The top 10 worst tanks of the war

Yeah, that looks like somebody has "armored" a regular crawler tractor, either agricultural or construction. Not a "Tank" really, a "tanked" crawler.

 

That is exactly what they did, but then what is a tank other than a tractor.

They even drove these around in parades.

HP

 

Air-cooled diesels are not uncommon at all in tanks. In fact, one of the most heavily produced tank engines in the postwar world has been the continental motors AVDS1790 which powers the US M60, almost all Israeli tanks, and many other vehicles.

 

For some reason, whenever I see that pic, I think of Robbie the Robot!

Was it a failure, tho'???

1/ The locals felt a lot safer...

2/ They dug deep in their pockets for war bonds!

3/ it did all that without ever having to fight!

Depends on your definition of failure!

It's the legendary Bob Semple Tank - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Semple_tank ....so it' a Caterpillar D8 crawler.

 

The Matilda II is considered by many to be one of the best early war tanks.

 

...and midwar too, if you count the Eastern Front, the Soviets loved them, and requested we kept on producing them into 1943 for them, tho' they were well-obsolete in North Africa by then.

The Soviets' opinion of the Valentine also differs from most other nations; they used them for hunting Tigers! The Valentine was apparently a remarkably quiet tank when running/moving - so much so that the Soviets used them to outflank Tigers and hit them from the sides or rear.

 

5 of the worst:
Pz VII
PzVIII
Pz IX
PzX
Ferdinand (although it was no tank)

 

Does it count if they never went into production other than the Ferdinand?

 

The little old valley was used as a recconaissance tank by the Soviets, although slower than their own it had better armour and was more reliable than many of their own types, the 2 pdr was a decent gun in its day and many vallys the Soviets got had the 6pdr as well.

 

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Is it just me, or does that look like what would happen if the Daleks designed a tank?

 

The Bob Semple tank New Zealand, a giant failer has only machine guns massive and fat top speed 5km 8 crew only 8mm of armour max no suspension 25.4 tons

 

Well it did satisfy a political/moral purpose and what few were built were converted back into tractors. The fact that they were never put into mass production or commited to combat may also mitiage whether or not they would be considered "giant failures". They are certainly eligible for the list though.

 

It wasn't the tank it was the crew. Germans when hit could bail out with minor to no injuries and transfer their experience to another tank. I the US crews were hit they were most likely killed. Vet tank crews on the US side were hard to come by opposed to German side.

 

I think that is a myth. Allied tank crew casualty rates were far lower than for infantry

Check out this official report http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/ref/Casualties/Casualties-1.html#duty

Battle casualties by duty branch, type, and disposition7 December 1941-31 December 1946) gives a total of 6,827 battle casualties among enlisted men in the Armored Force of which 1,581 were killed in action or died of wounds and a further 14 died in captivity or were missing declared killed.

The US Army lost 6,000 tanks in Europe in WWII from D Day to VE, and 1500 in the Mediterranean and Pacific theatres. Given that each tank had a five man crew, there were fewer than one casualty per KO tank and less than one fatality for every four tanks K/O.

 

That is most certainly not the case. Even KO'd tanks only lost about half (or less) of their crew on average and most tank crew were killed outside their tanks.

 

The blessed Fletcher on what's stored at Bov:

 

Very entertaining ; and not just that - I'd often wondered about the Covenanter and why it was relegated to training duties.

 

I can't think of a top 10 so I will just list a few:

1. Bob Semple, this really doesn't need an explanation.
2. Ferdinand Tank Destroyer, these would lose to themselves more than they would lose to their enemies.
3. Pz.Kpfw.VI 'King Tiger', the regular 'Tiger' tank was difficult enough to use without it breaking down but the increased weight only made it worse with the 'King Tiger' as the fuel consumption skyrocketed along with the rate of it breaking down.
4. T-34 Model 1942+, after 1941 the T-34 suffered heavily from its design as it was cramped, it used fuel tanks as armour, the gun became subpar, and the armour was never increased beyond the 45mm excluding the add-on armour, but that still didn't help much.
5. Pz.Kpfw.VIII 'Maus', it was too heavy and too slow.
6. T-35, its armour quickly became subpar and it would literally split in half if it went over a trench.
7. Pz.Kpfw.IF, heavy light tank.

I didn't include tanks like the Type 95 Ha-Go, Pz.I, M1 Light Tank, and the early T-26s since they were designed at a time where machine guns on tanks were still seen as prevalent and in some cases, such as the Type 95 Ha-Go, they were excellent tanks in the time period.