Of course it’s a matter of balance and that’s exactly my point. In real combat, you very rarely have a 1v1 situation because there’s always someone shooting from a distance or coming to reinforce, which means you h ave to act quick.
And that’s what’s making the IS-3 so good, you cannot take him out frontally so you have to go around or take a very long time by destroying it’s tracks and so on. By the time you’re ready to actually kill it, his team is back and you’re dead.
The tank itself might not be OP but it’s its value to the team that’s important here. An IS-3 covered by a T-44 can do way more for their team than 3 or 4 players individually.
BTW, winning a duel against 2-3 tanks is a very common thing and you have multiple instance where a player alone holds a capture zone for a very long time.
I just showed you tanks with which you can frontally penetrate him even in a full downtier. If you refuse to use the tanks available to you that is not the game’s fault / Gaijin’s problem to balance.
You do realise that it’s a dumb statement yes ?
“just use HEAT”, yeah sure, I’ll just wait in a corner for that specific moment where an IS-3 will come out.
You could simply say “just bomb it” cuz after all, all nations got planes right ?
Having all the heavies, most of the TDs and half of the mediums not being able to pen it frontally isn’t balance and it’s also something that’s unique to it in the game with the T26E5.
Hell, the B1 ter got nerfed because it had too much armour, even though a lot of tanks could pen it, so why not this tank ?
Discussing specific situations when discussing balance isn’t good.
Most tank destroyers of its BR range can penetrate it frontally. Most light tanks of its BR range also gain access to HEAT-FS with which they can penetrate it frontally.
Medium tanks and heavy tanks of its BR range are extremely difficult to balance because of the post WW2 era producing so many prototypes that Gaijin has chosen to model in the game.
The IS-3 has the same gun as the IS-2 with 30 more mm of penetration. If it is uptiered it faces ATGMs and APDS which can penetrate it. If it is at its BR range it faces HEAT-FS. In a full downtier there are still vehicles with access to HEAT-FS to penetrate it but the medium / heavy tanks in a downtier struggle against it frontally.
The Jumbo Sherman at 5.3 can’t penetrate the Tiger 2 (P) frontally easily yet the Tiger 2 (P) is balanced where it is, why?
Because it can have its tracks shot and it can be flanked.
That’s the balancing factor of heavy tanks at this BR range. Can the side armor be penetrated?
In the case of the IS-3 that is a yes. It’s armor is trolly due to Gaijin’s modeling of volumetric but it can still be penetrated by tanks of its BR range.
The IS-3’s gun is its weakest factor and is what relegates it to 7.0, a 20 second reload aced shooting a WW2 round facing Cold War tanks. Its fire power is subaverage.
It does, just aim for the turret cheeks and you can disable gunner, loader and have a chance of blowing up the ammo. And even if the jumbo did have problems penetrating it, it has the worst penetration on it’s BR so the comparison isn’t fair.
And so is the one of the B1 ter. Yet, it’s BR was raised even though it has tracks, weak side and all the things you’re saying.
The IS-3 is indeed in a complex situation with all the ATGMs and HEATs but so does the IS-4 and it’s sitting higher while also having a weakspot on the front for AP shells.
That’s my main problem with the IS-3. All heavies in the game have at least one weakspot on the front, even the most heavily armoured ones.
The only two that don’t have one are the IS-3 and the T26E5
Inconsistent at best and really only possible with APCR which doesn’t have major post pen damage.
I don’t really have any opinions on pre-war tanks and their balance. I don’t think it’s useful to discuss them in terms of balance for mid tier / high tier as the tier is mostly for curb stomping noobs.
The MAUS can be downtiered to 6.7
You continue to ignore tanks which have access to HEAT-FS
Your argument begins and ends with “The Tiger 2 (H) struggles at 6.7” so why did you create a thread discussing the IS-3?
We’ve come back at the begining of the conversation again.
When the only way to destroy a tank is relying on the few HEAT slingers that might come across its way or an unreliable flanking tactic, there is room for concern.
Even though the IS-3 didn’t move yet, I was happy when i saw that the IS-6 did. Funny thing is that it’s easier to destroy than the IS-3.
That’s complete non-sense. No tanks are equal, no light, no medium, no heavy and no TD.
Each has strenghts and weaknesses. Some may rely on super strong armor, others on mobility and firepower.
The IS-3 has practically the same firepower as the IS-2 in terms of penetration since the APC round is generally not worth using over the APBC.
It even has worse traverse speed so the firepower is even somewhat worse.
It makes up for it with very strong armor but that doesn’t protect it from getting disabled before it even has a chance to shoot.
The role of a heavy tank is to be able to assault a position to allow other vehicles / infantry to move forward to assist it.
If a heavy tank can not do this job then its only value is that of its gun. Most heavy tanks don’t have the strongest available guns due to the weight of their armor. If the heavy tank’s armor is ineffective then it is an overweight medium tank at best.
And? That’s just how it is.
At any BR you’ll find that heavy tanks can be taken out by mediums in their BR range from the front. There are only a few heavy tanks that actually have armor that stops nearly anything, which usesually means they are very slow or have bad guns.
TDs often make it easier to penetrate their armor and some light tanks can just position themself to hit them in the sides.
In some cases they slaped some armor on medium tanks, or just built the medium tanks with more armor to turn it into a heavy. More armor for lower mobility, firepower rarely incrased.
At the time, the Tiger I, Tiger II, IS-2, T29, T34, T32 all had more potent guns than the medium tank that was currently employed. There’s also ridiculous stuff like the IS-7 or Object 279.
Weight is certainly not the limiting factor when it comes the the armament of a heavy tank.
Unless you have some weight constraint to consider, like on Russian tanks.
Your reasoning for commenting is offtopic to the thread and flawed. I don’t say otherwise and I’m simply making the point that the IS-3 is one of the few heavy tanks in the game which succeed in their mission.