What is your favourite “bad” tank?

[Ivan Sorensen]

The Fireflies and Tigers usually get all the love.
What is your favourite tank that is either overlooked, flawed or kind of crud?

My first candidate is the A10 / Mark II cruiser. I love the look of the early cruisers anyways, but something about this “too slow to be a cruiser, too light to be an infantry tank” just appeals to me. I always take a few when playing a game where its an option.

[willz]

Vickers light tank.

[Mike]

Is the Churchill any good?

That, a T-34 and a Panther were the first kits I had.

But the gun on my Churchill broke so I heated a pin and pushed that into the turret.
Still looked cool.

[Ivan Sorensen]

Mike wrote:

Is the Churchill any good?

Good armour, crap reliability is my understanding. It does look like a mean brawler though!

[Mike Headden]

I’d rate the Churchill as “started badly but redeemed itself.”

Churchill is supposed to have quipped,”This is the tank they named after me when they found it was no damn good.” But, like Churchill, it rose to the occasion.

Excellent armour for the period in all models but a sub-par gun. Not very fast but decent cross-country performance, especially when it comes to slopes.

Adding track guards, upgunning to the 6pdr from the 2pdr then to the 75mm from the 6pdr, adding even more armour to something that was already in possession of thicker frontal armour than the Tiger 1, all these things (and more) substantially improved it.

It was also the basis for many of the “Funnies.”

I don’t think it was especially unreliable. At least it didn’t spontaneously combust like the early Panthers, for example!

There are 100 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who can work from incomplete data

[warwell]

M3 Lee. Had a model as a kid and thought it looked cool.

[Mike Headden]

Oh, and favourite “bad” tank? KV-2.

A turreted 152mm gun in a turret so big and top heavy that if you fired to the side on a slope you were in danger of toppling the tank and which also made the thing a giant target.

But also a turreted 152mm gun at a time when most German tanks carried a 37mm or a short barrelled 75mm and some only had a 20mm.

There are 100 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who can work from incomplete data

[Mr. Average]

I’m partial to the Landkreuzer P.1000 “Ratte” for its sheer megalomaniacal insanity.

[Whirlwind]

The Centaur.

[Mike Headden]

Mr. Average wrote:

I’m partial to the Landkreuzer P.1000 “Ratte” for its sheer megalomaniacal insanity.

Is that a tank or a pipe dream, though?

There are 100 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who can work from incomplete data

[Aethelflaeda was framed]

Carden-Lloyd Tankette (or the TKS, a Polish upgrade).  The Vickers light tank is a close second.

Mick Hayman
Margate and New Orleans

[Rod Robertson]

My trinity of unsafe and generally underperforming tanks are the Pz-38(t) Lt. tank (Czech death by flying rivets), the Soviet/American BT series* of tanks based on the American Christie drive and suspension systems (fast death with the wind blowing through your hair) and the French FCM-36 Char Leger (a lonely death in a one-man turret or a one-man driver’s compartment). All three tanks look good aesthetically to me in their final forms but all were iron-coffins for their crews by the time they were used in anger against their better and more potent/tougher adversaries.

*The specific tank I like so much in the BT Series is the BT-7M Fast Tank.

If forced to pick one, then the Pz-38(t) is my favourite. Honourable mentions also goes to the Italian L-33 tankette and the British Covenanter tank.

Cheers and good gaming.

Rod Robertson.

 

 

[Mr. Average]

Mike Headden wrote:

Mr. Average wrote:

I’m partial to the Landkreuzer P.1000 “Ratte” for its sheer megalomaniacal insanity.

Is that a tank or a pipe dream, though?

Well, if it has to be “real,” I’d go with the T28 or the TOG-1, both of them in every way relics and totally obsolete the moment they were built.

[MartinR]

Rod Robertson wrote:

My trinity of unsafe and generally underperforming tanks are the Pz-38(t) Lt. tank (Czech death by flying rivets), the Soviet/American BT series* of tanks based on the American Christie drive and suspension systems (fast death with the wind blowing through your hair) and the French FCM-36 Char Leger (a lonely death in a one-man turret or a one-man driver’s compartment). All three tanks look good aesthetically to me in their final forms but all were iron-coffins for their crews by the time they were used in anger against their better and more potent/tougher adversaries. *The specific tank I like so much in the BT Series is the BT-7M Fast Tank. If forced to pick one, then the Pz-38(t) is my favourite. Honourable mentions also goes to the Italian L-33 tankette and the British Covenanter tank. Cheers and good gaming. Rod Robertson.

Hey, don’t disrespect the Pz38, it is a great tank! Easily as good as early model PZIII and way better than a PZII.

My personal favourite crap tank is the A13 Cruiser, with an honourable mention to the Russian T28.

 

 

"Mistakes in the initial deployment cannot be rectified" - Helmuth von Moltke

[hammurabi70]

Soviet T35.  A masterpiece.

 

www.olivercromwell.org; www.battlefieldstrust.com
6mm wargames group: [email protected]; 2mm wargames group: [email protected]

[mark leslie]

The T35 sure has character and I’m sure that with the right crew even the baddest guy can be made to shine.

Fossilizing nicely.

[Sane Max]

Soviet T-26. Soviet BT… small but not very deadly.

Really all the French Tanks of WWII, but I love the Somua…not a terrible tank at all but it had the standard 1-man turret so I am saying it counts.

[John D Salt]

Char 2C for me, please.

Where else are you going to get stroboscopic cupolas?

All the best,

John.

[Who Asked This Joker]

Ivan Sorensen wrote:

My first candidate is the A10 / Mark II cruiser. I love the look of the early cruisers anyways, but something about this “too slow to be a cruiser, too light to be an infantry tank” just appeals to me. I always take a few when playing a game where its an option.

Wow.  We must be related.  That is my goto “example of a bad tank” armored vehicle.  😉

Honorable mention.  Cruiser A13.  Very fast and lightly armored.  It had reliability issues, especially in the desert.  Replaced by the Cruiser A15 Crusader, which ha reliability issues in the desert but could perform well in more favorable conditions.

John

"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power."

--Abraham Lincoln

[Thuseld]

Having read all these responses I would also go for the A10. Ever since my early teens I wanted to see one and finally got a book with a drawing of an A9 in it. The A10 was on the front cover. I hated when they changed to the big Christie wheels, and then even worse with that weird spaced armour turret shape! Disgusting. A10 though, beautiful.

Experiments here: http://inexperiencedmodelmaker.blogspot.co.uk/

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[General Slade]

I would go for something Italian.   I like the Carro Armato Leggero because it looks like it could have been the inspiration for the Daleks but I would probably opt for the Fiat 3000 because its name makes it sound quite sporty but in fact it was a two-man tank operated by pedal power (possibly).

[Shahbahraz]

Well, the Fiat 3000 was basically the Renault FT17 made under license.

I confess to a fondness for Italian Tankettes, like the L33 and L35. It must have taken solid steel balls to go to war in one of those. They are TINY!  If you ever get the chance to stand next to one, you will realise it’s just two bicycles joined up by a cardboard box.

My other ‘bad’ tank actually wasn’t bad, bad, just very quickly outdated, the Pz II – the shape I just like.  That and the Covenanter, which was nearly quite a good tank, but the fundamental design flaws could never be fixed.

Dishonourable mention to New Zealand’s ‘Bob Semple’ corrugated tank…

--An occasional wargames blog: http://aleadodyssey.blogspot.co.uk/ --

[Ivan Sorensen]

As I am fond of telling the kid, surely Covenanter must be one of the best tanks of the war: Thousands built, none lost in action 🙂

[Pieter Roos]

Late to the party, but can’t resist.

Hands down, the T35. How can anyone not love a real “land battleship” with primary and secondary batteries!  I have not fielded one on the table yet, do have a couple in 1/285 awaiting paint.

I guess the A9 could have a strong second, with those two MG turrets up front, but I gather they were rarely manned. M3 Lee/Grant probably isn’t really “bad”, but maybe the M11-39 fits in their, and the Char B as a WWI tank designed in the 1920s and entering service just in time for WWII. All French armor suffered with the one man turret and no way for the commander to really unbutton to look around!

[McKinstry]

T-35. Perfectly excessive

The tree of Life is self pruning.

[Thomaston]

Everyone went with WWII, I’m going to say something modern.

Wiesel AWC, that thing is as cute as a Vickers MKVI.

[kyoteblue]

The Bob Simple tank cause it looks like Orks built it.

[Rod Robertson]

For those opting to support the ill-fated T-35, this from a game played about 7 years ago. It was the Battle of Verba between tanks of the Soviet 68th Tank Regt. And elements of the 16th Pz. Division.

[Rod Robertson]

And a side view featuring dead cows:

[Thaddeus Blanchette]

I have always been partial to the Matilda and the Crusader due to early Airfix influence.

We get slapped around, but we have a good time!

[Pieter Roos]

I don’t think Matilda would count as a “bad” tank, although arming it with the 2 pdr for “infantry support” was somewhat insane.

Crusader was only bad because of reliability. We need to remember that aside from reliability and no HE capability, British armor wasn’t really that much inferior to German. Their doctrine was.

[Author]

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