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The JS tank, named after Soviet leader Joseph Stalin (technically speaking, the IS tank for Iosif Stalin), was a heavy tank developed by the Soviet Union during World War II. The heavy tank was designed with thick armour to counter the German 88 mm guns, and sported a main gun that was capable of defeating the new German Tiger and Panther tanks. It was mainly a breakthrough tank, firing a heavy high-explosive shell that was useful against entrenchments and bunkers. The JS-3 first appeared to western observers at the Allied Victory Parade in Berlin in September 1945. By most accounts these tanks overawed the western powers, who responded with heavy tank designs of their own in the 1950s. A Regiment of JS-3s may have been deployed in Manchuria in 1945.