability to accelerate and traverse are nearly non existent. KV-4 drivers must take care to examine enemy team composition and predict where a battle will unfold and take positions to defend against those strategies. Being left alone in the middle of a map with no cover is never a wise decision in this tank as you are easily flanked, circled, and surrounded all while lacking the mobility to retreat or relocate. Plan engagements ahead and think about them while trundling slowly towards the battle.

Lastly, the gun on KV-4 is unique to tier VIII heavy tanks. Slightly below average alpha but with exceptional penetration and respectable DPM. Luckily the strong armor allows longer exposure times to take advantage of the not the greatest alpha. Remember, gun handling is not good on this tank, so fighting at medium or closer ranges is required to mitigate the poor accuracy. The D-25T gun is tempting to use with the 400 alpha, but the penetration is so low as to make this ineffective and require gold rounds in most scenarios.

Early Research

Stock grind is not terribly challenging. Consider either Tracks or ZiS gun first. Follow up with the turret, and finally the engine.