IS-3 (Object 703)
In service 1945 - 1970s
Based onIS-2 (successor to)
The pike-nosed heavy whose appearance in the 1945 Berlin victory parade drove a decade of Western tank design.
Built byChelyabinsk Kirov Plant
Photograph pending. No clearly licensed photograph of this vehicle was found.
Development history
The IS-3 combined the IS-2's 122 mm gun with a wedge-shaped "pike" nose and a flattened dome turret that gave extraordinary effective thickness for its weight. It arrived just too late for the fighting in Europe but paraded in Berlin in September 1945, where Western observers concluded their own guns were inadequate - a direct cause of the British Conqueror and American M103. In service the IS-3 suffered hull cracking and cramped fighting, but it soldiered on through Soviet modernisation programmes and fought with Egyptian forces in 1967.
Variants
One canonical record, 2 recorded variants.
IS-3 model 1945
1945Original production with pike nose and dome turret
IS-3M
1952Reinforced hull, improved engine, new sights and stowage
Notable actions
- Berlin Victory Parade (1945)
- Hungarian Revolution (1956)
- Six-Day War (1967)