The Most Frustrating Heavy Tank

War Thunder often has some fairly questionable battle rating decisions. One example is moving the Soviet IS-2 heavy tank up to 6.7, the same BR as tanks like the King Tiger and T26E5. The IS-2 used to be one of my favorite tanks to play, but volumetric shells changed that.

Check the channel "About" section for the link to the creator of my profile picture.

Songs used (in order from first to last):
Command and Conquer: Generals OST

#warthunder​​​​​​​​​​​​ #tanks​​​​​​​​​​​​ #warthundergameplay
The Most Frustrating Heavy Tank

[Spookston]

Reminder that volumetric is the absolute worst. Also if you guys could subscribe that would be great, I have some stuff I want to announce but I want to wait until the 400k QnA video

[dmitryivanov]

Starts off playing the IS-2 with poor luck, eats fortune cookie, proceeds to not get CAS bombed and do quite well with the IS-2. Maybe Spookston needs a pick me up fortune cookie every time he encounters a tank that he might hate to use.

[ikmalshahrin]

Fortune Cookie: You have every right to be confident
Spookston: Uhm no I dont
Also Spookston: Blindshot moving kill 5 seconds later

[benvanzon]

5:36 "that bush looks like a tank' *shows four pixels*

[dillonhunt]

>Kills half the enemy team
>Wonders why players spawn back in and try to stop him

[depressingNicolai-svky]

> Eats a fortune cookie
> Gets +15 luck

[illomens]

Spookston bingo:

[X] "oh hello"
[X] "ope"
[X] foreshadowing of catastrophic future events
[X]
[X] "you cannot be for real"
[X] bombed
[X] "jeez Louise"
[X] intense pleading
[X] "I'm gonna cry"

[mr.axolotl]

Ah, the IS-2. I got it to grind the Soviet tree, seeing what a menace it was in downtiers. However, here are some fun facts I learned about it.
1. 90% are full uptiers, so fighting vehicles from the 80s is not unusual.
2. It’s the same battle rating as such things like the Tiger 2 and the T34, that are better than it in every way.
3. A 122 to a tank’s barrel does indeed NOT break it.
4. Despite having a 19mm fuse, it will not fuse on many vehicles.
5. Despite having 200 mm of pen, it will not pen many vehicles.
6. An M26 driver can eat an entire 122 APHE and save the tank.
7. A duster driver can eat an entire 122 APHE and save the vehicle.
8. CAS magnet.
9. The IS 2 fuel is more explosive than nuclear bombs.
10. Using this tank has taught me to be a rat.

[nul_point]

12:10 "Spookston had, in fact, every reason to be confident. However, he was certainly not"

[_v_]

You have every reason to be confident
"No I don't!"
Immediately lands an absolutely ridiculous hail Mary shot

[PraetorianMan]

The IS-2’s going up has been a massive proxy buff to the KV-122 lol

[richardzehe]

I do find the IS-2 and large-caliber cannons in general hilariously bad in War Thunder with Volumetric, the system definitely helps tanks behave a bit more properly with their armor but at the same time, the larger the gun the more wonky the whole system feels. Whilst I understand how we've arrived at this situation, I very much disagree with the 122 not penning OBVIOUSLY overmatched armor.

For the statistics people in the chat an IS-2 with standard APHE is a 25kg(55lb) shell, leaving the barrel at 800m/s(2600 ft/s roughly 300ft/s slower than an M4 carbine 5.56x45mm rifle bullet) which at 1km distant generates roughly 1761 lbf on average on impact or UP TO 3522 lbf. (just for reference a Compact Smart Car weighs in at 1500 lbs, standard Chevy Impala is about 3600-3800 lbs) On top of that when range drops to 500m, roughly double the force amounts. I'm just gonna leave this here, at best you're being hit by a Compact Smart Car, at worst its a full-size family sedan worth of force smacking into your vehicle on a concentrated point (there are pictures of German tanks that were shot in WW2 by an IS-2 or 122mm cannon in general btw, feel free to google that and have a looksee) Hint: it didn't end well.

Added: For anyone going to try and rip me a new one for *not accurate numbers* I literally just used a calculator on Bullet Impact I am by no means a specialist or something crunching numbers or reciting facts saying "I can't be wrong". I'm sure the numbers vary in a lot of cases, everything here is an approximation based on paper statistics, even so, that's an eyebrow raising amount of force transfer

(Nor do I expect full realism in War Thunder or want it, I think a middle-ground compromise that still makes the game fun is the best option)

[FatherGrigori]

Volumetric really screwed this thing over because who would've thought that a 122 aphe shell can't fit in many places. Also I hope your surgery went well if you had that yesterday

[SammyBun]

Them removing the satisfying clunk when firing this gun is the worst thing they ever did to this game

[arandomdude]

1:42, 2:27
When a 122mm APHE successfully fuses on an un-angled 25mm plate but fails to do any damage to a 30mm angled plate:

[Grayson]

Your continued usage of halo music, references, and sound effects has singlehandedly brought back enough noatalgia that i went and bought the master chief collection. I finished all of Reach yesterday, started working on CE this morning.

[NotTrenchify]

3:20
"Are you serious"
"Youve gyeaott to be pulling my leg"
"You cannot be real"

[That_Montage_Nerd]

9:50 yeah that was a literal mugging. Dude came out of the alley way and shanked you

[furious_gamingfurious_ga]

one fortune cookie a video should be the new tradition

[yulu]

Forturn cookie: you have every reason to be confident
Spook: Drive infront of a million tanks unscathed and hits a sick moving shot
I guess I should start ordering more takeaways