Knocked-Out KV-1 Heavy Tank on Rostov-on-Don’s Market Square, 1942

June 27, 2025 - Reading time: 3 minutes

A Soviet KV-1 heavy tank stands destroyed on the market square of Rostov-on-Don after German forces seized the city in 1942. The tank is a 1941 model featuring a welded turret and 76.2mm ZiS-5 cannon.

Rostov-on-Don, 1942.
Amidst the shattered facades and scorched bricks of a once-busy market square, a steel colossus stands silent — a knocked-out KV-1 heavy tank, left behind as the Red Army withdrew under pressure from advancing Wehrmacht forces.

Captured at the corner of Moskovskaya Street and Budyonnovsky Avenue, the KV-1 represents both Soviet armored might and the cost of losing the initiative during the southern campaigns of the war.

This particular tank is a late-production 1941 variant, distinguishable by its reinforced welded turret and 76.2mm ZiS-5 gun. It had thicker armor than earlier models and was feared by German infantry in 1941–42, capable of withstanding nearly every anti-tank weapon of the time — except, perhaps, for the sheer weight of bad luck and overwhelming odds.

The image is dated to the summer or early autumn of 1942, a period of ferocious struggle for Rostov-on-Don. The city had already changed hands before — taken by German forces in late 1941, liberated by the Red Army in early 1942, and now falling once more under Nazi control during the German summer offensive toward the Caucasus oil fields.

The KV-1 in the photo appears to have been disabled in combat, either by direct fire or mechanical breakdown, then abandoned during the Red Army’s retreat. Its hulk — blasted and still — would have been a grim trophy for the occupiers, and a painful memory for those who fought to hold the city.

This single tank on a wide plaza tells a larger story: of shifting front lines, of tactical retreats, and of how even the most formidable machines could become monuments of defeat in a war where every block was fought over like it was the last.

📷 Technical photo data:
📸 Photographer: Unknown German war correspondent
📅 Date: Summer–Autumn 1942
📍 Location: Market Square, Rostov-on-Don, USSR