IS-8 - Heavy medium or medium heavy?

Another quick review of an underestimated and undervalued tank: the IS-8. God, I hated this tank, until I finally got to know it a little.

Let's start with:
pro-s and cons
+ Gun, great penetration and damage for its tier
+ Speed. It is the quickest of the tier 9 heavies
+ Mobility. Acceleration and turning are quite good for a heavy tank
+ Low profile.

- Armor. It lacks it, angling not really an option.
- Gun depression.
- Accuracy and reload may be considered a minus, compared to the other tier 9s.

tactics
So how to play this tank? Well, it is like I suggested above more a medium then a heavy. Yes, the gun is heavy enough, but do not expect to play it like it's predecessor, the IS-3.

Do's
* Try to flank.
* As a top tank, you can try to get to a position fast and then hold it until support helps in cutting down the enemies
* If you are not the main battle tank, play as support tank. Let the big boys go in, take out distracted tanks.
* Use cover for your lower front plate. It sticks out and is lightly penetrated. The top part is already angled when facing an enemy directly, making you a hard target.
* Peek-a-boo, hit and run.

Don't
* Angle. Did he just say that? Yes. Angling will get you shot. The front is piked, if you angle your tank, you actually reduce the effective armor. Fortunately, most of your opponent IS-8's don't know this either.
* Brawl. You are just too weakly armored. You might be tempted to think that the spaced armor in the side will help you, but effectively, the coverage is too small and most shots will pen you from the side
Please note, that it has a very low profile, therefore, it is possible to hug with higher tanks, such as in particular German tanks.
Configuration
What configuration to use. Well, I tend to keep mine fairly standard:
* Vents
* Gun rammer
* Enhanced gun laying device

Consumables:
* Fire-extinguisher
* Repair kit
* Medikit

Crew skills
Also tending to keep these fairly standard
* Brothers in arms
* Repair
* Sixth sense
* Recon / Jack of all traits
* Firefighting

Gunner:
* Brothers in arms
* Repair
* Snap shot
* Eagle eye / Dead eye
* Firefighting

Driver
* Brothers in arms
* Repair
* Off-Road Driving
* Smooth Ride / Clutch Braking
* Firefighting

Radio Operator
* Brothers in arms
* Repair
* Signal Boosting
* Situational Awareness
* Firefighting

Loader
* Brothers in arms
* Repair
* Safe Stowage
* Adrenaline Rush / Intuition
* Firefighting
OK, tried to put them in a little better order. The reason to put repair as a second skill is simple: you will want to move! Detracked = dead. Your armor is too weak, so you need to rely on mobility. You have to keep that up.

Weakspot maps

Taken from Wotarmory


See the big lower front plate and the sides of the upper front plate? That is why you want to keep the front straight to the enemy and the LFP covered. I bounced 12 shots in a row yesterday.



As you see here, the spaced armor is there, but easily avoided. Don’t rely on it: rely on your skills and mobility.
http://wotarmory.com/

stats
Armor:
* Hull Armor 120/80/60mm
* Turret Armor 201/129/50mm

Gun & turret:
* Damage: 390/390/465HP – 440/440/530HP
* Penetration: 175/217/61mm – 268/400/68mm
* RoF: 5.31 – 4.88
* Accuracy: 0.46 m
* Turret traverse: 26 degrees
* Elevation: -5 degrees / + 15 degrees
* Ammo capacity: 30 shells

Mobility:
HP: 700 / 750 hp
Speed limit: 50 kph
Traverse: 28 degrees / 30 degrees

Other:
* Chance of fire: 15%
* View range: 380m / 400m
* Signal range: 440m / 730m

Crew:
* Commander (also radio operator)
* Gunner
* Driver
* Loader

Hope this was useful, please provide feedback 

now I don't have any experience with the IS-8. Don't play one myself, haven't seen them often on the battlefield (I play tier 5-6 mostly), but according to the description it sounds a bit like the KV-1s (which although has a relatively bigger boomstick according to tier). Does this compare?

I don't have any plans to get the IS-8 (nor any other tank above tier 8 ), but I will get the IS-3 in time.

In a way it does compare to the KV-1S. But given the fact the IS-8 is a heavy in tier 9, it is supremely agile for that tier as a heavy. But the K-1S has decent armor for its tier, however the IS-8 does not.

Why didn't you use the top gun for the stats? That gun is the 122mm D-25T, same as on IS. Top gun has 440 avg dmg, 268 avg pen, 4,88 rof, 0.38 accuracy, 2,9s aim time.

CountOfTuscany wrote:now I don't have any experience with the IS-8. Don't play one myself, haven't seen them often on the battlefield (I play tier 5-6 mostly), but according to the description it sounds a bit like the KV-1s (which although has a relatively bigger boomstick according to tier). Does this compare?

I don't have any plans to get the IS-8 (nor any other tank above tier 8 ), but I will get the IS-3 in time.

It's very fast for heavy, KV-1S was fast, but IS-8 is faster. It doesn't have relatively as big alpha dmg as the KV-1S. But it has way better accuracy and aim time and penetration. 268 pen is very good for t9, lot t10 would love to have that pen, with gold ammo it's 400, IRC 400 is as high as pen goes in WoT.

If you try to peek-a-boo in city frontlines like with KV-1S you're not really playing up to your full potential. I only started liking this tank after I started playing it like a medium, don't trade hits with other heavy tanks around the corners, the armour is not good enough for that. Use you're speed and surprisingly accurate (for a Russian) gun and pen to your advantage. If going out means taking a shot from enemy heavy, go back and relocate. It really is a medium with a big heavy gun and hp.

Edit: Example of me playing the IS-8 like medium.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FgZQN5AQco

Because I took the information from the Wiki to make it complete . thanks for adding this info.

Do hope you like these reviews... If you do, I will try to do one for all tanks that I found hard.

You're all kind of ignoring the fact that this tank has thick as hell turret with only small cupolas as weakspots somewhat like IS-3. Use your accuracy and find hull down spots if you want it to be comparable to other tier 9 heavies armor wise. The bad gun depression can be a problem though, but remember, it's pike nosed, the upper plate while facing directly towards enemies is very hard to pen, so you can be "hull down" even with a bit of the hull showing.

Perhaps indeed I should have made it more explicit, thanks Kawashiro.

Not ignoring these points though. I am mentioning that you can stand behind ruble and face your enemies. I am not mentioning the turret as a plus, since the german tanks tier 9 have harder turrets, even the t34 heavy has a tougher turret (statistically).

You're ignoring the angles. German tanks have thicker turrets, but they're flat and only really thick around the mantlet. IS-8 has a very thick frontal turret due to similar design to IS-3 and T-54, also note that IS-8s profile makes it excellent at brawling lone German heavies.

Well, here we seem to agree to disagree, but everybody has his favorites, I guess. I would only brawl germans if I was a top player. But maybe that is me, being a noob.

Quite frankly speaking, an E-75 is going to butcher you frontally, but glue to his side like a type 59 and it should be no problemo. If a E-75 can't shoot my hull when I'm impact combating it when I'm in a T32, an IS-8 should not have a problem, heck I even do it with IS-7.

Comments of Kawashiro and Vallu have been added.

Had a great game last night, I dealt 5.6K in damage against the strongest enemy tanks in the battle, I got my Tanker 1 medal, god knows how hard im going to have to work to get the ace tanker.

As 'guest' says, it seems its strengths are in hull down, 'banana street' for example, protecting your hull by pointing it directly as possible to the enemy and preferably hidden with hard cover. That gun is great as it seems to have a quick RoF, quick aim time and can easily take cupola's/turret rings at medium distance at least, I have never needed premium rounds with this gun..... the KV-1S unfortunatley is not even in the sport, never mind league. I wont take on other T9/T10's frontally as even with sloped pike nose it seems to be penned extremely easily, flank with this tank, and as Vallu says, get along side bigger tanks, with your turret facing their gun whilst reloading, move to shoot at sides if possible as you have quite a low profile... then immediately face your turret to there gun.

lets see.... sounds like a medium to me!

I havent bothered with all upgrades, just the gun and engine as I want to get the IS-7 for some unknown reason.

andy_scouser wrote: That gun is great as it seems to have a quick RoF, quick aim time and can easily take cupola's/turret rings at medium distance at least,

Wait, wait, wait! Are you sure you're still talking about a Russian tank?
But seriously, RoF, aimtime and acc might be good compared to rest of the IS line, they are below average for tier 9 heavy. Conqueror is the RoF/aimtime/Acc monster of tier 9 heavys and M103 gets the 2nd place.

Vallu01 wrote:

andy_scouser wrote: That gun is great as it seems to have a quick RoF, quick aim time and can easily take cupola's/turret rings at medium distance at least,

Wait, wait, wait! Are you sure you're still talking about a Russian tank?
But seriously, RoF, aimtime and acc might be good compared to rest of the IS line, they are below average for tier 9 heavy. Conqueror is the RoF/aimtime/Acc monster of tier 9 heavys and M103 gets the 2nd place.

Yes I am! Madness i hear you shoot Taking Banana street as an example again, lets say 200m between teams, I can easily hit small targets with the gun, the occasional misses are more down to my wanting to get out of the line of fire or server/client reticle mismatch than the gun. I have mods and BiA etc, so as tuned as you can get.