Comments by "" (@TheArklyte) on "IS-2: When 85mm is not enough" video.

  1. During development of IS they have gone through testing of several 85mm, 100mm, 107mm and 122mm guns. They chose 122mm solely because it had highest armor penetration and retained good accuracy at long ranges(despite WoT creating a myth that it's a shotgun, the A-19 is a descendant of 120mm Canet naval guns that were supposed to penetrate moving cruisers from miles away). Why? Because appearance of Ferdinand forced their hand:D IS-2 exists solely because at the same time germans fielded Ferdinand and this USSR expected that it would be encountered en masse. In fact not only was the choice of the gun forced by its appearance, but first muzzle brake on D-25 was a copy of one from Ferdinand's Kwk43(Stuk43? Pak43? I don't care, it's same gun) due to similar forces in play. It blew off from the gun during testing though. P.S.: alongside a WoT myth people also mention a Discovery channel one created back in 1990's a lot - that A-19/D-25 can only be reloaded if the gun is brought down into ideally horizontal position after each shot. Suffice to say I was unable to find a single reliable(and even unreliable too) source that mentioned that.
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  2. 122mm was chosen because it simply was a more powerful gun. No ifs or buts about that. That's why it stayed on IS-3 and even T-10. And no, D-25 wasn't available in infinite numbers either, in fact it was a more expensive gun. Production of IS-2 caused shortages in production of ISU-122 and ISU-122s(even if only the latter uses D-25) whenever IS-2 had an above average monthly production. As a result in those months ISU-152 production was going up as well. Guess why? Because they used only different guns so any finished vehicles waiting for the gun was simply equipped with 152mm cannon-howitzer and added to those production numbers. There were even tests to put A-19(aka original without muzzle brake) onto IS-2 later one because D-25 wasn't produced in high enough numbers. D-10 maybe had a value as gun option for commander tanks, but that's mostly it. P.S.: You people are also forgetting that D-10 is actually harder to reload in IS-2 turret. It has comparable recoil distance to D-25 due to lack of muzzle brake and also as it uses single piece ammunition, the round is very long and heavy. D-25 takes longer to reload, but is actually easier. If you understand basics of geometry, take IS-2 blueprints available online and just look at the amount of space behind the breech you need when you use single piece ammo. And if you can reload D-10 at all once the axis of the breech crosses the back of the turret ring when the gun is elevated at certain degrees. This is why proposed 105mm gun on Tiger B had to be switched to two piece ammo to even fit in the turret. Same thing with 100mm gun on IS-2. It isn't much lighter, isn't recoiling less and definitely isn't easier on the loader to operate.
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