KV-5

KV-5 is a tier 8 USSR superheavy tank. Its fairly quick for a superheavy, has great DPM, and very resilient armour. It also weighs 100 tons and is great for ramming.

1. Armour
2. Playing against a KV-5
3. Gun
4. Mobility
5. Equipment, provisions, & consumables
6. Gameplay advice
7. Overall
8. Is it worth getting?
9. Most recently sold for:
10. Camo cost:

Armour

(The KV-5 in the images is using Enhanced Armour)
Image slider may take a few seconds to load

Drag slider Right -> to view 225mm AP
Drag slider <- Left to view 265mm APCR
Armour when not angled:
-Upper plate 290-305mm
-Hull mini turrets 240-250mm
-Lower plate 225mm
-Turret face 227mm
-Turret hatches 150-200mm

(Note the lower plate showing up as red, even against 265mm APCR, this is a fake highlight. Also note how the upper plate goes grey, also a fake highlight.)

Note how far over-angled the KV-5 is, no other tier 8 tank can angle as far as the KV-5 can while still having side armour that shows up as “red” to enemies.

Angled:
The side armour of the KV-5 is extremely strong at 150mm, so you are able to over-angle, as shown here. Most other tanks would never be able to turn the hull as much as the KV-5 and for it to still be red.

Armour vs tier 7 tanks: 
When against tier 7 enemies, the KV-5 has no weakpoints. Even its flat side armour sill show up as red to most tier 7 medium and light tanks. Frontally, only heavy tanks with 220mm+ APCR penetration can go through the lower plate (HEAT needs about 230mm).

The hatches on the turret roof aren’t a reliable weakpoint, unless enemies use premium ammo.

Armour vs tier 8 tanks: 
In tier 8 the lower plate will be weak to enemies with 220mm+ penetration, but the rest of the front profile will still be strong.

If enemies use premium ammo, they still need to aim carefully since the KV-5 has many odd angles on the turret and hull that are easy to bounce off.

Armour vs tier 9 tanks: 
Against tier 9 enemies its essentially the same case as tier 8, since about half of tier 9 tanks won’t have enough standard penetration to go through the turret and the hull mini turrets; and the other half will have enough penetration to go through.

KV-5’s greatest strength will be sidescraping, which it can do equally well in any tier. This will bounce any enemy shells off its side, and make the front angles much stornger.

-Don’t be baited by the engine compartment. This is the area that sticks out on the hull behind the turret, and will show up when the tank is angling or sidescraping. Its 225mm of base thickness, and is covered by a visual element so it shows up as grey.

Playing against a KV-5

Aim all shots carefully against a KV-5, as its armour is just extremely troll and can catch you off guard.
Note the penetration marks in the image above (vs 225mm AP). At this angle, the lower plate is no longer penetrable, and the left roof hatch can only be penetrated in the dead center. The engine deck “weakpoint” can’t be penetrated by standard ammo, and the front right hull hatch is weak on the sides.

Side armour:
If you’re a tier 7 tank shooting the KV-5’s flat sides, and it shows up as red, switch to premium ammo.
KV-5’s turret and hull sides are strong enough to bounce many tier 7 tanks even when not angled at all, don’t get baited by this.

If you’re a tier 8 or 9 tank shooting the KV-5’s side and they are angling, treat it like its the side of a Maus hull. You may have to switch to premium ammunition to penetrate it, even if its over-angling or angling badly.

Avoid shooting tracks:
The tracks count as 20mm of module armour, and will reduce your chances of penetration against the already strong hull sides of the KV-5, its best to avoid shooting them as you may deal no damage.

Front hull:
Don’t be baited by the upper and lower plate of the KV-5. They always show up as the same colour of red, even though the lower plate can be penetrated by 220-230mm of penetration, but the upper plate needs over 290-300mm of penetration.

If you aren’t confident with your tank’s standard penetration, or the KV-5 is angling, use premium ammunition against the lower plate, but never shoot the upper plate.

Rear armour:
The weakest plate on the KV-5 is the 90mm plate on its hull rear, this is directly above a 230mm plate, which is above a 140mm plate.
The turret rear is also 140mm.

(Note that some tier 7 medium and light tanks only have 144-150mm penetration, and that 230mm plate can troll even tier 9 enemies.)

Gun

KV-5 has 2 guns, the Zis-6M gun is pointless, as its penetration is too low to work against most enemies, so it would generally need calibrated shells, and using that would cause it to have the same DPM as the other gun.
The Zis-6D is the better gun, since it has both good DPM and better penetration than the other gun.

KV-5 mounts a 107mm gun.

-Damage per shot is 320 on APCR, 270 on HEAT, and 400 on HE
-Reload time is 8.4s, giving it 2280 DPM
-Penetration is 219mm on APCR, 250mm on HEAT, and 54mm on HE
–Estimated aim time is 4.4s/4.7s
–Base aim time is 2.9s, but it can get down to 2.36s.
-Dispersion is 0.362/0.326
–Gun handling is 0.18/0.18/0.14, or 0.15/0.15/0.12 with Vertical Stabilizer.
-Gun depression is -7 degrees

This gun is overall pretty good. It has great DPM and alpha damage, with very good gun handling. Its penetration is low, but not useless, and its aim time and dispersion are poor, which make the gun fairly inaccurate and aim quite slowly.

Mobility

-Top speed is 40km/h, reverse is -11km/h
-Traverse speed is 29 deg/s on hard terrain, and 22.9 deg/s on medium terrain.
-In game acceleration rate is shown as 14.4 hp/t, it has a strong 1404 horsepower engine for its 100 ton weight.
-Actual acceleration rate is 11.1 hp/t on hard terrain, and 8.8 hp/t on medium terrain.
–Ground resistances are 1.3/1.6/2.2

Considering its very strong all-round armour, this is great mobility. The strong engine allows the tank to fairly reliably reach its 40km top speed, though its traverse speed on medium terrain is slow and can slow it down quite a bit. The worst aspect of this mobility is the poor 11km/h reverse speed.

Equipment, provisions, & consumables

KV-5 has no special provisions/consumables.

Gun Rammer/Calibrated shells:
Either of these can work well. Gun rammer takes advantage of the tank’s great DPM, calibrated shells improves the tank’s poor penetration.

Using gun rammer gives this tank 2280 DPM, with a 8.4s reload for 320 alpha damage. 

Calibrated shells would improve the penetration on APCR from 219mm up to 230mm, HEAT from 250mm up to 275mm, and HE from 54mm to 59mm.

Improved Modules:
The KV-5 is able to be quite fast, with a 40km top speed, it also weighs 100 tons, which is more than all but 3 tanks in tier 8. This tank is very good for ramming enemies with, and improved modules will help to reduce how much damage you take from ramming an enemy.

Enhanced armour:
KV-5 gains a huge amount of armour from this equipment piece, and it helps to really improve the armour of this tank on all areas.
Lower plate from 225mm up to 234mm
Upper plate from  290-305mm up to 304-318mm
Mini turrets on hull from 240mm up to 250mm
Turret face from 227mm up to 237mm

The hull and turret sides also gain a large benefit, increasing from 150mm up to 156mm.

The KV-5 already has the highest base HP in tier 8, at 1950, so it doesn’t at all lack HP.

Vertical Stabilizer/Refined gun:
Equip the KV-5 with vertical stabilizer at first. This really helps with the tank’s very poor 2.9s base aim time, since it plays quite actively on the frontline, and is constantly moving and turning. The stabilizer helps the tank to retain its accuracy better while its moving, stopping the gun from blooming out so much.

If you don’t think stabilizer is working, try refined gun. This doesn’t work on most heavies, but is actually alright on the KV-5, due to its poor base accuracy, yet good gun handling. It takes your tank longer to aim its shots in with such a setup, it it will be easier to snap shots more accurately, especially when fully aimed.

Gameplay advice

The KV-5 is a frontline brawler heavy tank.

Even though it has -7 degrees of gun depression, its best to avoid gun depression positions, as the tank is extremely tall and large, and can easily be countered by enemies with good accuracy shooting the hatches.

General gameplay:
The KV-5 should be taken to the HT side of the map. This is where it works best, due to the gun relying on close-range brawls, and the armour just working so well in such a scenario. Try to find flat and city areas if possible, as these areas are easiest to sidescrape in, which is a huge strength of the KV-5.

Uneven terrain isn’t terrible for the KV-5, as it has a good -7 gun depression, just don’t try to play as a gun depression tank, since your size is huge and enemies you face in those positions are likely better equipped to use them.

On the MT flank, you would just be an enormous target. While the armour will work much better (since MT have lower penetration), enemies are smaller and harder to hit, and can also flank around you easily, and are more accurate. You won’t be able to brawl as well on the MT flank, as your gun isn’t accurate enough, and enemies move too quickly.

Sidescrape:
The KV-5 is a beast of sidescraping, and is one of the best tanks to do so in tier 8. The extremely strong and flat hull sides make it perfect for sidescraping, and the long length of the hull makes it easy to bait enemies.

You can also very easily over-angle and bait many enemies into shooting you. Since the KV-5’s side armour is almost double what most heavy tanks have, many enemies won’t be used to dealing with such an over-angled tank.

Angle the armour:
Always try to angle the hull, there is no downside to doing this, as the KV-5 just becomes far stronger when its angled. The lower plate is no longer a weakpoint, and the engine deck “weakpoint” is exposed, which is a good bait for enemies to shoot at (this area is 225mm base thickness, most tier 8 tanks can’t penetrate it).

Facehugging:
It may seem counter intuitive with the KV-5 having quite flat angles, but when facehugging tanks, the enormous gun mantlet can be put in the way of their guns, and the 2 hull hatches will stop them from aiming for the lower turret. Their only real option will be to aim up, for the turret top or the hatches, and that’s easy to block with the gun mantlet of the tank (many tanks can’t actually hit the hatches in facehug, due to how tall KV-5 is).

Aim shots:
Due to poor aim time and accuracy, its best to try and not rush your shots. If you rush then you are likely to miss. Generally in close range fights this won’t be much of an issue, but if shooting at mid or long range targets, its best to aim for as long as possible.

Ram enemies:
The KV-5 is the 4th heaviest tier 8 tank, however its also the fastest superheavy tank in the game. You can go at 40km/h, and weigh 100 tons, ramming enemies is a very viable gameplay tactic.

Don’t over-expose:
KV-5 is very large, tall, and long, and it ahs a poor 11km/h reverse speed. If you push into a position too aggressively or without support, you can’t easily reverse out and are quite an easy target.
Try to always plan pushes carefully so you don’t get caught by your tank’s bad reverse speed, as it can cause you to lose HP.

Overall

The KV-5 is a good and unique tank. In the game, there’s really not another tank with such a troll and strong all-round armour profile.

It has got great speed for such an armoured 100 ton tank, with decent acceleration, thoguh slow traverse and reverse speed.
The gun is a mixed bag of good and bad, having poor accuracy, aim time, and low penetration, but great DPM and gun handling.
The armour is just extremely strong, since the tank isn’t only frontally armoured, it has great armour on the sides and rear as well.

Is it worth getting?

The KV-5 is a fairly simple tank to play and its not too hard to do well in. It has some of the best all-round armour in tier 8, with good speed and a quick reloading 107mm gun, which makes it unique as there are no other tanks like this.

This tank is worth getting for players who want to try a bit of a different heavy tank. Its very durable and reliable in its armour, and its mobility is fairly good, however you may not enjoy it is you don’t like inaccurate or inconsistent guns.

KV-5 is worth 8,000 gold, but usually its sold in stores for much cheaper.

Most recently sold for:

5,500 gold- May 2022
5,500 gold- August 2022
7,500 gold in bundle with T34 & T26E4 – August 2023

Camo cost:

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