I JUST got my IS7 about 2 days ago and I feel that I have played with and

against IS7's enough to do a proper review of this tank. I'll start by going over
the characteristics of the IS7. This review is even longer than my M48A1
Patton and T57 Heavy review. But there is a lot of info here to help you decide
if you want this tank or not. I also added in a tank vs. tank comparison so you
can get an idea of how this tank compares to it's very popular counterparts.
Let me know in the comments if you liked the review or if you have anything
else to add, OR if you just highly disagree with me. I hope I get more
comments than my last two reviews. I really like doing these and I plan to do
in depth videos on youtube pretty soon.

Armor-

Front Hull Armor- (Very Good) When I say the IS7 has "Very Good" hull armor,
I mean that it can bounce tier X mediums, heavys, and even some TD's
provided they don't shoot at the weak points in your tank. I really like the
IS7's armor because it's weak spots change constantly depending on where
you are in relation to your enemy. So the enemy has to constantly be aware
of how your facing him and how far you are from him to hit you accurately
enough and in the right spot. If your really close to an IS7, you will bounce of
the lower glacious all day long, especially in tall tanks. While being face
hugged by an IS7, your ONLY shot is to try to hit the tiny commanders hatch
on top of the turret. Trying to get through the turret is useless as I'll explain
in a moment. The hull armor on the IS7 is 150mm thick and VERY well angled.
If an IS7 is facing you straight on, shoot the lower glacious if he is over 30m
away, if he's closer than that then try to shoot the pike nose. Overall, I think
the IS7 has the best hull armor in the game except for MAYBE the E100 and
definitely the Maus, IF used properly.

Turret Armor-(THE best in game) I think the IS7 has THE best turret in the
game other than maybe the super structure on some TD's. WAY better than a
T34 and without the weakspot to boot. When you combine it's 240mm
thickness with great sloping it becomes impenetrable even to tier X TD's.
They MAY be able to pen using gold, but I still just wouldn't shoot there.
Better to try aiming for the tiny commanders hatch. Even the side of the
turret is 185mm thick with great sloping. I've tried MANY times to pen the IS7
from the side of the turret using gold in my M48A1 Patton. Yet all I get is
bounces. I penned the side of an IS7's turret ONE time out of about 6-8 shots
tried. Keep in mind this is 330mm of pen with HEAT rounds. This turret gives
the IS7 the ability to go hull down. If you see an IS7 going hull down

somewhere, it's best just to find another place on the map to do damage, as
if you try to get in a fight with him, your dead. The rear of the turret however
is only 94mm with just a little sloping. You'll bounce some shots from scouts,
which does help since most of the time scouts are the tanks who get behind
you.

Side Armor- (Good) Side armor on the IS7 is 150mm thick with great sloping
and spaced armor. It's definitely a tricky thing to pen the IS7 from the side.
Definitely do NOT aim above the tracks where the diamond shaped side hull
armor is. It's best to aim in between the tracks and that upper side hull
armor. This way you don't have to deal with the sloping and spaced armor.
However, if you hit the tracks, they will act as spaced armor too. So you have
to be fairly accurate in order to do damage to an IS7's side. This awesome
side hull armor gives the IS7 a unique ability to side scrape, which I find to be
pretty efective. You'll bounce most shots from other heavys and mediums
but you may have problems with some TD's with their very high pen. But you
bounce those shots too half the time also. What I do is reveal my frontal hull
armor just enough to get my gun out and do damage to an enemy, then
charge right back into a building while only showing your side which has
spaced armor, is highly angled, and highly artificially angled.

Rear armor- Any tier VI- X vehicle will pen the IS7's rear. But light tanks like
the Chafee and T-50-2, will almost always bounce shells of the IS7's
backside. In fact, while in my T-50-2, I have to use gold to pen an IS7 from the
rear. Afterall, it is 100mm thick with great sloping on the left and right side. If
you want to even THINK about penning the backside of an IS7 in a scout, you
should pen the bottom half. NOT the top half of the backside, as it is angled.

Other aspects of this tank-

Gun- (Above Average) I think the IS7's gun is a "good" gun. What I really like
about it, is that is does 490 average damage. Which gives you the ability to
one shot arty and tier 5 scouts sometimes if you get a higher than average
damage roll. The IS7's gun has significantly higher damage than the normal
heavy tank in the game per shot. Most other heavy tanks in the game do 400
damage, a couple other tanks do 440 damage. Normally when I take a 390440 damage shot, I'm like "ok I got shot, I need to get back". When I take a
shot that deals me 490 damage, or sometimes 600 with a high damage roll

I'm like "WHOA, I just got LIT THE F___ UP, I'm getting outta here". So the gun
does have that "OUCH" factor. This guns penetration is on the lower
side(barely)at 250mm of pen as a think it's been nerfed just a little. On
average, tier X guns have 258 pen. So it's not THAT much less pen, and you
can still pen every tank in the game from the front provided you aim at
weakspots. What I find is really bad is that with gold ammo, the pen is only
303mm. The T110E5 in comparison, has 340mm of pen with gold. The guns
accuracy is on the lower side though, as it's accuracy is .40. Which is a little
worse than average. I consider average to be .38. Although it CAN snipe a
LITTLE depending on the distance so it's NOT terrible accuracy. And since the
8.6 update I can even hit some stuf on the move without aiming in at all.
Now, THIS is why I say this gun is only above average. The aiming time is a
whopping 3.4 seconds! Which is why it's an absolute necessity to put an
enhanced gun laying drive on your IS7. And perhaps a vertical stabilizer too.
Although I see many people using vert. stab. and no GLD. I DO NOT see why
they do this as vert. stab. does NOT increase your aiming time. It only helps
firing on the move and during turret rotation. Another kind of bad thing about
the gun is the loading time. With 100% crew and gun rammer the reload time
is 11.82 seconds. If you mount vents it'll be 11.55,and with BiA it'll be about
11.27ish. So vents and BiA will drop your loading time by .54 seconds. Over
1/2 a second. That's pretty significant. With every perk on an IS7, it drops
your reload time by about 2 whole seconds. And once at 11 seconds it's not
so bad. One other thing I should mention about this tank is that the gun
depression is NOT Russian. It does have SOME gun depression. -6 degrees I
THINK. Which is VERY nice indeed. IDK the names of all the maps. But the
map where everyone goes into this trench and fights? You know that map?
Well I can go hull down if I start on the right side of the map. I'm sure you
know what I'm talking about.

Mobility- (Above Average) I'm sure you will notice when checking out the IS7's
stats that it appears to be VERY fast. The top speed on this thing is said to be
59.6kph. But you'll only ever reach that speed while going down hill. On a flat
paved road, given space, you CAN reach 40-45kph under it's own power. But
if your on a dirt road your going to go 38-40kph MAX. The normal speed that
I'm at in my IS7 is around 35-38kph once I'm up to top speed. Which is still
pretty fast for a heavy tank. It's one of the faster and more mobile heavys in
the game. If you go down hill however, you can reach speeds up to 70kph.
And this is NICE. If you go down just a little hill, you'll reach 45-50kph and
stay there for a while. Given that this thing has an 1050hp engine and the
HP/T is 15.22(which is the same as the T62A Medium tank), you'd think that
the IS7 would be blazing fast. But in fact it has THE worst terrain resistance in
the game(I've heard). Which make this tank very hard to handle in the sand

and in water, or on soggy ground. This is why I think it's a necessity to put of
road driving on this tank. Going up hill in this tank is about average, your not
so slow that you stay in the single digits. But your not fast either. The track
traverse speed and turret traverse speed are above average for a heavy also.
It's tracks traverse at 28 degrees per second, and it's turret traverse is 25. If
you add them together, that's 53 degrees per second traverse. I'd say the
average for a heavy is 48-50. So it's not THAT easy to get circled in this thing,
although you still can and will get circled.

My Stats- Like I said, I haven't played this tank a WHOLE lot. But these are my
stats. 44 games, 49 kills, 98,649 damage, 22 wins, 21 loses, 1 tie, 22 battles
survived, 744 average XP. So as you can see, I'm averaging 2250 damage per
game, which is 100 over what my hit points are, and I kill 1.15 tanks per
game. I don't think these stats are where I want to be in this tank. I'd like to
be averaging 24-2500 damage in this thing. And I'll get there. I do have more
wins than loses now even though I started out with only a 30% winrate in the
first 20 games because of terribad teams. And just look at my survival rate!
50% survival rate! That's just outstanding. I know it's only 44 games but still.
My T57 Heavy's survival rate is only 29%, and my M48A1 Patton's is 30%.
Personally, I think you impact the outcome of a game A LOT more IF you
survive. Having another tank in the game makes a huge diference. And I've
found myself impacting the outcome in about 1 of every 5 games, maybe
more. Which is more than my T57 Heavy or my Patton. My kills per game are
alright too, even though I'd like to be averaging at least 1.2-1.25 kills per
game. And like I said, I WILL get there. My first 20 battles or so really hurt my
overall scores due to VERY bad teams. I find that if you can do around the
same damage as your hit points then your doing alright. And if you can at
least come close to getting 1 kill per game your doing alright. Anything more
than that and your doing "good". I would say. Very good would be averaging
24-2500 damage per game and getting 1.3 kills per game. I'd like to know
what the average damage per game overall IS7 drivers have. Does anyone
know where to find these stats?

Rap Up- One of my favorite tanks is the tier VIII premium IS6. It's gun does a
whopping 390 damage and it's armor, when angled, is downright trollish. I
always dominate in tier VIII matches in my IS6 and I greatly afect the
outcome of the game. We'll, the IS7 is kind of like my tier X IS6 in a way. They
handle similarly, they're guns are VERY similar, and they both have trollish
armor. I always wanted a "tier X IS6". And now I have one. When driving an
IS7 you must be a smart driver. You have to know when a tank is trying to
shoot your lower glacises and when he's not. You must be aware of how close

enemys are to you. You must remember that you are VERY hard to pen from a
distance for ANY tank, even TD's. Face hugging and side scraping become an
art you must master in this tank. A good strategy for an IS7 driver is to only
show the cheek of your upper hull, and enough of your turret to stick your
gun out. This way, none of your weakspots are exposed and your almost
impenetrable.

T110E5 vs. IS7- I had a choice to make before I got the IS7. Do I get the
T110E5, or do I get the IS7? I played both on the test server and I gotta say, I
had more fun with the T110E5. But I feared the IS7 a lot more, so I chose that
one. Plus I was a lot closer to the IS7 anyways. Now that I'm better at playing
the IS7, I must say that 1 on 1, an IS7 will beat a T110E5 if you face hug him
and play to the IS7's strengths. While your face hugging him you can shoot
him in his machine gun turret weak spot and he has nothing to shoot at but
your highly angled upper glacises or your 240mm thick turret. His only hope
is to hit your small commanders hatch. And if you wiggle your turret, he'll
have a lot of trouble. The T110E5 does have a better gun, with better pen,
more accuracy, more damage per minute, and half the aim time. And the
T110E5 does have very good frontal armor especially when angled. But the
T110E5 has 2 downsides which the IS7 doesn't have. One is the huge
machine gun turrets weak spot, and two, the crap 76mm side armor, and the
absolutely terribad 37mm rear armor. It's turret is also not nearly as good as
the IS7's. The E5's turret is only 203mm at the front and 127 at the sides. So
you can pen it's side easily. The front of it's turret can also be penned
somewhat often by some tanks. Even though it's turret IS a pretty darn good
turret. So when your in a T110E5 you can forget about side scraping OR face
hugging. These two things, to me, make the iS7 a better overall tank. The
T110E5 seems to be the flavor of the month, and it's used in clan wars a LOT.
Everyone thinks the T110E5 is better than the IS7 in clan wars and in general.
But I have a far diferent opinion. I think this is due to the E5's high pen with
gold rounds and the iS7's low pen with gold. In part at least. And it's not like I
don't like the E5. It's actually the next tank that I WILL get because it's so
much fun to drive and it's so darn bouncy. So I DO like the T110E5. Then
there's the fear factor. People fear an IS7 A LOT more than they fear a
T110E5. Partly due to it's high alpha damage, but mainly because they know
they'll have a very hard time penning them and they just downright look
SCARY!