Article from warspot.ru translated by comrade Robopon for TAP. It’s his first translation, so please provide feedback.

IS-7 (ИС-7) was born in a strange and difficult time for the soviet tank industry. The Red Flag over the Reichstag brought not only the joy of victory but also problems for all aspects of Soviet post-war industry. Destroyed cities needed to be rebuilt, evacuated factories needed to be brought back, everything needed to be changed.

The Commissariat of Tank Industry was reformed into the Commissariat of Transport Engineering and in early 1946 it was renamed into a Ministry of the same name. Wartime fighting vehicles needed to be upgraded according to a new doctrine for the time of peace. They needed to be more reliable in order to provide longer service, since immediate war losses weren’t a factor anymore. A lot of works on future projects were terminated and others were developed with lesser enthusiasm.

Among those post-war projects was a tank later named “Object 260” («Объект 260»). The works on this one started way back in 1944. It was planned that this vehicle would embody all advancements of Soviet heavy tank design at that time. The project was assigned to the design bureau of Josef Kotin at Experimental Factory № 100.

Other variants of this project were created in the spring of 1945: “Object 257”, “Object 258” and “Object 259”. After all considerations, the final variant of the vehicle was presented and designated “Object 260”, more known as IS-7.

Over 20 institutions and science facilities were assigned for its development. They proposed a lot of unique technical solutions never used before in such machines.

The working blueprints of IS-7 were finished already in September 1945. The frontal armor was made similar to the IS-3, but much thicker, 150 mm of upper front plate (pike nose) instead of 100 mm of its predecessor. The mass of the vehicle was quite impressive at 65 tons.

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