ISU-152

And to counter MGs you rush them with random infantry units?

No and I never implied that I do that.

Countering combined arms requires combined arms and some thought to it, for example attacking from the side that isn't dug in to annihilate your advance.

Where is your arty to dispose of ZiSes and infantry? Where is your reckon plane to know how you can approach it? Where is your flank?

Yes youre right. Of course im not talking about head-on charges, but well executed flanks. Then again: You can bet support will be there (IF your enemy doesent loose all his support units because of an arty barrage, but then the game is essentially over anyway) and your flanking tanks wont die to the ISU but to the support then...which is why you need to bring your own support, which will die to ISU, which is the problem were talking about here

Because countering combined arms (fortunately) requires combined arms.

Here is how I do it.
You need at least two tanks (or Pumas) which is easy as ISU-152 costs a lot and puts Soviet behind in armour by its nature.
You set up a flank. I am not talking about charging head on but about proper flank when your forces are coming from the side. You flank with one tank and keep your second tank at front with rest of the army. When your opponent sees flanking tank he will try to react and engage new threat. When he does that you advance with your main force while retreating tank that flanked. You focus ISU-152 with your tanks and enemy support with your infantry. Your Paks should concentrate on ISU-152 unless there is another tank around then they can shoot at it. All depends how the battle flows.
While ISU is trying to rotate and shoot at the tank you flanked with your other tank can shoot at it without and problem being safe at the same time. If he rotates to engage your advancing force your flanking tank should advance and try to take position behind ISU. When your tank was successful it usually means dead ISU. Now you have to circle strafe ISu with the tank that got the flank and in the mean time try to advance with your other tank to help. You have to watch out and position your tanks accordingly so you stay out of its cone of fire. ISU-152 is so slow that even if you'll get AT naded you should still be able to stay behind unless very unlucky heavy engine crit. The most important thing for your supporting infantry is to keep attacking and try to quickly eliminate everything that can endanger your tanks. Mostly ZiS guns. Key is not to stop. Even if you loose squad or two if you'll get ISU you came ahead. You need to synchronised your attack. Timing is very important. It requires a fair amount of micro as well so you need to practice a bit.
If you're playing team game remember to consult this attack with your team mate. It is crucial that you attack simultaneously.

Remember to scout first as well so you roughly know where ISU-152 is before you advance.

As for the Brummbar, there is a world of difference between 40 range and 100 range. 40 range puts you face-to-face with an AT gun; 100 range does not. And I've never seen a Brummbar 1-shot a Zis squad.

Ground fire on the middle of the Zis. Profit.

Here is how I do it.
You need at least two tanks (or Pumas) which is easy as ISU-152 costs a lot and puts Soviet behind in armour by its nature.
You set up a flank. I am not talking about charging head on but about proper flank when your forces are coming from the side. You flank with one tank and keep your second tank at front with rest of the army. When your opponent sees flanking tank he will try to react and engage new threat. When he does that you advance with your main force while retreating tank that flanked. You focus ISU-152 with your tanks and enemy support with your infantry. Your Paks should concentrate on ISU-152 unless there is another tank around then they can shoot at it. All depends how the battle flows.
While ISU is trying to rotate and shoot at the tank you flanked with your other tank can shoot at it without and problem being safe at the same time. If he rotates to engage your advancing force your flanking tank should advance and try to take position behind ISU. When your tank was successful it usually means dead ISU. Now you have to circle strafe ISu with the tank that got the flank and in the mean time try to advance with your other tank to help. You have to watch out and position your tanks accordingly so you stay out of its cone of fire. ISU-152 is so slow that even if you'll get AT naded you should still be able to stay behind unless very unlucky heavy engine crit. The most important thing for your supporting infantry is to keep attacking and try to quickly eliminate everything that can endanger your tanks. Mostly ZiS guns. Key is not to stop. Even if you loose squad or two if you'll get ISU you came ahead. You need to synchronised your attack. Timing is very important. It requires a fair amount of micro as well so you need to practice a bit.
If you're playing team game remember to consult this attack with your team mate. It is crucial that you attack simultaneously.

Remember to scout first as well so you're roughly know where ISU-152 is before you advance.

Lets see a replay of this.

Lets see a replay of this.

No problem. I will record it especially for you.

Maybe you could have shorten your strat and just said: Swarm the ISU with a general assault with most of your units, and move a flanking tank force (p4s, etc.) into the ISU.

I could have but I wanted be more specific otherwise we would hear you can't flank ISU again.

The fact that the ISU can potentially be flanked and overwhelmed has no bearing on the fact that it is too strong against both infantry and armor for its extreme range. Squad wipes should be reduced across the board, but the ISU is simply game-breaking in its current state.

The fact that the ISU can potentially be flanked and overwhelmed has no bearing on the fact that it is too strong against both infantry and armor for its extreme range. Squad wipes should be reduced across the board, but the ISU is simply game-breaking in its current state.

The ISU does have the weakness of flanking, but if it scans for anything in front of it, it will most likely kill in one-two shots if it is infantry, and in a few shots, sometimes less, if it is a tank. That is pretty worrisome... However, i do not think squad wipes everywhere should be reduced. Incompetent micro and suicide runs need to be penalized so the player knows not to attempt them. You shouldn't be able to do anything you want with your squad and get away with it. You shouldnt keep infantry around AI tanks, too, which is the main point of AI tanks. However, i think there should be some consistencies with flame weapons. Flame halftrack is pretty skimpy for 120 munitions, yet I always see excellent use of it in SNF and streams... , but maybe a small price reduction would suffice, maybe 80 munitions. It isn't like FHT's are spammable, they would bite you later in the game when you do need the munitions for something else. Anyways, consistent flames also would keep the KV-8 from randomly setting entire squads on fire within a short burst. I still do not understand why people send infantry at KV-8's , and not their tanks, I guess i will never know. Flames just act funny, and are entirely RNG dependent, and that is why it looks like the KV-8 overperforms and the FHT underperforms.

I expect to see katitof here trolling about how ISU-152s are fine; I did not expect to see so many others singing the same tune.

Now I knew this way going to happen pre-patch, as soon as Peter announced that Soviet heavies would be getting substantial AT buffs. At that moment I knew that either IS-2 or ISU-152 or both would be ridiculously good vs. everything and would be way too cost efficient and difficult to counter. People ridiculed that prediction.

Over and over I had others assure me that whenever one stat area gets buffed, other areas are nerfed to compensate. "Why would you think that the ISU-152 would remain great against infantry after Peter blatantly told us it would play a bigger AT role next patch?" or so I was told...Yeah, like reason and logic has ever accompanied CoH2 balance updates.... Now we have a true "Animal killer" ISU with worse squad wipes that ever before.

And people here are trying to sell that off as "fine"?

Pathetic.

The fact that the ISU can potentially be flanked and overwhelmed has no bearing on the fact that it is too strong against both infantry and armor for its extreme range. Squad wipes should be reduced across the board, but the ISU is simply game-breaking in its current state.

The ISU has always been a bit of a gamble unit pre- patch. It costed a huge amount of resources to call in and could go down to a single close in flank by a P4. If it went down while doing little damage it was often the road to GG. If supported well and used correctly, it was a beast. I found the unit overpriced due to the risk factor and how it interfered with my offensive playstyle. It worked better on some maps (like minsk or steppe) and worse on others.

The key change this time around is the penetration and the rear armor buff. It's a bit of a double bonus IMO. I would have thought that one of the two would have sufficed to make it a fair unit.

The rear armor buff (155) now negates the P4's penetration (120) so the usual 'fix and flank' tactic that many players used doesn't work so well now. Currently, only the Puma, Tiger, and Panther that have the pen to do a decisive flanking run against the ISU.

The Puma is doctrinal and the heavies are in the same expense range as the ISU.

Yes the ISU can be flanked.
But on most maps it also HAS to be flanked - right NOW.

The ISU is a great area denial tool. It doesn't need to actually kill anything to have a huge impact on the game.
If an ISU makes it's presence known even experienced players have to pull way back, ceding large parts of the map to the opponent. How much depends on the layout of the map.


As for the flank:
Keep in mind 3 things:

• The flank needs to happen now or within a couple of minutes.
  
• If the flank fails (ISU survived) you probably just lost the game.
  
• You need to have an army composition that actually allows you to pull off a substantial flank.
  Example:
  If you invested into 3 AT guns at a previews point of the game (due to fuel shortage for example) you are pretty much done for.
  3 AT guns (quite possibly vetted that late into the game) is a lot of AT. For that to be suddenly obsolete is harsh blow.
  

The rear armor buff (155) now negates the P4's penetration (120) so the usual 'fix and flank' tactic that many players used doesn't work so well now.

Thanks for that tidbit of info!

I just played 2 matches in a row in 2v2 with both having one player use an ISU-152 commander.

I lost I think 4 PaK crews with 1 shot, and 2 grens + 1 panzergren squad in 1 hit.

I remember it being somewhat like this before, but I do not remember it being this potent at wiping squads.

I was also using Elefants, and though I made several mistakes, his ISU was literally behind 4 stolen paks / ZiS, so it was basically inassailable even though I was stuka bombing the at guns constantly.

Yes, it is most definitely something that Relic needs to look at.

The ISU-152 was already extremely potent before the patch. I guess it was just that it took quite long to field it, that people didn't use it more often and rather went for t-34/85s or an IS-2 instead.

The fact that it has such great range, combined with it's strong AT- and AI-Potential make it overperform imo.

Talking for 2v2+ it's extremely hard to take it out especially on smaller and/or narrow maps like semoski, minsk, charkov etc.

I have to admit, yesterday we lost 2on2 with my mate because there was a really tricky ISU-152 situation. It was at Crossing in Woods and there was atleast 2 ISUs guarding 2 different VPs. We stood no chance.

I might add that my Ger isn't as good as my Soviet and I can't yet make conclusions based on one game but it is something now to fear when playing as Germans.

Just have to admit that on some 2v2 maps 2 ISU-152s take a HALF of player's popcap.

I would like to see the balance when ele & ISU lose their sight and need spotter, that will make the game more interesting than an "I own the map" button.

I would like to see the balance when ele & ISU lose their sight and need spotter, that will make the game more interesting than an "I own the map" button.

I agree and never really understood why these powerful long range units are also the ones with the most sight range

I would like to see the balance when ele & ISU lose their sight and need spotter, that will make the game more interesting than an "I own the map" button.

Kinda like KV-2 in Siege mode

I would like to see the balance when ele & ISU lose their sight and need spotter, that will make the game more interesting than an "I own the map" button.

Do the same for ele and I'm sold on the idea.

edit: after rereading I have decided it is the highest of times to get myself that morning coffee.