KV-JR

KV-JR is a tier 9 heavy tank from Season 4 “Anniversary” based off the KV-2. It has KV-2 like traits, with weak armour, bad acceleration, and terrible accuracy. It also has high alpha with great penetration.

Click the table of contents below to access the section you want:

Armour

(The KV-JR in the images is using Improved Assembly)

Drag slider right -> to view 235mm AP
Drag slider <- left to view 285mm HEAT

When flat and facing head-on:
Upper plate 218mm
Angled mid plate 300mm
Lower plate 99mm

Turret face 206mm
Gun mantlet 265mm

Side armour:
The side armour of the KV-JR is mediocre, with 76mm on the lower sides (behind tracks), and 80mm above the tracks.

This isn’t great side armour, but its also not terrible.

Armour vs tier 8 enemies:
Against tier 8 enemies you may get some bounces against the lower penetration medium & light tanks. However, most tanks can easily penetrate the KV-JR’s turret face and its upper plate, so its really only the low penetration tanks which will bonce off.

Armour vs tier 9-10 enemies:
Same as with the higher penetration tier 8 tanks, tier 9-10 enemies will mostly have no issue penetrating the KV-JR due to its flat and weak turret front, and its weakly armoured hull.

The only areas where enemies would bounce off are the gun mantlet, the angled mid-plate, or when angling the hull and baiting shots into the tracks.

Gun

The KV-JR mounts a 152mm gun in its top configuration.

-Alpha damage is 630 on AP, 545 on HEAT, and 960 on HE
-Reload time is 19.8s, giving it 1910 DPM
-Penetration on AP is 240mm, HEAT is 320mm, and HE is 75mm.
–Estimated aim time is 4.7s/5.0s
–Base aim time is 2.7s, but it can get down to 2.08.
-Dispersion is 0.435/0.369
–Gun handling is 0.22/0.22/0.22, or 0.19/0.19/0.19 with Vertical Stabilizer.
-Gun depression is -6 degrees

Overall this is a very mediocre gun. Though it has high alpha and great penetration, the other aspects of the gun (and the tank) let it down. Accuracy is extremely poor, gun handling is terrible, aim time is slow, and gun depression is poor. Importantly, the tank has barely quicker reload than the tier 6 KV-2, yet this is at tier 9, giving it terrible DPM & reload time.

The gun isn’t terrible, as it can hit and penetrate enemies with fair reliability, though for tier 9 its extremely slow reload is usually what lets it down.

Mobility

-Top speed is 38km/h forwards, and -13km/h in reverse
-Traverse speed is 40.3 deg/s on hard terrain, and 26.9 deg/s on medium terrain.
-In game acceleration rate is shown as 13.6 hp/t, it has a decent 828hp engine for its 110 ton weight.
-Actual acceleration rate is 13.6 hp/t on hard terrain, and 9.1 hp/t on medium terrain.
–Terrain resistances are 1/1.5/2

Overall this mobility is decent. While the medium terrain performance is terrible, the combination of a fairly decent hull traverse speed with the terrible acceleration rate actually causes the mobility to be decent enough. The tank isn’t fast on medium terrain, but its mobility on hard terrain is pretty good.

Equipment, provisions, & consumables

The KV-JR doesn’t have any special provisions or consumables.

Calibrated Shells:
Since the KV-JR has a high alpha and inaccurate derp gun, the main use of this gun focuses around its ability to have a big impact in a single shot, rather than how fast it reloads. For this reason, using calibrated shells is much better than gun rammer.

Calibrated shells would increase penetration on AP from 240mm up to 259mm, HEAT from 320mm to 362mm, and HE from 75mm to 81mm.

Improved Assembly:
Due to having very flat armour plates, and those armour plates being fairly weak for a tier 9 tank, there is no point in using enhanced armour, it won’t help to bounce more shells from tier 9 enemies.

Use improved assembly to increase the good base HP of the tank, from 2200 base HP up to 2288 HP.

Refined Gun:
Just as with the calibrated shells choice above, the main purpose of the KV-JR’s gun is focused on its single-shot impact. While the KV-JR is a heavy tank which mostly fights in close to mid ranges, and it has completely terrible gun handling, vertical stabilizer isn’t the right choice in this case.

Refined gun will work better as you want to make sure that the gun does hit its shot and deliver that impactful 630 alpha damage. Due to this, often you want to stop and fully aim your shot, just to make sure that it hits and penetrates, refined gun is better for this, as it will let your reticle be more accurate when you fully aim in.

Gameplay advice

The KV-JR is a support heavy tank. Its not ideal on the frontline due to its long reload and poor armour, and does best when its not the one taking the attention of the enemies.

General gameplay:
Start the battle by going to the heavy tank side of the map. While the KV-JR doesn’t have great armour, its gameplay is focused around its gun, and that gun is far too inaccurate and slow-reloading to be used effectively on the medium flank.

Stay behind stronger-armoured and better equipped (more accurate & faster reloading) allied heavy tanks. You should let these tanks take the attention of the enemy guns since they will be better at absorbing damage due to their better armour. Once the enemies have shot, you can then push out to hit them while they are still reloading. This lets you take the minimal damage while still supporting your team with your massive alpha damage.

Always retreat and hide while reloading, there is no point pushing out aggressively before/after you shoot and using adrenaline to try and “out-DPM” your enemy, this won’t work. Its best to fully retreat into cover for the duration of your long reload, and at most extend your tank a few seconds before you reload. Coming out before you reload gives you time to aim in on the enemy, so you’re ready to shoot by the time the shell is loaded (however sometimes its best not to do this, as it loses you the element of surprise).

Trade in alpha damage:
As stated above, you shouldn’t try to use the DPM of your tank to take on enemies. Your DPM is terrible, and you have an astronomical reload for a single-shot tier 9 tank. its much better to trade shot-for-shot with an enemy, since most tanks have less alpha damage than the KV-JR. If equally trading on alpha damage, then successfully hiding for the duration of your reload time, you will almost always have much more HO than the enemy at the end of the fight,

Drive on hard terrain:
Just like with the other 2 tanks from Season 4, the KV-JR has terrain resistance terrible medium terrain resistance, causing it to be much less mobile when going off-road.

Try to stay on roads and paved areas, these are hard terrain areas, and will allow your tank to be much more mobile than when going off-road (which is medium terrain). It will allow you to be more agile and flexible with how you play in battle, which is quite important for a support heavy tank.

Use the different ammo types:
AP is your primary shell, it has good penetration and can penetrate through obstacles & spaced armour, you can also overmatch enemies with 50mm armour plates.

HEAT has very good penetration on this tank, it can deal with the majority of enemy heavy tanks, even tier 10 ones if you use calibrated shells.

HE is great for dealing splash damage when you don’t want to waste time aiming, or you just can’t penetrate an enemy even with HEAT. It should also be used against lightly armoured enemies, or the sides or rears of other tanks to deal a huge 960 alpha damage.

Overall the KV-JR plays the support heavy role, using its better armoured allies to take the brunt of enemy gunfire. KV-JR takes advantage of enemies on reload to poke out and deal its hide alpha, before retreating and reloading for 20s. Each shot should be aimed carefully due to the low DPM of the tank, one missed shot is 1/3rd of your DPM wasted.

Tank gameplay:

Overall

Armour – 4/10
Gun – 4/10
Mobility – 5/10
Speed – 6/10

Overall the KV-JR is a mediocre tank.

Armour is weak for a heavy tank. The turret & hull fronts are thick but flat, making them easily penetrable to most tier 8-10 tanks. Side armour is decent, HE protection is great, HESH protection is poor.
Gun is mediocre, amazing alpha damage of 630, with a great selection of shells with good penetration; however accuracy, gun handling, aim time, reload time, DPM, & gun depression (-6) are poor.
Mobility is decent, with good traverse speed & acceleration on hard terrain, but average traverse with poor acceleration on medium terrain. Reverse speed is a mediocre -12km/h.
Speed is pretty decent at 38km/h.

Is it worth it?

This tank cannot be earned for free, and can only be earned by buying bundles in the store during Season 4.

The KV-JR is worth 9,000 gold. Its not a great tank, and there are more effective but similar alternatives in tiers 9-10. Its still a unique tank due to its high alpha, and can make the KV-JR a quite fun tank to play. However, its not worth paying much for, especially when the Smasher, Caliban, KV-2 are all cheaper to obtain and arguably better/more fun. In tier 9-10 there are also tanks such as Kpz 70, BZ-68, or BZ-75 with more effective armour/mobility/guns.

Camo cost:

KV-JR has a permanent appearance which can’t be adjusted.

Its shown here in the stock configuration.

Stock grind

As you upgrade modules, the stats of each module improves slightly, improvements are not large, they are very gradual.

If you want to check the stats of each module, you can view the tank in-game, or use gamemodels3d or Blitzstars.

Important:
-Only the top turret improves turret armour, all the stock and intermediate turrets have the same armour.
-Stock and top turrets/guns have the same gun depression.
-Tracks only upgrade traverse speed (not terrain resistances or gun handling).
-The hull doesn’t upgrade, the armour is the same throughout.

Gun:
This tank starts with a 142mm gun that does 600 damage, increasing by 10 alpha per upgrade. Reload time, accuracy, and aim time also gradually increase.
The tock guns are very ineffective guns due to terrible reload times & nearly unusable accuracy & aim time.

Turret:
The stock turret is weak, just like the top turret. It also has less HP than the top turret. It will bounce fewer tier 8 rounds, but against tier 9-10 tanks its no less effective.

Engine/tracks:
Engine power, traverse speed, and acceleration are all terrible when stock. The poor terrain resistances only cause it to be more painful to play.

The tank below has Improved Assembly equipped.

Drag slider right -> to view 235mm AP
Drag slider <- left to view 285mm HEAT

Turret face 187mm
Gun mantlet 220mm

Upgrading:
As said above, upgrading each module improves it slightly. In total there are 4 of each module on this tank. 1 stock module, 2 intermediary modules, and 1 top module for each turret, gun, engine, and tracks.

Each gun upgrade makes it slightly more accurate, higher penetration, quicker reload, better alpha.
Each turret upgrade gives better HP and turret turn rate.
Each engine upgrade improves traverse speed and acceleration rate.
Each track upgrade improves traverse speed sonly.

Eventually you get to the top modules, these are the only modules which change in appearance.
-The top gun has by far the best accuracy, penetration, DPM, alpha damage, and reload. This upgrade is so big that it increases the tank’s DPM by almost 300.
-The top turret improves in armour by a noticeable amount, especially when using gun depression.
-The engines and tracks are also in their best configuration, so also output the best possible mobility for the tank.

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