We are dumbfounded. I admit, I was a bit worried about the IS-7 in 8.0. A nearly unstoppable sloped armor monster roamed in my vision. When we faced it on the test server, the results were shocking but in a different way. Now, either we are that dumb and we had screwed up the previous tests that much, or Wargaming messed with the armor parameters without any transparency, again. No problem, that’s why we have tests for.
One tiny step forward, one big step back
What did we expect? An impregnable glacis armor and a tougher than ever lower front plate, wider angling options. But unlike American heavies we had tested, this tank seemed to not get the memo about the sloped armor compensation nerf, because we found the upper hull armor of the IS-7 not much different from the previous incarnations. It’s tough all right. The head-on optimised pike nose can be still penetrated casually by Tier X tank destroyer guns. Yeah, but this hasn’t got any news value. We have spotted a difference though. Russian tank hulls lose effective armor for the facing side of the pike nose when angled. This is still true.
However, this loss was reduced a bit in 8.0, sub-240 average penetration guns have very little if any chance to pierce this armor at any range and angle.
So far so good. We had expected a bit more than that, but that’s an improvement nevertheless. However, the disappointments did not end here. For the sake of order, I started to do some re-checking shots at the lower front plate of the IS-7, and this was the point where my jaws dropped. About 10 percent of the former armor was gone. One should expect somehow improved efficiency for a nicely sloped armor plate from the compensation nerf but nothing like that.
In fact, the LFP performed even poorer than in 7.2, when we had made the original IS-7 tests of ours. No improvement, not the same level, it was downgraded.
Randomgoddess is a heartless bitch or…?
The results were so bad that we repeated the LFP tests three times, then we switched back to live servers to find out if we had been mistaken that much before. And it doesn’t seem like the case, the 7.5 version still behaved as it was supposed to be.
Odd – I’ve found the IS-7 to be a bit of a beast on the Test Server, and it’s felt more like the old unstoppable force that it used to be, many moons back. Also – the sides and rear do feel a lot more resilient to attack, even bouncing gold rounds from a T100E4 at about 100m on more than one occasion.
Tha angled UFP is tougher all right, the upper side hull about 200 mm effective armor without angle, always a hard target.
Isn’t that lower hull same like E-100s lower hull in 8.0?
It has the same thickness and slope, only it”s smaller.
Even with just tiny 1 weakness, German guns still stand no chance most of the time. Why don’t they just up gun for the German so that Russian fans won’t go crazy about this nerf. I just don’t understand WG at all.
You mean the maus & E-100 gun I guess, because the E-50 and E-50M guns are pro and the JT and E-100TD all have good guns.
In fact, when driving my IS-7, god knows TX meds shred me to pieces… but then again, they shred everything else too :p
Imo, it is time they buff the IS-7 as with all these modern guns, it’s armor is not as reliable anymore, and it hasn’t really have a big health pool compared to other TX tanks + low pen & low accuracy gun.
Again, I say this in comparison to the IS-4 gun & armor & HP upgrade, Maus & E-100 got buffed, T110E4 has +/- same armor & mobility but a great gun… and we all know TX meds and TD’s are pew pew (aside from the E-100jagd maybe).
So yes, whilst IS-7 is still bouncy, it’s time to buff it by a little bit.
tier X heavy tanks should have aim time and dispersion while moving buff.
This nerf in test server is not ninja, all tanks in test server are subject to change and WG don´t have to public this until the former update.
UFP same? WTF, i expect this to going inpenetrable.
You have any info/impression of IS-4?
Nothing first hand yet, we could not go online before midnight until Sunday.
so WG nerf E-75 lower glacis, IS-7 lower glacis in 8.0. Am i right ?
A guy has measured the 8.0 ingame model somehow, it looks like the LFP has 5 degrees less slope than before. That would explain it.
http://forum.worldoftanks.eu/index.php?/topic/50665-is-7/page__st__1440#entry2788694
This is crazy, what the hell are they doing there?
Okay it gives the IS-7 a more german tank gun friendly frontalarmor, but i think angles of the tanks should not be changed beyond the historical parameters.
So UFH is 150@65° and @xx° sideangle?
That means 300mm+ armor.
The american 120mm is abled to penetrate 336mm of armor theoretically.
That said, you say that the 155T2 is not abled to penetrate it 50% of the time.
So either its exactly 300mm or 300+mm.
Could you check it out with russian gun with 303mm penetration?
Either the armor thickness is decreased or the normalisation change was
partly a lie. Something still has to be wrong here.
I can,but the IS-7 was always an oddball. Probably there isn’t any side angle bonus for the pike.
The 7.5 UFP base armor is probably like 280 mm WoT-equivalent, the 8.0 is about 300.
But when we consider that the game mechanics consider any kind of angle (testing acutally shows that) than the pure thickness of the UFP has to be decreased.
But yea, it always had been an odd piece of steel, histrocally armor thickness would probably be ~ 380-400 with the side angle.
So yea, i dont understand how the ingame model works right now.
I can feel that te IS-8 re-test is going to be an interesting experience… Maybe they will finally fix the lower plate.
Than the secret buff/nerfing really reached its peak in 8.0.
Thankfully this side exists.!
This reminds me on the old armor homogenisation factor.
For example: In the beta: the tiger had an factor of 1.1 which means it had an effictive front armor of 110mm.
These values are still listed at wotdb.info for example.
Another tank which might be influeced by such values is the E50M, seriously this thing is abeled to bounce TX guns, i really cant understand how!
It needs some testing!
Sure, why not. We can do it after the Su-101 on test server.
Nice to hear that, a comparision with the E50 would be awesome!!
I had a closer look to the E50 and the M variant, i noticed than that the lower half of the upper front plate has a larger angle than the upper part of the UFP.
Thats interesting, maybe the bouncyness comes from there!
Regards
The armor homogenisation factor is no more active in game, all tanks have the same factor of 1, confirmed by devs in russian forum.
In IS7 armor, guys what gun you test after the gun of 269 pen?
T7E2 with 295 pen and M58 with 380 pen HEAT.
No intermediary gun like JT gun and Bl-10? you have a large gap in pen, in the math the UFP are invulnerable agaist jt gun and BL-10 gun.
We focused on the angled shots rather then head on with the most common CW-weaponry in the time we had. No one shots the pike straight on anyway.
I will check the IS-7 pike with the JT gun, it will probably made it.
You know this info:
Player
“I guess I need to ask, since I’ve never seen anything on this: is normalization done in one, two, or three axis?
Or I suppose another way of asking is if it is only applied once vertically or applied twice vertically and horizontally?”
Vallter
“It’s applied once vertically, AFAIK”
http://forum.worldoftanks.com/index.php?/topic/148568-official-qa-thread-75-era/page__st__780__p__2587211#entry2587211
Well, if that is true, than the IS-3 and IS-8 pike is seriously underwritten, both should be well over 210 equivalent armor, and they are nowhere there in 7.5.
For example, with a single normalisation IS-8 should have 64 degrees compound angle for the UFP (55 vertical, 40 lateral) or 215 mm WoT-equivalent armor in 7.5 or 233 mm in 8.0. That is IS-4 level frontal armor, well, I tried IS-8 in 8.0 and M46 gun shot it into pieces.
This would explain your guesses (wotarmory) of 300mm effective frontalarmor perfectly fine.
IS-4 is kind of weird . Its upper front only 10mm more than the KT, and not as slope as IS-7 or IS-8, but bounce like the E-75, AMX FOCH upper front.
And the E-50M is bouncy. Trust me, its upper front is a lot harder than T54.
Btw, E-50 lower glacis is the same as it upper glacis, 120mm. While E-75 lower glacis is only 10mm more, and looks like has been nerf in 8.0 to the level of 7.5 E-50