Volunteers Helping to Restore the Kubinka Vehicles

Source: http://worldoftanks.ru/ru/content/remember-everything/museum-volunteers/

Hello everyone,

this is a piece of news that I was wondering whether to repost, but since Wargaming made a very nice summary – why not. It is almost a month now, since the, mentioned in the title of the article began: on 19.4.2014, the restoration of several Kubinka armored vehicles began. This restoration was also supported by Wargaming – amongst, other things, by inviting volunteers to work on those vehicles (in case you are wondering – one of them was Yuri Pasholok), along with representatives of Russian portal warportal.ru. The event was  made to bring the vehicles “in shape” by removing the old paint, rust and mold and repaint them with a new coat.

The vehicles chosen for the restoration were: KV-2, T-34/76, BT-7 (1935 model with cylinder turret, two exist in the world – the other is in the Stalin Line museum, Belarus), KV-1, T-28 (1936 model, only one exists in Russia), IS-2 and PT-76 (not sure why PT-76, since it has nothing to do with WW2).

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If you are wondering what’s written on the KV-2, it’s “Scouting through the center” – yep, WoT guys. The volunteers had to remove the old layers of paint from the vehicles by chemical means and through hard manual work, they had to scrape off the eroded paint by hand.

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The vehicles had to be sandblasted and mechanically scraped to remove all traces of the old paint. After removing the paint, old battlescars (holes made by impact of German shells) were revealed, because these vehicles actually really fought. The KV-1 for example was manufactured in the Chelyabinsk plant in December 1941, was assigned to 6th Tank Brigade and fought at Rostov-upon-Don. It has over a dozen impact holes on its metal body, caused by German tank and AT gun shells.The suspension is made of several types of roadwheels mashed together, a sign of emeregency war repairs. After the paint was removed, the volunteers started painting them with red primer color.

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The work is ongoing. At this point, the T-34/76 was stripped of its paint. Here, we can see the tanks painted by the red primer (photos by Yuri Pasholok):

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And here – the result:

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The work is far from finished and is ongoing (judging from the latest Yuri Pasholok’s pictures, now they are working on the T-34). It’s actually pretty nice that Wargaming helps with such a thing. Good job.

39 thoughts on “Volunteers Helping to Restore the Kubinka Vehicles

  1. I think the game represents the vehicles well, but I’m still impressed by what a giant towering hulk of destructive machinery the KV-2 is.

  2. Nice to see that they take care of those rare vehicles and don’t let them rust away, like the americans do with some rare (german) tanks they got :)

    • Yeah, like the Pz.IV hydro that’s just sitting at aberdeen. God dammit put a roof over it!

      • Last I heard, the tanks and all the things were packed up and moved to Fort Lee, Virginia…only some of the static things remain, like the Atomic Annie, and I believe the German railroad gun.

  3. The only problem I have with this, is that they make for very good propaganda material, I don’t want to start is again, but just imagine the posters everywhere with these restored tanks with slogans on how stronk the Sovjet warmachine was.
    Nevertheless, awesome that these guys dedicate their free time to restore history!

  4. I love that the KV-2 has “Scouting up the center” painted on its turret…you’d think that kind of thing would have been just as boneheaded in real life as it is in the game :p

    • Maybe it’s not a typo, but is truely showing how long it will take by using “ongoing” twice, yeah? I mean, it’s improper grammar, but maybe he’s proving a point? :o

      • I don’t know why but the double ongoing did not get me into thinking of a typo or a mistake, knowing the WG motto: ,,Later is better” that double ,,ongoing” hits right the spot. Maybe I am a bit of a complicated thinker, but that ,,mistake” should remain with a symbol like ,,^^” or something as a joke just for the lulz of the ongoing work that is ongoing :)))

      • Somehow i have started to notice that people who haven’t got english as first language speak and write in it better than those who have it as a main language

  5. Hey, man, you made a mistake. This tanks aren’t from Kubinka Musem. They stands in Central Museum of Armed Forces in Moscow.