[Military Subplane] Author: Golden Bomber
The IS-7 tank was a legendary heavy tank designed by the Soviet Union in the early days of the Cold War, but it was never mass-produced. After the successful design, only a few prototypes of the IS-7 were produced, which were quickly buried in the dust of history. However, military enthusiasts around the world can still experience it through a variety of games. Back in April, the Kubinka Museum had exciting news: crews were restoring the world's only IS-7 tank, which is expected to be completed by this year. This also means that in the future, this IS-7 tank can find an opportunity to appear at military parades in Russia and become a "superstar" like the T-34/85.
▲ Kubinka's staff repairs IS-7, picture source: Internet
The IS-7 tank was designed in 1945, not far from the end of World War II, by Nikolai · Fedorovich · Shashmullin. The IS-7 tank weighed almost 68 tons and installed a 1050 hp diesel engine. So despite its weight, it can be driven on the road at a top speed of 60 km/h, and it doesn't look bulky at all. The IS-7 has excellent protection capabilities, and the two frontal pieces of upper head armor have a 65-degree inclination angle, and the thickness is 150 mm, which is more than 200 mm equivalent thickness. And inside the armor of these two pieces of skull is the ammunition rack of the IS-7. Although this design may seem unreasonable, the Soviet Union was so confident that there were no artillery with armor plates of more than 200 mm at that time. The thickness of the IS-7 tank's first and lower armor is 100 mm, which is also the weak point of this vehicle, but also due to the huge inclination, its equivalent thickness can reach about 110~120 mm. Coupled with the low body, in the era of armor and bullet confrontation, as long as the weak parts of the hull were reasonably hidden, with the turret armor, it could almost be said to be able to carry all the anti-tank weapons of the time.
▲IS-7 on static display in Hall 1 of the Kubinka Museum, picture source: Internet
The turret armor of the IS-7 is terrifying, with an overall thickness of 240~250 mm and an inclination angle of 50~60 degrees. And the gun shield part was much stronger, plus the reinforced part had a total of 350 mm, which can be said to be completely impenetrable under the conditions of the time. In order to penetrate the turret part of the IS-7, it is necessary to find a very suitable angle, and its own anti-tank gun must also have sufficient armor penetration depth. In general, all tank sides are their weak points, but the sides of the IS-7 are not weak. The legendary German "Tiger" tank in World War II had frontal armor of only about 100 mm. The side armor of the IS-7 was divided into two parts, the upper part was 150 mm and the lower part was 100 mm. That is, the weakest point of the side of the IS-7 tank is also comparable to the front of the "Tiger". The armor of the IS-7 could withstand the attack of Germany's 135-mm tank guns at a distance of 1,000 meters, and even the IS-7's own 130-mm guns could not penetrate itself from the front.
The IS-7 has thick armor and a non-weak gun, which uses a 130 mm tank gun called the S-70. This gun was an improvement from the gun of the same name used on Soviet warships at the time, but compared to the original, it was only lighter, but the power was not reduced.
▲ IS-7 in 1948, picture source: Internet
The reason why the Soviet Union wanted to design such a perverted tank at that time was because it was stimulated by a series of "perverted tank" designs in Germany at the end of World War II. In 1945, Soviet troops on the difficult battlefield of Hungary. A Germany-made 128 mm Tiger anti-tank gun was captured, and the Soviets were greatly impressed by the excellent performance of this gun. At that time, the Soviet Union had already designed the IS-2 that could be comparable to the "Tiger" tank, and in the face of the "Tiger", "Mouse", and the E-100 program (not mass-produced), the IS-2 was only a younger brother, and it may not be able to withstand it. Therefore, the Soviet top leaders at that time believed that they needed a better tank, from which it can be concluded that the emergence of IS-7 had a lot to do with the emergence of a series of tank design schemes in Germany in the late stage of World War II.
According to the recollections of those who participated in the IS-7 tests at that time, the car was very comfortable to drive. The body space is spacious and comfortable, the speed and off-road performance are excellent, and there is particularly reliable armor, which can be said to be particularly safe to drive. Unfortunately, although the IS-7 test was successful, due to the high cost of a single vehicle, it was not suitable for mass production, and the weight of more than 60 tons made most of the bridges in the Soviet Union unable to withstand it, and the Soviet high-level vetoed the mass production plan.
▲IS-7 model, image source: Internet
If the IS-7 could be mass-produced, it would be enough to reach the top of the world's tanks at that time. But at the time this was no longer possible, since then the IS-7 tank has been thrown into the museum to eat ashes, and Russia has experienced various turmoil in the past two or three decades, and the peak level of Soviet armor design represented by the IS-7 around 1945 has long been forgotten. The reason why the Kubinka Museum announced the restoration of the IS-7 real car this year is driven by two reasons. First, due to the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict in 2022, patriotic sentiment in Russia has exploded.
Especially last year, after Russia displayed various Western "armored toys" pulled back from the battlefield in the Patriot Park, there has been a research boom in tank armored vehicles among the people. The IS-7, which is submerged in an atmosphere of peace, is also being mentioned more and more. Although many military fans proposed to restore the IS-7 in the early years, the museum did not agree to it because the audience was too small. This time the situation is obviously different, based on the civilian tank fever, the museum also believes that it is necessary to resurrect the IS-7 and officially become a member of the parade ground.
▲ United States M2 infantry combat vehicle in Russia Patriot Park, picture source: Internet
Another motivation is that some of the United Kingdom's Bovington museums have officially restored FV4005 this year. The FV4005 is the largest tank destroyer in human history, it has a 183mm cannon, which can destroy most tanks and armored vehicles with a single shot, even modern main battle tanks. And speaking of the FV4005, he really has a little connection with the IS-7. The predecessor of the IS-7 in the same series was the IS-3, and it was the IS-3 that "drove the United Kingdom" to create the FV4005. After the end of World War II in Europe, the Allies planned an unprecedented military parade in Berlin in order to show their military force.
Since the Soviet Union was also the opposite of Germany at that time, it naturally participated in this parade, and the tank sent by the Soviet Union to the parade was the IS-3 with an arrow-shaped hull and an oval turret. This cutting-edge tank, coupled with the large thick barrel of 122 mm, made the Allied troops participating in the parade at that time ashamed themselves. Judging from the situation at that time, if Germany surrendered a few months later, a large number of these cutting-edge tanks would be thrown into the battlefield and crush the German defenses. Nazi Germany was lucky to avoid this steel behemoth, but after the end of World War II, the Cold War soon began. The Allies, as opponents of the Soviet Union, naturally had to consider the issue of IS-3.
▲IS-3, picture source: Internet
United Kingdom seemed to be more embarrassed in the face of IS-3 at that time. The strongest tank they could get their hands on at that time was none other than the "Ultimate Churchill" ("Black Prince") with the "Black Panther" armor welded. But even this tank could not withstand the 122-mm cannon of the IS-3. And all the anti-tank weapons equipped by United Kingdom at that time could not penetrate the armor of the IS-3 from the front. After being completely driven crazy by the IS-3, United Kingdom came to an extreme sword move: a 183 naval gun was moved directly to land and used as a tank gun, which is where the FV4005 came from. FV4005 was also thrown in the museum to eat ashes like IS-7 before, but this year the museum in United Kingdom suddenly announced that the FV4005 was restored. As a tank power, today's Russia is naturally not far behind. Now that IS-7 is being repaired, no matter how you look at it, it means a bit of a "duel in the air". However, these two tanks have long been impossible to fight on the battlefield, and they have all been repaired, which is a rare good thing for military fans.
▲ FV4005 was repaired, picture source: Internet
Someone wondered, these two tanks have long been left with no electronics, isn't it very simple to fix? Why does it take more than half a year? In fact, the restoration behind these historical homes is not as simple as we imagined. According to some videos published by the Russia Museum and the United Kingdom Museum, the first step in the restoration of this old tank is to polish and remove rust, expose it to its original appearance, and then reapply primer and anti-rust paint. The transmission inside the tank was covered with ash and the engine was rusty in large areas, so it had to be disassembled one by one.
▲IS-7 was only smooth on the surface before, and the interior was already rusty, picture source: Internet
The disassembled parts are repeated with the previous step of rust removal and painting, followed by the installation of the necessary oil and other fluids, tested and then reassembled together. The part of the tank gun is the most troublesome, the so-called repair, which is to repair the tank to a usable state, so the repair of the tank gun and other machine gun weapons is also necessary. For parts that are still available in the weapon system, they only need to be repaired, and if the parts are missing, they need to be re-produced and assembled. Since many weapons have long been discontinued, some parts have even had to be redrawn for production.
The other is the sighting system, although the World War II tanks did not have modern electronic sighting, but at least the periscope and observation window also had to be repaired. After such a series of complex restorations, the work often takes almost a year. But such a repair is also quite useful, which at least ensures that the tank will be able to function normally for a long time in the future with only a few simple maintenance. All in all, it is definitely a feast for the eyes of military fans to see the IS-7 fire with their own eyes, and this scene is believed to become a reality soon.