IS-7

The IS-7 is a tier X Soviet heavy tank.

In-game icon for the IS-7

## History

Development of the IS-7 started in the spring of 1945. Prototypes successfully underwent trials in 1946 through early 1948. However, the IS-7 never saw mass production, largely due to logistical issues.

With its well angled "pike-nose" frontal armor layout and a rounded, highly sloped turret front, the IS-7 is one of the toughest nuts to crack when engaged from the front. If positioned behind a piece of cover which shields its lower glacis plate, it becomes a hardened object with so few weak points that successfully damaging the tank turns into a most frustrating experience. Therein lies a weakness, however - the IS-7 cannot angle its armor, because if it does, the sloping of the frontal plate will become significantly worsened and enable most guns to punch through with relative ease. The side armor of the tank is comprised of spaced plates which are not only small but angled as well, making even perfectly landed shots to the hull's midsection fail to do any sort of damage at times. The rear armor is quite thin, however, and will rarely deflect even lower tier guns. The IS-7 mounts a very potent 130mm S-70 naval cannon as the main gun. While it's potentially high damage output can seem quite formidable, the gun itself is largely inaccurate, has a rather long aiming time, takes a while to load, and is actually much less effective than it seems. Nevertheless, at close and medium ranges the gun can still inflict very serious damage. Sustainability of said damage is difficult, though, due to the aforementioned long reload and aim times.

### Development

Three different designs were drawn up in the course of early 1945, named Object 257, Object 258, and Object 259, all of which featured different power plants, but all 3 would mount the 122mm D25 cannon, found on the IS-2 and IS-3. By the end of World war 2, an analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the designs saw the creation of Object 260. With this, the tank that would receive the designation 'IS-7' was born on September 9th, 1945, just a week after the end of the war. It was to receive the same "pike-nose" style armor found on the IS-3, with the armor thickness increased to 150 millimeters, and a similar style turret, albeit much longer, and heavily armored. At first, it was expected to mount a 122mm cannon like the initial designs, but this was later changed to the 130mm S-26 cannon, due to the 122mm not being ready in time. Despite the massive armament in a relatively compact space, a fire rate of 6 to 8 rounds a minute was achieved, thanks to an assisted loading mechanism, which used a pneumatic system to ram the rounds into the breach after the loaders had placed the charge and projectile into position. The tank was also initially equipped with a total of five machine guns, with one 14.5mm above the main gun, two 7.62 millimeters mounted coaxially, and two more 7.62 millimeters mounted on the hull sides. To move the now 65 ton tank, it was decided to use twin V16 engines to produce the power they were looking for, but when the idea failed, they created a new TD-30 diesel engine, based off the ACH-30 aircraft engine. This allowed the tank to reach an astonishing 60km/h top speed(Approx. 37 mph). To support the weight, an advanced suspension system was designed utilizing some technologies never used before on any other soviet tank till that point, such as tracks with a rubber metal hinge, double acting hydraulic shock absorbents, support rollers with internal shock absorption, and beam torsion bars. (Editor's note: Those may not say anything to you, but they don't say anything to me either.)

Just one day short of a year after the Object 260 design was finalized, the first prototype IS-7 left the factory floor to begin testing on September 8th, 1946. It was shortly followed by a second on December 25th. Another two hulls and turrets were also produced for firing trials. The first of these prototypes performed well, managing to travel 1000 kilometers(Approx. 621 miles) during testing without major issues. The second however suffered issues after only 45 kilometers(Approx. 28 miles). The results of these tests were then used to improve the design. These improvements included widening the hull, and lowering the tanks silhouette, by flattening the turret further. This is also when the tank received its curved hull sides. These changes increased the weight by 3 tons, to 68 tons total. To offset this weight increase, a new engine was installed, which produced 1050 horsepower. It was fed by its 1300 liter fuel capacity, increased from 800 liters through the use of flexible rubberized fabric fuel tanks. These special tanks allowed the fuel to be stored along the curved sides, as solid metal tanks would be difficult to produce, and expensive, while also having the potential to crack from the vehicles vibrations while moving. However, these would be blamed for the loss of one of the tanks, after it caught fire, and was unable to be put out, despite being equipped with an automated fire extinguishing system. It was also this version of the IS-7 that would receive the 130mm S-70 cannon. Along with this, the sights were improved, and the pneumatic loading system was replaced with an electronic one. Adding to its plethora of machine guns, another 14.5mm was mounted on a tall mount on the turret roof. This gun was capable of being remote controlled, allowing it to be operated from inside the tank. As if this wasn't already enough, yet another two 7.62 millimeter machine guns were added to the sides of the turret facing backwards. The tank was to be crewed by a crew of five, including a commander, gunner, driver, and two loaders, despite the assisted loading system. With four of these new improved versions of the IS-7 completed in the summer of 1948, more testing was performed. During factory tests it reportedly excelled, still capable of attaining its exceptional speed, and also performing well cross-country. After these initial tests were concluded, they were then delivered to the state, where the tank greatly impressed those who witnessed it. The chief tester of the USSR ministry of transport engineering, E.A Kulchitsky wrote: "I was given a great honor. I received an offer to be the first to give movement to this wonderful tank. It is difficult to convey in words your feelings. Above 60km/h, this heavy machine easily responds to even the smallest effort on the levers and pedals. Gears are shifted by a small lever. The machine is absolutely obedient to the driver."

This smooth driving experience the IS-7 provided was leagues ahead of soviet tanks of the era, with many being notoriously grueling to drive. The protection the armor offered was also outstanding, with the tank being all but invulnerable. To test this, dogs were placed inside the hull, where after the tank was shelled, not only by the german 128mm PaK 44, but also by its own gun. The results were the same with both guns, and the dogs suffered no ill effects. Obviously there were still issues with the tanks, and minor damage was sustained during these trials, but overall, the IS-7 proved to be an impressive machine. After all of this, an order for 50 IS-7's was placed, which was received by the Kirov plant in 1949. However, this would never come to fruition, due to the tank being too heavy for the soviet rail network. The order was later cancelled, and only one IS-7 prototype remains, on display at the Kubinka tank museum.

## Strategy

The IS-7 is a fast heavy tank that delivers mediocre damage while being hard to kill due to its heavily sloped front armor. It has some of the best angled frontal armor in the game, however this is somewhat nullified at close range by the equally thick but much less angled lower plate. All these strengths come with a weakness; the IS-7's main gun, while having the same listed accuracy as the E-100's 15cm, in practice seems to be worse at actually hitting the target, let alone hitting a weak spot, thus requiring the player to get fairly close to their target in order to lessen the impact of its poor dispersion values. This in turn makes you a much easier target to hit as well, with a lot of the frontal armor being penetrable by the high penetration premium ammunition found on a lot of tier IX and X tanks from the range the IS-7 prefers to play in. The IS-7 uses the 130mm S-70, which has better alpha damage than the 122mm M62-T2 mounted on IS-4, but worse stats elsewhere. The main difference between the IS-7 and the IS-4 is that the IS-7 is much faster, with a top speed of 45 km/h (though this is difficult to reach under normal driving conditions), as well as having good turret traverse.

All-in-all, the IS-7 is a relatively strong tier X heavy tank that is forgiving to play in random battles making it an excellent choice for a first tier X for newer players (on top of the fact that the tanks leading up to it are also all forgiving to play and powerful in their own tiers), but more capable players may find the IS-7 quite boring to play because of this 'low skill floor, low skill ceiling' that the tank has, and so may well get more consistently excellent games by driving one of the Chinese heavy tanks or the IS-4.

### Pros and Cons

#### Pros

* High alpha damage
* **Extremely** troll side armor
* Very tough turret
* Great top speed
* Fantastic standard pen

#### Cons

* Gun is overall sub-par (awful gun handling, horrible premium pen, sub-standard dpm, and downright atrocious dispersion)
* Pike nose makes the tank awkward when peeking corners, while being easy to penetrate
* High ground resistance, achieving the listed top speed is somewhat difficult
* Quite vulnerable to ammo rack damage (located behind the top edges/"shoulders" of the pike nose)

## Modules

### Guns

(mm)
(HP)
(rounds/minute)
(m/100m)
(s)
(kg)

### Engines

(hp)
(%)
(kg)

### Suspensions

(т)
(gr/sec)
(kg)

## Suggested Equipment

* Gun Rammer/Calibrated shells (Personal Preference)
* Improved Gun-Laying Drive
* Vertical Stabilizer
* Improved Modules
* Improved Assembly
* Toolbox
* Improved Optics
* Engine Accelerator
* Consumable Delivery System

## Legendary Camouflage

The IS-7's legendary camouflage is called the "Battle-Hardened" camouflage. It changes the in-match name to "IS-7 Battle-Hardened".

## Trivia

* The IS-7 was probably the second tank to receive a legendary camouflage, with the suspected first one being the Type 62
* The 60TP Lewandowskiego also has the exact same ammorack problem

## Sources and External Links

IS-7 - Global wiki. Wargaming.net

IS-7 — Tier X Soviet heavy tank | Blitz Hangar

ConeOfArc Video