The top 10 worst tanks of the war

i wonder how many soldiers died why all the old men in the turret ring section at the churchil manufacturing dept, scratched their heads and said..im alright jack,my pension is due in 6 months..where there is a will,there is a way.silly pipe puffing b######s.cheers.

 

OK Lee, Once again your persistent determination to distort the historical record with unsubstantiated opinion on this provokes another response (with apologies to those that are sick of the banging on regarding this mythological treatment of Armoured design) ;

Great efforts were made to fit the 17pdr in the Churchill & it proved impossible. If you consider the 'sponsons between the tracks' design of Churchill and compare it to other tanks carrying heavier weapons than the 6pdr or 75mm you will see that the available space on the top deck is limited severely as the tracks take up a couple of feet in total space that would be required to mount the larger ring required to allow a fully traversable turret with a BFG. This without considering the difficulty in supplying enough 17pdr guns before 1944-ish to even meet the demand for towed guns. There was not enough room, they tried from 1943 onwards, and tried in a variety of configurations, to make a 17pdr Churchill.
As Drucius says, the Successful mounting of a QF17 in Black Prince involved a considerably wider hull and because of that was a new vehicle, not a simple adaptation.

On your previous comments on how easy it would be to mount a 3.7, I'd refer you to the A39 Tortoise, the only contemporary successful non-extemporised mounting of a modified 3.7 in '32 pdr' form. The engineering required to support such a massive gun was frankly... massive, and not something that could ever have been achieved with the much smaller Churchill chassis.
To persistently bang on so does nothing more than raise incredulity among anyone who has taken the time to try and understand such things.
As for the 'duffers' you've imagined up as the primary force in the engineering and design departments I'd recommend looking up a few names, you will find that your suggestions of aged callous engineers also fly in the face of what actually happened in respect to who had their hands on the machinery of design. By and large they were the same chaps that contributed to the exceptionally effective Centurion, which answered many of the 'Universal tank' requirements that you're so determined to place outside of a realistic timescale of what was possible with the materials to hand.
Germany was working in a peacetime environment on the Tiger from 1936 onwards. The British & Americans began the real improvement work from the War's beginning onwards with all the conditions that Total war forces on things. When you consider that they began with designs like the cost-restricted and unimpressive A11 Matilda and took a mere 5 years to reach Comet & Centurion I'd say they did damned well. Nothing was perfect, and twists and turns were taken, but not one of those involved deliberate or lazy spanners in the works as you imply.

All off the top of my head but I'm comfortable I can stand by the above and it concurs with respected and trustworthy Historians of British armour, including David Fletcher, who ran the Tank Museum library for a long time before becoming it's director, and knows a thing or two outside of mere unsubstantiated opinion.

Cheers,
Adam.

 

According to my sources the Churchil was designed to General Staff Specification A20 of 1939 as a successor to the Matilda II. The requirements called for a "trench warfare" tank and the result looked like a scaled up Char B1, that emerged from a similar requirement, with a forward firing HE gun and a turret with an AT weapon sitting beteen tracks that went over the top of the hull like in the old "rhomboids" of WWI fame. It was rushed into production after Dunkirk with no chance of a redesign to incorporate the lessons of Blitzkrieg, so it basically was a tank designed for a WW1 combat environment despite all later efforts to improve it.
The result was quite good in an Infantry support role, but nearly any AFVs can be effective in that role. Even the Italian L6, that BTW should have made it to the original list, was used with some success. A gun that can't fire HE looks a pretty strange choice to me for infantry support but 40 tonns of (mostly) armour, good ammo stowage and large side escape hatches in case the PBI got lucky will make up for a lot of things.
As a manouver tank it's poor, climbing ability will not make up for low road speed. For tank combat manouvering at 15 mph (roadspeed!) to get your 6lb, which is the best AT weapon that would fit in it's turret, in range against a Tiger or Panther does not look a good way to earn a living.
So IMHO a poor tank, flawed by an obsolete design philosophy. The soviets, that got to use practically all WW2 AFVs, did not like it when they got some in 1943. They were thinking of stopping KV-I production in favour of an all T34 lineup at the time so it may be more "doctrine" than tank quality but I doubt it.

 

One big problem on assessing the Churchill is the huge changes that occurred from marks I-VII (and beyond), particularly after 'The great rework scheme' it became a very different vehicle in the later marks. The Soviets received (I believe un-reworked??) pretty rough Mark I, II, & IIIs which were never going to inspire too much confidence in anyone, but the later & reworked types, particularly in Italy & Tunisia, proved successful and inspired confidence in their crews. The remarkable climbing ability meant that many Germans serving in Italy were surprised by tanks turning up where they simply shouldn't be.
If Gerry is to be believed (and he usually is) then he and his crew-mates regarded the Tiger as no real threat to their Churchills in the med as terrain and rate of fire were the dominant factors and Churchill most always bested the big cat in encounters, the faster traversing/firing Mk.IVs being treated as a greater threat.
If that weren't enough to remove it's blanket inclusion in a 'worst' list then the AVREs & other funnies perhaps lift it further from being so easily dismissed.

Thought of another 'worst' that should probably be on my list - The Neubaufahrzeug, which basically disgraced itself the handful of times it was tested by deployment.

Cheers,
Adam.

 

I fear we are using very different criteria here, the Neubaufahrzeug was a success by mine.
As a prototype it allowed the germans to recognize the "independent" as a technological dead end. The similar T35 failed at this as they still tried the T-100 and SMK years later and the Char 2C is suspect looking at the B1.
For it's time, it had good armament, average armour (the non mild steel ones of course!) and decent mobility. Operationally the ones used in Norway scored a propaganda hit and one actually helped the drive North from Oslo until it ran into a 1940 style "Pak Front" (I believe the other two vehicles involved were PzIs), 5 x 25mm is a very heavy AT concentration for the time, and even then I believe it was only damaged not destoyed. What's so bad about that? None of the "Independents" made it to my list as they were all considered obsolescent survivors only good for propaganda parades by 1940, but if you want to pick one for your baddies the T35 or Char 2C are much better candidates.
BTW if we add "loved by it's crews" or even "respected by it's enemies" to the criteria the late marks Churchils would disappear in a flash, but that's not what I was looking at, my criteria was more "made it to the troops in significant numbers despite bad design flaws".

 

IMO every party involved in tank and infantry combat had it's respected or feared enemies.
As for the German part - in regards to books/literature, and personal accounts, there was often the outcry "Alarm/Achtung T-34, KV-1, Shermans/Firefly and for a short period Mathilda(II) and Grant's.

I never came across an account in regards to a "Alarm Churchill". It was a tough beast to blow up, but due to its totally restricted mobility and firepower it wasn't considered to be an outstanding thread by the Germans. It would simply have been under the general "Alarm Panzer" thats about it.

Are there figures in regards to kill/loss and total production for the Churchill?
Certainly I would not place the Churchill into "a top 10 worst" there are plenty of other tanks that fit into this tight group.

Regards
Kruska

 

I'm sorry TOS, but this is wrong, we have 2 regular Churchill veterans that are glad they were put in that tank over any other type, and every other chap I've spoken to (many) feels the same. The Germans in Italy & Tunisia also regarded the Churchill as one of their most serious armoured opponents (I have a POW interview somewhere with German Tankers that despised/feared the thing). Gerry Chester's site really is the most useful web-based reference on Churchill operations though, so I won't descend down the road of repeating what he explains much more eloquently.

I don't fully understand that the Neubaufahrzeug/Mittlere-traktor has much to do with the Independent or T35 types either. I can sort of see what you're getting at, the running gear may look similar from the side but the German type was a lighter & more compact vehicle, and the extra MG turrets aren't really analogous with the multiple heavy turreted weapons of those other types, the 'spare' MG turret was a reasonably common feature on 20s-30s vehicles. Her combat career with Pz.Abt.zbv 40 is not exactly glorious (Though even jentz seems a little unclear on the details) but the fact unarmoured vehicles were sent out as well maybe indicates that Germany was more interested in nice photographs of large tanks than their actual effectiveness.

And Kruska? What's this about Churchill's "totally restricted mobility" mate? It was one of the most mobile tanks of the war, slow but very capable in the rough & steep stuff.

Here's another possible worst candidate of the ones that reached mass conflict: The Crusader, unreliable, disliked by it's crews etc. etc... The trouble is it just looks so good and it's speed often proved useful in the Desert so I'm loath to include it.
YouTube - Crusader Tank Bovington Tankfest 2008

So when are we going to get around to the Japanese & Italian types then? Or is that just TOO easy?

Cheers,
Adam.

 

I think you must see italian tanks in ww2, they are worse than matilda or cruiser!!!
The light tank l6/40 must be on the first place!

You must see this site: Italian Armored Vehicles of WWII

Then you will see that italian tanks are the worst tanks!

 

Other useful pages on Italian stuff:
Italian Tanks
Italian Tanks
http://www.geocities.com/pentagon/quarters/1975/g_tnkita.htm
My bookshelves are a bit sketchy on most italian types compared to other vehicles. The light ones seem appropriate to the kind of Imperial policing work they were originally intended but I do pity the crews that had to take them to a world war.

The P40 always interests me, again my info is a little thin but the Germans did seem to think it worthwhile to continue production. Whether this was 'any old port in a storm' thinking I don't know, but they were quite ruthless in discarding other potentially wasteful manufacturing possibilities at that stage of the war so maybe there was something there?
It does kind of 'look' right.

Cheers,
Adam.

 

I'm surprised noone came up with the outdated FT17. It was certainly ok in 1917 but obsolete in 1940

 

Hello Von Poop,

just because my friends turtle manages to get out of the pond, I would hesitate to term it "most mobile". . IMO those Japanes tanks were mobile like hell.

Regards
Kruska

 

Aye, but much fighting takes place in rough terrain, and if you're sneaking up a mountain with 80-90,000 lbs of Armoured vehicle when all other tanks have ground to a halt half way up 'mobility' gains an entirely new meaning beyond speed. Not for nothing that Gerry so often refers to him and his crew-mates Churchills as 'The Mountain Goats' .

Even the 'practically prototype' early marks at Dieppe (the ill-fated Operation that probably contributed more than any to the Churchill's initially poor reputation and German dismissiveness towards it) achieved another mobility success. It's possible that no other tracked AFV at that time could have got up the shingle unassisted, let alone climbing the sea wall.
(I seem to recall the Germans trialled their own vehicles up the beach after the event, and they got bogged well before most Churchills had, but I'd have to look that up to be sure so I won't stand by it. )

Cheers,
Adam.

 

Ahhhhh. But that doesn't make it one of the "Worst" though. There were still quite a few in use during the war.

http://www.ww2f.com/weapons-wwii/22200-wwi-tanks-wwii.html

 

Italian tanks were consistently poor, according to a post war study by the Ufficio Storico of the Italian Army this was mostly due to to the existence of a Fiat/Ansaldo monopoly that prevented any competition in design.
In cronological order :
L3 (CV 33) - Practically useless in WW2
M11/39 - Stop gap design with 37 mm gun in hull mount.
M13/40 - Uninspired light/medium with very poor speed, was sent to North Africa without any adaptation to desert conditions and as a result most broke down.
M14/41 - The M13/40 with one more tonn and a few less mechanical problems.
L6/40 - 20mm armed L3 replacement entered service in 1941!
M15/43 - Redesigned M13/40 with improved 47 mm gun but by that time it would be facing Shermans !!!
P40 (also called P26/40) - Way behind it's time, I don't have penetration figures for it's 75/34 gun but they were probably inferior to the allied 75s far less the Pak 40 and it's tank mounted equivalents. 50mm best armour and 14mm minimum with rivetted construction, about 100 were completed but many were used by the Germas as pillboxes as they had no engines.
All are good candidates .. so shoot !!!

 

VP you got me wrong, what I meant was "disappear" from the worst list ! I know the Churchill was liked by most of it's crews though I would reserve the "especially feared by it's enemies" to the Crocodile. But I believe that liking was at least partly due to never having to use it like their predecessors had to use Matildas and Valentines and that was due to the wide availability of M4s and no credit to the Churchill. Units willingly replaced the turret 2lb with a second 3' howitzer and the 6lb with 75 mounts removed from M4s because they knew they were mostly out of the manouver tank/tank fighting game.

 

Hello Von Poop,

You are right on that one - such as a 80-90000lbs Mountain Goat comming in handy at times. But surely the tank was never designed for that.
Being a lame turtle as he was (developed towards the 1st WW doctrine) Monty propably would have loved him for the "speedy" advance.

But any Tank unit commander would have found the Churchill to be of very restricted/limited use in a modern (1942-45) battle environment.

Regards
Kruska

 

North Africa/Tunisia, Hunts gap, Steamroller farm, Longstop, etc. - 1942-43
Italy , Hitler Line, Gothic Line, Winter Line, Senio, Argenta, etc. - 1943-45
NW Europe - Normandy, Channel ports, Nijmegen, The Reichwald, etc. - 1944-45
Among many others...

They certainly found plenty of good uses for a design so often referred to as obsolete in a WW2 context.
Again, Gerry's NIH site is most informative on what the men who actually fought in them felt about their Churchills.

Steve Zaloga's with za on the T16.
Discarding the interminable question of 'What is a Tank' , I'll also add the Jagdtiger to my list of 'worsts'. It still makes me giggle when I visit the Bovington one. So seemingly powerful, but so flawed & wasteful.

Cheers,
Adam.

 

The Germans AT gunners feared the Churchill and when used in conjunction with tank destroyers fitted with 17 pounders they were a serious problem for German armour if they closed the churchills would become a serious problem if they stayed at a distance they were picked off by the TD's. They integrated into the mixed arms tactics used from the middle of the war. Cetrainly in a straight fight the outmatched the mark 4 and had an admirable crew survival rate when knocked out whilst being very difficult to knock out.

It could go anywhere indeed places a sherman or T34 couldn't though they were painfully slow.

The churchill design was drafted in 1938. Only the mark 4 panzer and the T34 were still in service after six years and still seen as a highly effective weapon systems so hardly a candidate for the worst tank. If the infantry wanted tank support they far prefered them to shermans given their superior survivability.

 

You need to be a little generous to the italians their tanks were pretty poor but when they were designed the contemporary designs were the panzer 2 or stuart light tanks, or the vicker light tanks they were essentialy tracked armoured cars.

In addition their engines did not date back to the first world war as did the early british cruiser liberty engines though their unreliability is over played since the cruisers that got such a bad name in 1942 had been worn out in 1941 and passed on in poor conditions to replacement units. The old liberty engines were not a great engine any way once the derated rolls royce engine came in with the cromwell the problem was solved but not till late 1942.

The US lacked specialist engines for the sherman but used multiple reliable commercial engines. The russians never really solved the problem of problematic power trains and reliability was a problem up to the T64.