Profile of Napalm

Introduction
I believe it is a good time to talk about the ISU-152 and its role given the current meta of Company of Heroes 2. I rarely ever see this unit deployed and after looking at the underlying statistics some changes are needed.

Why should this unit be looked at?
Tigers and Panthers oh my. Soviets do not have enough viable DEDICATED late game anti armor capabilities. With the recent Tiger Ace commander the glaring issue of Soviet vs German late game armor has been brought to the forefront. Looking at the leaked patch notes this issue is only going to get worse.

What should be looked at?
The ISU-152 under performs when compared to its German rival, the Elephant or even the mid game SU85. There are multiple ways to address the under performance including a resource reduction, penetration increase, etc. I suspect it'll take a combination of things to make it viable again. Resource cost reduction would be the place to start.

Where are the statistics to support this?
Interesting to note that both the Elephant are 25MP, and are both dispatched units with 2 commanders each.



From the statics we can see that the Elephant is A) cheaper B) better damage C) can apply the damage to a wider arc D) has better armor C) faster reload time. On the other hand, the ISU-152 has A) splash damage and B) better speed.

Perhaps the comparison to the Elephant was a bit unfair.



Comparing it to the SU85 we see that the ISU-152 is A) over double the cost B) has slightly better armor and hit points C) more damage D) better range E) splash damage. Note the SU85 has A) better speed B) better penetration C) faster reload.

Conclusion
The ISU-152 is a slightly buffed version of the SU85 but is unable to compete against its German rival in any fashion. Given the price of the ISU-152 is would be a better idea to build two SU85's rather than a single ISU-152 and have better penetration and the ability to flank from multiple directions. Until the ISU-152 is buffed it will remain a lame duck.