"IS-2s - All Bark and no bite" Topic

IS-2s made a rare appearance in this late war WWII Flames of War game (they are generally considered too expensive in points to bother with). Let's just say that they didn't fail to disappoint! The lumbering monsters advanced to try to clear away some well dug-in and expertly commanded AT guns, but they failed to hit once in two turns of firing. The German AT guns were ruthlessly effective, knocking out three of them. The remaining IS-2 then failed its morale check and ran away.

In FoW, the IS-2 has a worse rate of fire than German equivalents and counts as ‘slow firing'. Furthermore, its gun has a shorter range. Despite the heavy armour, the tank is destined to underperform, as it seems to have done historically. The lovely models (Model Soldier Company) will probably go back into their box until such time as the point values are reduced by the gate keepers at Battlefront.

Lots more images at Nottingham Wargames Club:

link

Maybe they would fare better in a oob based scenario vs. a points based game? They do look imposing with the bands though!

I'm not familiar with the nuances of FOW, but in defence of the IS2's sending them in to clear out well dug in AT guns does sound a little like setting them up to fail.

Sounds like a tactics problem rather than an IS-2 problem.
Not a fan of FOW but still any rules should allow you to smoke the AT positions. Sov tank companies held ten runners. Four on the field is asking for trouble. One or two three-tank platoons to maneuver, one or two to provide direct fire. A 122mm main gun should give adequate HE coverage, pretty much the weapon's best asset. Gus' question about what the Red infantry was doing also begs an answer.

The 122 main gun is a slow loader because it used two part munitions, powder and the warhead. Don't know what FOW requires for IS-2 ROF. Suggest one Platoon to maneuver, another platoon to provide covering fire, alternating with the third platoon which is reloading. Company commander can go with any platoon to beef up the mission. My take. Boom.

Great looking tanks! Sounds like you had fun.

Cheers

Joe

It had a powerful gun, but Russian optics were apparently quite crude compared to those of Germany, hence the low range issue and lower chance to hit at long distance.

If a hit did occur, the damage would be significant, but German tanks had the edge in combat against the JS-IIs.

Gus Fring +

It's worse than merely bad games, bad stats, bad
scenarios, or bad figures and bad history.
It's in the tragedy of learning history from these games.
All the gamer learns is at least error, more insane alternate history and worst, propaganda.
And none of this is new. The curses of ignorance, militarism, the D6 dice and gigantism were alive
and thriving at a Pacificon in San Mateo CA in 1973
When I entered the con, I saw first a young black man dressed as a WW2 German soldier, then SPI's map for Campagn for North Africa, with its many hundreds of counters to keep track of individual vehicles and squads-while lacking the entire Italian OOB, followed by the appearance of several gamers in khaki shirts sporting rank insignia, then on to Bowden and Tarbox with their Empire playing a so called historical game on Borodino, using three large tables to cut up the battlefield lengthwise, that is the tables cut up the field from east to west, with many inter table glitches and gamey difficulties o include the less than useful D6
and it's the same today, though fewer para military types.