Heavy tank KV-2. Stalin's steel 'mammoth'.

On June 24, 1941, in Lithuania, near the road from Kedainiai to Sheta, units of the advancing 8th Tank Division of the Wehrmacht encountered an unknown Soviet tank with a huge turret and a powerful 152mm gun. This encounter was a real shock for the Germans - they were surprised to see how 37mm shells from five Pz.38(t) tanks bounced off the armor of the 'Russian Colossus'. (A photo of this tank from the 2nd Tank Division of the 3rd Mechanized Corps of the Red Army has been preserved, showing numerous hits that did not cause any harm). Only a lucky hit to the base of the seemingly invulnerable tank's turret disabled it. Three days later, in Belarus near Volokovsk, a similar tank halted the advance to the east of units of the 263rd Infantry Division for several hours with its fire. This giant, standing in the way of the Blitzkrieg, was called 'Stalin's Mammoth' by the Germans, the heavy assault tank 'Klim Voroshilov-2'. Supplemented with new exclusive photo materials, this edition of the bestseller by a leading domestic historian of armored vehicles pays tribute to one of the most recognizable tanks of the Soviet Union and the courage of its crews, who bore the first blow of the Wehrmacht, detailing the creation, design, production, modifications, and combat use - from the 'Winter War' to the bloody summer of '41 - of the legendary KV-2.