Re: ISU-122 Not firing in AT Support
Posted: Sun Oct 04, 2020 4:59 pm
Sounds like a good supporting cast.
My initial complaint about the ISU-152/122 was that it had that very trait and your point was that it was still a good and useful unit. After I tried it I agreed with you. Actually, it's too good. 6CP for a unit that costs what a T-34 does with better stats AND the ability to indirect fire? Either it is too strong or medium tanks are way too weak.
The thing about weak flanks is any scenario where you're getting weak flanks penalty is also a scenario where you probably have 3 attackers hitting your ISU, likely with artillery support. And in that case the IS-2 takes a beating too as I've experienced. A JP4 + 2x infantry and a rocket arty put 7 points of damage on my IS-2. I'm not convinced the ISU would take meaningfully different damage in that scenario. What would be different, though, is that the ISU 1/3rd less to reinforce. And in that same scenario the T-34 (the unit we should _actually_ be comparing the ISU to) would do way worse than the ISU because it has _way_ worse stats despite the same cost and CP!
Then there's utility. Against things other than high end tanks the IS-2 is only able to perform well if they are in open terrain. If they are in rough terrain, forest, cities (especially if entrenched) it is simply not going to do so great. Meanwhile the ISU can support against all of these targets without issue, often doing 2-3 dmg per turn. Against high end tanks the ISU is more useful because it can provide efficiency attacks through indirect fire. Once you've knocked efficiency down to 3 or lower it really doesn't matter what you attack a KT with, it is going to take a lot of damage and return pretty much none. As you saw in my Seelow AAR I cleared out the entire heavy armored force in the middle of the map with nothing more than 2x guards, 1x engineer, 1x morskaya pekhota backed by a ZiS-3 and a B4 and an ISU firing indirect. In theory all those heavy tanks should have won. In practice positioning and artillery allowed me to tear them apart on the second from the hardest difficulty without even using air support as that was all dedicated to the southern offensive.
I do like my T-34s for their mobility and for their good enough performance in much of the campaign so they'll be in my roster in my diff 5 full campaign. But I can't see me bothering with the IS-2 again. You're right that the stats are good, but they aren't enough good to matter and the cost is too high to be worth reinforcing. Whatever the stats say -- and I agree here, I put little stock in stats personally as positioning and efficiency attacks always allow you to shift the stats in your favor -- in actual combat performance the IS-2 didn't justify itself.
By contrast my experience with the ISU and IS-2 has totally changed how I feel about the BT-7A, KV-1 and KV-2. I went from thinking BT-7A and KV-2 were useless to thinking about how I'll be incorporating them into my rifle corps in my top difficulty run. Meanwhile the KV-1 is probably not going to be part of my core this go round. I'll also be bringing 3x standard rifle infantry in my rifle corps rather than the 2x previously, but bringing two fewer medium tanks. I definitely can't justify a second mech corps after this experience!
, perhaps I will choose several units that fought in more scenarios, e.g. the 8th Guards Army which fought at Stalingrad, the Dnieper, Poland and Germany, or the 1st Tank Army - it was at Kursk, op. Rumyantzev, Dnieper, Poland, Germany