The top 10 worst tanks of the war

While I haven't given this much thought yet, I'm going to start the thread anyway. I have several French models in mind but suspect that the Italian L3/33 will probably top the list....

 

dont forget about some of those ridiculous japanese tankettes

 

ll ask the same questions I asked in a similar thread over on THC LOL. Remember that one from Mar 2007 T.A. ?

Worst Tank in what aspect?? Light,Medium,Heavy and Super Heavy. Breakthrough,Tank to Tank,Assualt. Armor, Weaponry,Speed or equipment? Overall? There were Good and Bad tanks in every catagory. And in multiple catagories.

 

TOG 1

TOG 2 ​

 

Maus

 

The criteria I'm looking at are:

Firepower (or the lack thereof in this case)
Mobility (immobility / unreliability)
Armor (the thinner the better)
Fighting efficency (two man crews are hot sellers here)
impact on the war (how many were produced / used and how did they negatively impact the countries of use)

So far I have the following candidates:

Italian L3/33.
British Mk VI light tank
British Tetrach
Soviet T60
German Maus
German Pz IF
Soviet KV II

 

How about the Marmon Herrington T-16 light tank?

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The Maus definitely....

 

Ah, a spin-off, good stuff.
Some 'fine' suggestions there, the Pz.1F's a good 'un (5 ton tanks should probably not be upgraded to 21 tons), & anything with full tracks by Marmon Herrington's immediately a little suspicious.
I couldn't resist stepping outside of WW2 a little with the immediate candidates that spring to mind, and have been a little loose with the term 'Tank' as it's largely impossible to precisely define anyway:

A38 Valiant - Even Bovington concede it's one of the worst ever built, and have done for a long time.
TOG 1 & 2 - Hesitant on this one as it's just so pleasingly mental in the flesh, and did valuable work distracting a pack of potential troublemakers from interfering in other designs.
Nellie - Incapable of digging any soil other than particular French Loams it took an entire company of engineers to assemble, 3 separate loads and a fleet of lorries carrying just the track-plates.
Maus (& E100) - Say no more.
T35 - Interesting but...
A7V - They just hadn't 'got' it.
St. Chamond - as above.
The Locust - just a bit pointless really.
The A11 Matilda - the inevitable result of building a tank to a price.
Assorted Japanese & Italian types.

And many many more Golden greats...

Cheers,
Adam.

 

Isn't using tanks that were never put into production never mind used operationally a bit of a cheat?

 

Naw. Not at all LOL. He didn't state anything about being in production or being used in the original post .

 

This is my first post,
I've split my answer by tonnage as comparing a Maus and an L3 makes little sense.
I've taken into account the 3 main tank attributes Firepower (F), Mobility (M) and Protection (P) plus a "battlefied impact" (B) that saves otherwise questionable designs like the Matilda II (26t for a 40mm gun, 15 mph and 70 miles range, ouch!).
I ruled out
a) Anything that was built in less than 10 samples as I think they belong to a "worse/craziest tank design of ww2 thread".
b) Obsolescent survivors like the soviet T28 and T35 or Renault FT that were in the process of being replaced by the time they got into combati n WW2. .
< 5 Tonns Carro Veloce 33/L3 barely qualifies as a tank, poor design, poor reliability and poor battlefield performance even against british light MkVI that was in it's class.
5 to 10 tonns I have no clear winner, I actually think the Jap tankettes were not too bad, just not up to facing a 30t Sherman!!
10 to 15 tonns is a toss up between the M13/40 and the Covenanter, at least the former did some combat.
15 to 20 tonns Crusader. Did not shine in any cathegory and was also fairly unreliable. Only any good against even poorer M14/41s.
20 to 25 tonns Nothing comes to mind.
25 to 30 tonns M3 Lee/Grant . Luckily for allied tankers this 1941 dated stop gap horror got replaced by the M4 before the "long barrelled" panzers and AT guns got common enough to slaughter it.
30 to 35 tonns Can't find any real turkeys. In a bracket that includes both widely available "war winners" (T34/M4) bad designs just never got into production.
35 to 40 tonns Churchill the "infantry tank" doctrine was obsolete by 1943 and it never had a gun in line with it's weight class (or intended role for the 2lb and 6lb armed versions).
40 to 45 tonns PzKpfw.VD It should never have gotten near a battlefield in it's "non combat ready" state. The overweight KV-Ie is also a serious contender.
Above 45 we get into the endless debate as to whether the Tigers were worth the effort.

Just for a comparison see what you could build for that tonnage.
< 5 PzKpfw. Ib
5-10 PzKpfw. 38(t)
10-15 M3 Stuart
15-20 Early Pz IV (Awesome for 1939 despite 30mm max armour).
20-25 PzKpfw. III
25-30 T34/76
30-35 M4 Sherman and T34/85
35-40 KV-1s
40-45 PzKpfw. VG and JS-II
Above 45 Tigers (JS III is not really WW2 and KV-2 was never meant to operate as a tank).

 

Finally someone who actually can give reasons for his opinion rather then just a list. LOL.

 

i think some italian tanks are the worst such as: the rapid tankette cv/33, the light (very light!) tank l6/40 and the first version of the medium (not so medium!) tank m13/40. Do you agree?

 

worst tanks.
1/brit mk 1.matlda.
2/brit mk 3 cruiser.
3/u.s mk 2.
4/panzer mk 2.
5/panzer mk mouse.
6/brit churchill,40mm gun.
7/u.s m4 tommy cooker.
8/churchill,57mm gun.
9/panzer mk6 model 2.
10/u.s m4,76mm gun.
cheers.

 

Woah there, the concept may have been outdated, but the Churchill turned out to be one of the best tanks of the war. Has one of the best safety/survivability records of any tank in WWII, could climb like a goat and take on the German heavies (especially with the QF 6pdr).

 

Furthermore, if you're going to choose one of the British cruisers, the Covenanter is the way to go.

 

dont get me wrong,the churchil is o.k,but there is imo no reason why it never got a big gun.cheers.

 

The reason it never got a big gun was that the turret ring was too small. The Black Prince, a prototype Churchill with a 17pdr, was wider and longer than a normall Churchill. However, because the Centurion was on the horizon, the project was cancelled.