Imagine the following situation: a duel between the Tiger and the IS-2 in ideal (flat terrain, distance up to 1000 m) and equal (quality of sights, level of training of gunners, full ammunition, wedge-breech cannon) conditions. At the same time, we will lay down a 50% probability of being hit by the first shot and agree that both tanks will miss, but they must necessarily hit with the second shell, which often happened in real life. What happens next?
The IS-2 loader takes a 25 kg projectile from the ammunition rack located in the turret aft niche and inserts it into the barrel, then sends it forward with a punch so that the leading belt is firmly wedged at the beginning of the rifling of the barrel bore. An experienced loader sends the projectile with his hand, which speeds up the process. Then the loader takes a 15-kg cartridge case with a charge from the right side of the tower (we agreed that the ammunition load is full, which means that after the first shot there is still one cartridge case with a charge left in the tower, the next one will have to "dive" downward, since the rest of the cartridges are located in the hull IS-2), inserts it into the barrel and sends it. In this case, the shutter closes automatically. The loader reports "Ready", the tank commander says "Fire", and the gunner, who managed to adjust the sight during loading, presses the trigger and fires a shot. However, stop! Under all our conditions, the most trained loader will take at least 20 seconds to complete all of the above, which means, no matter how bitter it is to admit, he will not have time to finish the loading process, because at the 8th second an 88 mm will fly into the IS-2 turret. German shell, and on the 16th - the second! Thus, at the first miss, the Tiger, with a rate of fire of its cannon of 6-8 rds / min, did not leave the IS-2 a single chance for a second shot. Even if there were two of our tanks, the Tiger, having hit the first IS-2, would have managed to fire the first shot at the second 4 seconds earlier than the response. As a result, it turns out that for a guaranteed defeat of one "Tiger" with the second shot, it is necessary to have three IS-2 tanks.
Some data
Tank, gun Armor, mm / tilt, g Armor-piercing at a distance of 1000 m, mm / g Rate of fire, rds / min
IS-2, 122 mm D-25T frontal hull - 120/60 ° frontal turret - 150 / rounded 142/90 ° 2 … 3
Tiger, 88 mm KwK 36 frontal hull - 100/8 ° frontal turret - 190/0 ° 100/60 ° 6 … 8
From the given data, it follows that from 1000 m the Tiger could not penetrate either the front of the hull, much less the IS-2 turret. To do this, he needed to approach at least 500 … 600 m. And it is also necessary to take into account that this is true only for the early IS-2, because after the introduction of a "straightened nose" on our tank (see M. Baryatinsky, IS-2, History of creation), "the KwK 36 L / 56 tank gun did not penetrate the frontal armor of the IS-2 when fired from any distance."
For our tank, the opposite situation is developing - from 1000 m it confidently pierced the frontal armor of the Tiger's hull. If the shell hit the front of a German tank's turret without even piercing it, the rupture guaranteed to damage the gun barrel and the Tiger remained unarmed.
That. from 1000 m, the Tiger could damage, but not destroy the IS-2. So, a German tank fires a second shot - an 88mm round damages the track. Tiger's third shot coincides with the second IS-2. A German shell knocks down the sight, a 122 mm IS-2 shell breaks through the Tiger's armor. The German tank is destroyed, the Russian one is damaged. And this is in the worst scenario for our tank.
Let's assume a different situation. The crew of a German tank knows that it needs to approach the IS-2 at a distance of 500 … 600 m. With an average speed of the Tiger on the terrain of 25 … 30 km / h, it will take him about a minute to travel 500 m. A German tank cannot shoot on the move, because the absence of a gun stabilizer will reduce the probability of hitting to zero. On the contrary, the IS-2 has time to fire 3 shots.
Thus, with such a face-to-face meeting, it was very unprofitable for the Tiger to engage in battle.
