Editing IS-2 (section)

==In Real Life==
Ah, the mighty Iosif Stalin-2 tank... Named after the Great Patriotic War leader himself, emblem of the Soviet victory over the Fascist invaders who put the fear of Red into the heart of the Western Allies! There's a lot to be said about this one, but let's start at the beginning.

In 1937, the Red Army is trying to re-equip itself to be in accordance with their updated Field Regulations from the year before, and a tender is put out for a heavy tank. Heavy tanks (sometimes referred to as breakthrough tanks, but the two terms aren't 100% equivalent: heavy is a class where breakthrough is a role on the battlefield) were designed to take the enemy head-on, and thus be able to take a beating without flinching and return it twofold. The first attempts however were... [[derp|really bad]]. The multi-turreted monsters that were the T-35, the T-100 and the SMK performed so poorly they were discarded, and [[lulz|ironically the single turret design that had been added almost as an afterthought]] was approved by direct order of Stalin himself not because it was good, [[fail|but because all the others designs were just plain terrible and they needed a heavy tank like yesterday!]] Enters the Kliment Voroshilov tank, better known as the [[KV|KV-1]].

The KV-1 was not a good design. It was, in it's way, just as problematic to the Reds as the late-war heavies were to the Germans: too big, too heavy, too prone to breakdowns, too sluggish; poor visibility and ergonomics... It did however have two major boons that allowed it to go down in history as a saviour instead of a total failure. First, the ZiS-5 76mm gun in its turret (the same gun as its smaller brother the [[T-34]]) that early in the war was a good all-purpose weapon able to engage any ground target. The second was armour. Lots, and lots, and LOTS of armour that made the KV-1 virtually impenetrable by the early-war German tank guns, except at the most point-blank of ranges. Nicknamed ''Koloss'' or ''Monster'' by the Germans due to the insane amount of punishment it could take, the KV-1 was a major thorn in their side... when it did reach the battlefield, that is. 

By 1942 and with the Germans no longer at Moscow's doors people dared to start complaining to Stalin about the KV-1's many problems, especially when the Germans brought bigger guns and the KV-1's armour wasn't longer such a big advantage. This turn of events led (amongst many other things) to Kliment Voroshilov (the man) being sidelined by Stalin. Zhozef Kotyn, the designer of the KV-1 saw the writing on the wall just in time and ordered the problems with the KV-1 fixed. That task fell to a young engineer named Nikolay Shashmurin. Shashmurin's approach was simple: he replaced the transmission (which was the worst part of the original KV-1) with a better one, made some quick improvement to ergonomics and eventually sacrificed armor wherever he could do so without threatening the tank's vitals to make it lighter. Shashmurin's rework, designated the KV-1S (''Skorostnoy'', Russian for 'speedy') [[skub|delivered... in a sense]]: the KV-1S was indeed a lot more reliable than the earlier model(s), but the crews soon enough reported they were now just using a bigger [[T-34]], with no advantage in firepower or armour. To Kotin's [[rage|dismay and anger]], field commanders requested more T-34's instead of his new toy. That said, Stalin was satisfied enough he didn't bring the [[mod|hammer]] [[communism|(and sickle)]] down on Kotin and he remained at the head of his design bureau.

Fast forward to 1943: those goddamn German bastards are bringing out bigger, better toys to play with and the Reds quickly become fed up being on the receiving end of 88mm shells fired from almost 2km away. When the decision was taken to start upgunning the armour park, Kotin came up with a quick'n'dirty stopgap upgrade of installing a 85mm gun in a KV-1 turret, the KV-85. But, at the same time he turned to Shashmurin again and gave him pretty much ''carte blanche'' to come up with a new design... as long as it would finally allow him to one-up his (to him and him only) unsufferable counterpart that designed the [[T-34]], Mikhail Koshkin.

Undaunted, Shashmurin came up with two propositions: 
*The IS-1, a rough analogue to but complete redesign of the KV-85 that incorporated advances like sloped armour, a better engine and improved transmission, while sporting the same 85mm gun. 
*The IS-2, which was pretty much the same machine but sporting an adapted version of the much larger naval D-25 122mm dual-purpose gun. 
The IS-1 was quickly discontinued as it suffered from exactly the same poor comparaison to the T-34-85 the KV-1S had suffered with the earlier T-34: bigger and heavier for no practical advantage. The IS-2, however, was a winner. Its powerful 122mm gun was capable of penetrating [[Tiger]]s and [[Panther]]s with its armour-piercing at combat range, while also packing a high explosive shell that could knock out tanks through sheer force alone. Its well-designed armor allowed the IS-2 to regain the ground the KV-1 had eventually lost to the Tigers and Panthers, forcing the German heavie(r)s to close in for a kill instead of sniping from afar exploiting the better range and optics of their ''Acht-acht''. All in all, [[awesome|Shashmurin delivered for the second time]], and about 4.500 IS-2's rolled from the assembly lines to deliver high-explosive death to the [[meme|dumbasses who had the bad idea to start a land war in Asia]].

Now, [[skub|a passionate topic amongst armchair historians]] is whether the IS-2 was one of the better tanks of WWII or not. Sadly for the IS-2, the answer is actually "No!" Put bluntly: it wasn't even a good '''''<u>tank</u>''''' design to start with, having more in common with the various German ''Sturmhaubitze'' than both side would like to admit: the crew of only four men and the 122mm gun's so-so precision and far too small fire rate of at best 3 shells a minute (with an experienced crew and nothing to distract them) made the IS-2 rather inefficient in tank vs. tank engagements. Of course, a hit from the D-25 was a kill and there are confirmed stories of IS-2's overcoming incredible odds against Panthers and Tigers in tank-to-tank combat. That is indeniable. But when you look at the Russian ORBAT and AAR's, you will see IS-2's were committed in regiment strength ([[awesome|21 tanks at once]]) to support infantry assaults and destroy bunkers, fortifications, buildings, dug-in weapons and the likes; with tank-hunting a distant second best left to the much more numerous and better adapted to the task T-34-85's. Sadly enough for Kotin, but his dream of seeing his heavy tank design prevail would never come to pass: where the T-34-85 evolved into the T-44 and formed the base for the next generations of Soviet/Russian MBT's; heavy tanks were sidelined after WWII, only kept for propaganda purpose and the odd parade and eventually given the definitive boot by Nikita Khrushchev in the sixties for being stupidly impractical and a waste of resources.

After reading that last paragraph, you will probably be wondering why the hell the IS-2 is so well-remembered if it was so bad? The answer to that is twofold:
*While heavy tanks in general weren't that good of a concept, individually the IS-2 was the right tool at the right time for the job at hand during WWII: when it started to really hit the field in numbers, the Germans had less and less operational tanks and relied more and more on static defensive fortifications to try and slow down the enemy. The IS-2, in turn, ''excels'' at dealing with static fortifications and racked up a fearsome reputation for killing Fascists easy as you please. 
*After WWII, the Soviets used it along with its IS-3 successor for propaganda value and liberally made it available to their allies around the world (from European Satellite States like East Germany to China and North Korea during the Korean War); which bolstered and cemented its reputation as an ''Instrument of Liberation''. 
However, despite being made available to their allies and eventually even modernized in the fifties; the IS-2 barely ever hit the field of battle after WWII. Both technology and warfare methods had evolved in the meantime, and the hour of the 'Main Battle Tank' (a come-all-takers that straddles the line between medium and heavy) was at hand, and bunker-pounders like the IS-2 were eventually phased out, put into storage, transformed into static defenses or given to museums/cities for static emplacements. [[skub|To conclude: the IS-2's reputation is certainly not undeserved, but it got blown out of proportion after the war.]] [[Lulz|Ironically enough exactly like his opponent the Tiger!]]

{{Soviet Forces in Flames of War}}