IS tank family
series of Soviet heavy tanks, made 1943 to 1966 (in service to 1990)
The IS tanks (Russian: ИС) were a series of heavy tanks developed as a successor to the KV-series by the Soviet Union during World War II. The IS acronym is the anglicized initialism of Joseph Stalin (Ио́сиф Ста́лин, Iosif Stalin). The heavy tanks were designed as a response to the capture of a German Tiger I in 1943. They were mainly designed as breakthrough tanks, firing a heavy high-explosive shell that was useful against entrenchments and bunkers. The IS-2 went into service in April 1944 and was used as a spearhead by the Red Army in the final stage of the Battle of Berlin. The IS-3 served on the Chinese-Soviet border, the Hungarian Revolution, the Prague Spring and on both sides of the Six-Day War. The series eventually culminated in the T-10 heavy tank.
Design and production
KV-85/IS-85/IS-1
The KV-85 was a KV-1S with the new turret from the Object 237 (IS-85) still in development, mounting the 85mm D-5T gun. The tank was a result of the USSR's tank design bureau being torn in two, one half focusing on the KV-85 and its variants, and the other working on the later IS series. The IS-85 was soon finished and it combined the hull design of the KV-13, the new turret from the KV-85, and the same 85mm D-5T gun as both these tanks. The IS-85 was later referred to as IS-1.
“IS tank family” enters the record as series of Soviet heavy tanks, made 1943 to 1966 (in service to 1990). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what tank, family and series can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“IS tank family” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, tank, family and series provides the most credible route into that argument.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 3, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q779903. The Library of Congress control number is sh2005004344. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1943 and 1944.
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This entry incorporates text from “IS tank family” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.