The KV-220 is one of the lesser-seen heavy tanks around the 6.0 BR range, and this is mainly due to the fact that the KV-220 was available during the 2016 "Operation S.U.M.M.E.R" event and is now only available on the marketplace. This begs the question: Is it worth the price now? Is this vehicle still as strong as it once was, or has the environment around it changed too much for this old dog to maintain its place among some of the strongest ground vehicles in the game?
Firepower
The KV-220 has a similar 85mm gun to several of the Soviet tanks around the BR; however, it is limited to the BR-365 and O-365K shells. The BR-365 will be your bread and butter, and it is a good round, trading off a bit of penetration for explosive filler. This does mean that you will have to aim for weakspots on many vehicles; however, when you do penetrate, you will most commonly one-shot enemies due to the amount of filler. If you really need to, you can still shoot for barrels, then tracks, to disable tanks you are really struggling to kill; however, it is often better to outmanoeuvre them as opposed to sitting in front of them waiting for your reload.
Like most Soviet tanks, the depression and gun laying speed is poor, and the turret traverse is not great either, but it is adequate. The poor gun laying speeds and turret rotation speed will be quite irritating in some circumstances and can affect your ability to react to people making fast plays, but situational awareness will generally carry you through. The Reload is also not too bad for the BR Bracket; you reload almost a second faster than the other Soviet tanks armed with the 85mm, and this means you have a very similar reload to the Tiger 1 and Panthers. This is where crew skills really matter, and having a good crew will allow you to reload faster than many of your contemporaries.
The BR-365K shell is a straight upgrade to the BR-365 shell and gives higher flat penetration and maintains the angled penetration; however, the increase to the flat penetration does not matter in a lot of circumstances. I personally use the BR-365 shell on the T-34-85s and IS-1 because of This means that the KV-220 isn't really missing out by lacking this shell. and the increased post-penetration damage. This means that the KV-220 isn't really missing out by lacking this shell.
The BR-365P shell is an APCR shell, so it is largely useless against most targets. There is a single vehicle that I would bring this shell for, and that is the Tiger 2H, as the flat turret cheeks are pennable at closer ranges with it, though it is far from reliable.
Overall, the gun the KV-220 has is more than adequate for most of the targets at your own BR and many at higher BRs, but you will start to struggle against some of the 6.7 Heavies, such as the Tiger 2H and the American T26E5 and T30/34/29. IF you do penetrate the enemy's armour, you will most likely one-shot them, due to the large amount of filler in the shell.
You should also carry some HE so you can effectively deal with open-top targets that can be overpressured.
Mobility
The mobility of the KV-220 is nothing to write home about; it gets a lengthened hull and improved engine as compared to other KV series tanks, which compensates for the additional weight of the improved armour, though the longer hull does hurt its neutral steering a little bit. Like other KV series tanks, it feels quite responsive in a turn, especially at speed; however, the KV-220 feels more like a medium tank in terms of its forward speed, and you can quite easily move around the map and reposition when you need to.
You have a less than decent reverse speed, and this means that you will often struggle to be able to retreat from bad positions, or if you lose your barrel/breech, however, your armour should allow you to reposition and should allow you to get a flank off or find a different engagement, though there are very few vehicles that you should be actively avoiding or hiding from.
Armour
The armour is where the KV-220 really shines; however, it requires the same trick as the Tiger 1 does to be used to its full effectiveness. The KV-220 has 100mm-thick upper and lower front plates, as well as 100mm-thick side plates on the hull, meaning that when angled properly, the KV-220 is impervious to the Tiger 1's 88mm, the L/42 75mm on the Panthers, and can even bounce shells from the Long 88 found on the Tiger 2's and some other SPGs. Effectively angling this hull armour is the real key to survival in the KV-220; many people will fail to properly identify you and will shoot for the front plate, only to bounce off.
Because the KV-220 does not have sponsons like the Tiger 1 or Panthers, it does not have a weaker lower section of the side plate, so there is no weak spot there. There is a small weak spot on the upper front plate where the hull MG port is, but this is extremely difficult to hit and can easily be obscured by bushes or angling. The turret of the KV-220 is shaped a bit like a wedge; the sides taper out from the mantlet to the full width of the turret, creating quite a small amount of flat armour to shoot at around the mantlet.
The main place people will shoot you and actually be able to penetrate your armour here is the area just above and below the gun. Because of the way the turret ring is layered, aiming at it will often produce a non-pen or pen with no damage, and the commander's cupola is protected by 130 mm of armour all around, as well as the smaller viewport in front of it, making the flattest part of it less visible. When you do get shot in the mantlet, this will usually only knock out one or two of your crew, and although it will almost always take your breech, you will be able to manoeuvre and repair.
There is a possible shot trap as the lower parts of the mantlet are angled down, but this is extremely rare; I can count on one hand the amount of times this has actually happened to me.
This tank can be very survivable and is generally quite bomb-resistant. None of the above has really changed since the vehicle was introduced; however, one thing that has changed and has affected the KV-220 is the advent of artillery vehicles and the overpressure mechanic. Vehicles like the M109 can very easily destroy the KV-220; by aiming at the turret at all, they will overpressure your entire tank, and they can also shoot the inside of the road wheels and one-shot you very reliably, though this shot is a bit harder.
How to play/Best tactics
Angling is probably the most important thing to remember in this vehicle; if done correctly, your hull will be completely impenetrable by almost every gun you will face, and many tanks with quite strong guns relative to the BR will struggle to crack you open. The turret is angled well by design, and you should mostly be pointing it at the enemy, which feels quite intuitive. It does not hurt to wiggle the turret a little to the left and right, as this will make it much harder for people to damage your barrel and can make people miss your breech if they are aiming there.
SPHs such as the M109 must be greatly respected, and despite their lack of armour, you do not have a machine gun capable of penetrating that armour, so you must make sure to damage their gun or breech before putting yourself in the firing line.
This vehicle is one of the most heavily armoured at the BR range, and this means you can effectively use it as a breakthrough tank, pushing up the front lines and down central lanes. When doing this, you will need to make sure you have your sides covered and watch out for people lurking in side streets and around corners.
Sniping is also an option, and you will be very difficult to kill when in a good position, but the poor gun depression and lack of overall power in the gun will limit how effective you can be in such a position, and it may be better to leave those positions for tanks more suited to them or that will struggle to push up the front lines.
The gun is a bit weaker than others around it and so you will need to aim for weakspots on several vehicles. Usually when you do penetrate with the ammunition the gun has you will one-shot enemies, and can start looking for the next target.
Conclusions
Overall the KV-220 is still a monster where it is currently at, and it can be an absolute terror for many of the most powerful tanks around it, especially the Tiger 1, as the KV-220 is generally capable of exploiting the same tactics as the Tiger, while having some advantages in terms of armour and size. You can reliably Brawl in city maps, take longer range positions on more open maps and be the spearhead of any push you wish to make with your team. When you start to see some of the late and postwar heavies, you will need to play a bit slower and more carefully, as these vehicles can and will destroy you if you overextend, or stay in their sights too long, but you will still find yourself bouncing shots in many of these matches.
The KV-220 is a joy to play, and I can highly recommend it. It struggles a little for a lineup, the only other 6.0 vehicles the soviets get is the T-V, an event Panther A copy, and the Su-100, which is not a great vehicle in its own regards. For CAS, you can bring in several fighters such as the La-9, or Yak-9UT with the new APHE belts for the 45mm, or you can bring something like the TU-2S59 with its bombsight and 3 x 1000kg bombs. If you see it going for cheap on the market, it is definitely worth it in my opinion if you have the vehicles around it, and are looking for a fun tank with premium bonuses in the mid ranks.
