James Holland | Bottom 5 Tanks | The Tank Museum
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- Опубліковано 24 чер 2021
- WW2 Historian James Holland is back at The Tank Museum to choose his Bottom 5 Tanks. One of which may come as a surprise! Bottom 5 Tanks playlist • TOP & BOTTOM 5 Tanks
It's all about opinions, so please feel free to agree or disagree in the comments below.
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The best tank of World War 2 was the Maus, no battle causalities and half of them still exist!
XD
And a hybrid, great for the environment!
How dare you suggest the Maus is superior to the Bob Semple!
@@Frserthegreenengine lol
And the one that does excist is half of both builded
Ideas: How about a top 5 (or bottom 5) tank list from the Museum's maintenance crew? Hardest to maintain, hardest to acquire parts for, hardest to make new parts for?
THAT is a great idea!
That is an excellent idea! Maybe qualify all of the "best" lists in a similar manner. For example, best tank for using in a defensive position, best tank in a one on one engagement etc. etc.
Well the Sherman is the top 1 because of the numbers and parts that still exist.
They are all hard to get parts for though. Most are 75 years old. I see what you mean though
I have to admit, the Matilda looks like something a reasonably competent hobbyist welder could make in his garage
Well, that was about the same level of budget they had to make those. And the same level of technical expertise and infrastructure available.
@@carloshenriquezimmer7543 Quite, £15,000 does not buy a lot of tank
Max the Matilda did well against panzers in 1940
Old-timey Killdozer
@@michellearmstrong7903 that was the Matilda 2, all round a much better vehicle
I feel we’re starting to jump the shark a bit when even the good old panzer 4 starts making worst lists.
Well jeas its not as good as a sherman in some regard but the sherman is a 1942 tank tis a bit newer. And almost non tanks had a gyroscoptic gun stabilizer
@@apocalypticsurvivor1881 What?
@@redgreen6436 he compared a panzer to a sherman but the panzer 4 was a earlyer tank
@@apocalypticsurvivor1881 Yes I can appreciate that but I didn't understand the part where you said ''And almost non tanks had a gyrocopter.'' what does that mean?And your spelling was off too so that kind of added to the confusion.
@@redgreen6436 one of the points he gave why a sherman is better is because it had a gyrocopter. Its something like a stableiser.
If i wrote or understood that woord wrong im sorry.
Tank: Marvelous design for its time, just kept in service long past its prime due to war needs.
James Holland: To the bottom with you.
I will not say that I agree with James Hollands view+ but I do see where he´s coming from; as with a number of other entries; they weren't bad in earlier year. But they were the worst tank for that particular year.
However, I agree with you that the PzKpw IV was a great tank.
@@markgroothuis8569 It just leads to really useless results. It will obviously bias the list against old vehicles, and specifically those that used to be high quality for their design era.
For example these standards should put tanks like Char B1 at the very bottom, because all of its advantages were gone by 1943/44 and only its disadvantages remained.
What he forgets is that Germany didn't have the material to replace them, in fact they tried to replace them with the panther but quickly realized they couldn't make enough to do so.
@@markgroothuis8569 It's still a very weird list even if we pick tanks by the year they got out of service.
Hell, the WW1 Renault FT was in service during all of WW2 and into 1949, but he picks stuff like Pz4 and the Fiat m14/41 as his bottom tanks, while saying 60mm of frontal armor won't do any good in an infantry support tank that was retired by 1940.
If he had understandable criteria it would be a different video altogether.
whats funny is last year panzer 4 was one of his top 5 tank.
I feel it would be fairer to judge a tank when it comes out, it is not the tanks fault that it is not replaced
So four italien tanks and one brittish then.
you have to judge them at the times they were being used, nothing unfair about it, being "fair" doesn't stop the crews dying.
@@popuptoaster Context is important yo, he does make the point of saying when he is judging them from and not just that the entire line is cack.
To be fair, he's judging them on a year-to-year basis based on when they were still manufactured. The PIV and Ha-Go were both superb when they first came out (late and early-mid 1930s respectively) that reached the end of their usefulness by the end of the war, though the Ha-Go was still effective against the Chinese (when used right).
This guy did not understand the first sentence of this video:
ua-cam.com/video/GF0hRJ09Q-E/v-deo.html
Panzer IV was one of the best tanks the Germans had, produced and upgraded throughout the war, reliable, fast, loved by it’s crew and relatively cheap to make🇬🇧🤘
Some Spanish tankers said, it was the best tank of the war. And it was used even 20 years later.
wwiiafterwwii.wordpress.com/2016/09/04/panzers-in-the-golan-heights/
Mark IV doesn't belong here it was a good balanced tank.
and it was supposed to be replaced with panzer V in the official table of organisation for a panzer division, by the end of 1943...
in 44 it was only there because they were easy and faster to make.
@@quadg5296 The manufacturing effort for a Pz V was only 30% higher than for a Pz IV. In contrast, the manufacturing effort for a Tiger I was 3 times as high as for a Pz IV.
@@herosstratos heavy tanks were not part of the table of organisation of a panzer division.
they were separate heavy panzer battalion at panzer corps level.
in 1944 the panzer regiment of a panzer division was supposed to be 2 battalions of panzer V. but at most they only ever had 1 battalion of panzer V.
the 2nd was panzer IV.
Panzer IV was still effective at the end of the war. Not state of the art, but effective.
Japanese tanks were at the limit of what their infrastructure could handle anyway.
I would have gone with the Ferdinand. While the Panzer IV was just outclassed as were the Ha-Go and M14/41 the Ferdinand was just terrible all around it combines all the issues he mentioned with the King Tiger's complexity and lack of logistical support plus being a geuninely terrible design to start with.
@@emberfist8347 Well, technically it wasn't a tank, it was a TD.
@@emberfist8347 Ferdinand is a good choice but I think that would be considered a Tank Destroyer.
The later variants of the Churchill would be good choices too since, once the Allies broke out of Normandy, it was too slow and heavy to meet demands.
@@paulfrantizek102 Some of the other presenters were flexible about what qualifies as a tank. The Chieftan actually put a reconnaisince vehicles at number of his best tanks list admitted it wasn't a tank but he still included because of how important their role is.
Well I'll repeat a report given from a person who crewed a t34 in some 20th century civil war: It may be almost a century out dated, but a tanks a tank.
"I'm Al Murray!"
This guy kind of lost me when he called the Churchill a medium tank.
He was about to say mediocre but changed his mind.
It's a bit of an offshoot due to how the Brit's classified tanks during WWII. Unlike just about every other nation, which classified their tanks based on armor thickness and overall weight, the Brits had only two designations for their frontline tanks: "Infantry Tank" and "Cruiser Tank". True "Medium tanks" like the M4 Sherman, could fall either way, as the lighter, more mobile Cruisers would use Light and some Mediums in US service and the Infantry tanks would be other Medium and Heavy tanks. The Valentine series, which would be considered akin to other nation's Mediums, was classified as "Infantry Tank". However, the Cromwell, which would likewise be on par with other Mediums, was considered a "Cruiser". Also worth noting that the reputation of the Churchill's armor mostly comes from the later models. The earlier ones, especially the mark I, while tough, wasn't all too impressive.
He's a brit what did u expect?
@@PhoenixOfArcadia Rubbish. The British categorized their tanks by boiling capacity of the hot water vessel for making tea, If you had a 1 gallon boiling vessel - light tank. 2 gallons - medium (that's the Churchill tank as it was narrow), and 3 gallon is the British heavy tank. TEA !!
@@the51project Yep - Infantry tanks had a BV that could serve a whole section of Infantry
JH has written some good books but he seriously contradicts himself here. He rightly points out that the King Tiger was too heavy,too complicated and too unreliable but criticizes the Panzer 4 for not being sophisticated enough.The long 75mm on the later Panzer 4 could comfortably take out any Allied tank bar the JS2,and it was reasonably mobile and reliable.It wasn't heavily armoured but most Allied tanks weren't either.
Hello??? How can you criticize him when you didn't even listen to him? Apparently you only care for fine detail, so you missed the part where he explicitly explained his criteria...and how there is a different criteria for each choice... Maybe re-watch and re-consider?
I'm with you. I agree with almost all of the choices. However, I have to say, though I'm an American, I would put the M3 medium Lee/Grant tank in the 5th position instead of a Panzer IV. Can anybody really say, in any year of the war, I'd rather have an M3 medium as opposed to a Panzer 4? I just can't imagine that. The Lee/Grant's were mechanically very good tanks, but that doesn't make up for their shortcomings in comparison to a Panzer 4.
@@fredygump5578 I don't think your criticism makes any sense. Even under his own criteria this is a bad choice.
@@MattCellaneous Criticizing someone's considered opinion is silly. Doubling down on your criticism of his opinion....well, it tells me a lot about you.
@@fredygump5578 what? You do realize you're in the comment section of UA-cam right? That's literally the whole point. And it doesn't stand up to his own criteria. By his own admission it was a good tank in 1940 and 41 and 42, but it somehow gets on the list because the Germans were still using it in 44 and 45? So it wasn't the worst tank in world war II in 41 but it was the worst tank of world war II in 44? See, it's silly.
never thought i'd defend a matilda 1 but 60mm of frontal armour in 1940 was very good
but armed with one machine gun, it would come through but what to do then? just swearing on the germans??
The Panzer IV has a lower siloute than the Sherman and can still penetrate them so I would not say they are worse, same with the T34 and Cromwell(actually I would have put the Cromwell on the list considering it is a late war tank that is riveted, even boxier than the Panzer IV and has a worse gun than the Panzer IV too).
if you want to penetrate a tank, you first have to get into the neighbourhood, and that was the other point, reliability.. the IV was simply at the end of it's life after many upgrades.
@@wilco300674 the pz4 was a very reliable tank, it's a 1930s design which remained relevant till 1945 and could go toe to toe with every medium tank late war. I don't know where you get the reliability issue from
I find it amusing that he assumes the Cromwell was good.
@@wilco300674 Note, Rommel didn't have problems keeping his Panzer IVs running in the same deserts that saw entire fleets of British cruiser tanks choking themselves to death on sand because the British designers put air-intakes right where the tracks could throw clouds of dust into them. No, the problem was not bad designs, as all German tanks, when properly-maintained, crewed by properly-trained crews, and used as intended, ran very reliably. What ruined the Panzers was that they were not able to get the maintenance all tanks of the time needed because Germany was fighting too big a war with too few tanks and trained personnel. No tank runs well for long without the necessary lubrication, cleaning, and replacement of worn parts, and Germany had acute shortages of all those things by 1944. Add in crews that sometimes had as little as a week in the seat before heading to action, you had a lot of wear and tear happening as drivers didn't cleanly-shift gears or commanders didn't remember to check all the oil.
Really, the wonder is that Panzer IVs ran so well in 1944, not that they ran so poorly. If the US Army in 1944 had run its Shermans like the Germans ran their Panzer IVs, I don't think the M4 Sherman would be heralded as being as reliable as it is.
@@genericpersonx333 - No, the Germans where amazed at the reliability of Sherman. They would always send by trains all their tanks to the front. They practically say most of their tanks can travel at max 200 miles before doing maintainance. While the Sherman can get off the boat after traveling the Atlantic. Start from Normandy and drive straight to Berlin without problems.
When Germans sent Panzer III & IV to the Chinese, when it got there all it's electrical wiring and magneto were corroded due to the salt heavy sea air. The Americans made serious study of effect regarding electronic and salt on rubber. When Shermans crosses the Pacific and Atlantic they ready for it. The Sherman can wade into water logged swamps in Pacific islands during rainstorm. Rolled into the freezing Tundra of the Russia. And cross the the deserts from Libya to Tunisia before jumping into Italy. No other WW2 tank did that.
You lost me at the Panzer IV. Seriously it was the most reasonable tank the Germans produced at the time.
just at it's end of it's upgrade life.. that was the point he made.
just not as good as the Allied tanks in 1944.....
@@wilco300674 how that works out? Even stug III based on the panzer III knocked out the most modern soviet tanks namely the IS-2
@@bobsjepanzerkampfwagen4150 we are starting to get oftopic now, the stug is not a pzIV anymore. besides that, you are counting one sided. how many sugs are killed by any sovjet or US tank ?
@@wilco300674 based on older model uses same deadly gun as panzer IV thats the point, how many where losses? I can’t say that i do know i only know the stugs knocked out more material then they lost
If it is not as fast as Cromwell, as well armored as Churchill and didnt have such potent gun T-34/85 and Sherman had...
This means it was well balanced in Firepower, Mobility, Protection - isnt the balance that makes a tank any good?
It wasn't just enough for 1944
on the one side, there's the idea of being all-purpose. on the other, there's an expression: "jack of all trades, master of none."\
or as a friend of mine said about Volvos: "Volvos run forever, just not very well."
or to spell it out: well balanced doesn't do much if its best isn't better than other people's worst.
I disagree with James Holland on PIV as well. T34/76, that was used troughout the war (t34/85 started showing up in any numbers only in 1944) was a worse tank. T34/76 gun had less penetration and was less accurate, while interior was more cramped, reducing crew performance. 45mm of sloped frontal armor is comparable to PIV 80mm non sloped and due to radio shortage, many of t34/76 lacked radios. T34/76 had a 2 man turret, so commander had to both command the tank, and operate the gun, reducing the overall tank performance. The only area that t34/76 beats the PIV is mobility.
Also, comparing PIV with Churchill tank isn't fair, as the Churchill was a slow, heavy infantry tank, while PIV was a medium tank.
@@kenbrown2808 ..and some minutes later the Tiger 2 is "bad" because it was too slow... more balance would have been better.. or what? ^^
@@0321991 what tank has still been in use 50 years after WWII ? Both the M4 and the T34.. must be some reason to that.. even tho i have to agree the T34 is very cramped.
"5 kilometers per litre" for the Tiger 2 sounds pretty good in my book...
:-) Half a gallon per mile isn't 5 km/l though. More like 0.7 to 0.9 km/l depending on which gallon you're using.
In practice I doubt the Tiger 2 came close to this economy, even on a good road. My guess would be upwards of 2 gallons per mile.
I suspect he mean't the other way around, 5l per km.
I drove a f550 that got 1km per 100litres gotta love that v10!
@@Deipnosophist_the_Gastronomer Goes to show the guy presenting the video is not at all good with numbers or just facts before the very end of a tank's service life. He claims 60mm frontal armor is bad in a 1938 tank, that the Churchill was a medium tank.
@@lavrentivs9891 Yeah, that math would still be wrong though. The King tiger did between 6.8 and 10 litres per mile depending on roads/terrain which is two to three gallons per mile.
But from everything else he said I wouldn't put much faith in the guy.
Putting the Pz IV on a worst tank list? That's not "a bit harsh" - it's bloody delusional. Yes, there were better tanks out there in 1944, but pretty much all of them had been explicitly designed to one up the Pz IV and the upgunned Pz IV was still competitive against ALL of them.
Also, lots of that disquieting experience of watching a published author and "expert" make a minor statement that you know for a fact is flat out wrong. I don't disagree with the thrust of most of what he says and I get that the format means there isn't a lot of opportunity to explore nuance, but all the times you think "hang on, that's not right at all" really undermines your confidence in his analysis.
He also lists the Churchill as a medium tank... I think he’s had a few before recording this.
In defence of the Matilda Mk1, the upgrading of the Pz IV's armament began with their guns being ineffective against the Matilda's armour in 1940. This was part of the armament vs armour contest which still goes on.
In another vid he describes the Tiger 1 as having an 80mm gun. =.=
You wouldn’t be wrong by filling a whole list with just Japanese tanks
Eh, I think Japanese tanks get a bad reputation purely because they forget the Japanese are fighting a war on a series of tropical islands. They didn't have the industrial capacity or the logistical capabilities to create larger tanks.
lol
When you compare them against a sherman or something yes, but if you compare them to poorly equipped chinese infantry then it's a different story.
@@heckinboyo1656 but they had the industrial and economic power to make a navy on par with the United States
I'd watch it.
Not sure why you chose the panzer IV. The panzer III was still kicking around in '44. The early T-34s left alot to be desired too. It took the Soviets awhile to figure out how to make good steel plate.
The Panzer IV was still kicking around in 1967. Ridiculous to include it.
All T34's had a two man turret until mid 1944.
@@arlingtonhynes Agreed. I have to wonder where they were getting the ammo for them?
The point he is saying is the tank is not good in 1944-1945, end of war. A 1930’s design still in service because they need tanks, yet the allies have tanks or developing tanks to kill the bigger, more heavily armed, more heavily armored tanks that was replacing you. You got the Persing, T-34/85, IS-2, comet, and don’t forget the first mbt centurion. The tank got long in the tooth at the end of the war and why they were using the hull for assault guns. You should look at his top five tanks, it’s number four in that list.
@@arlingtonhynes You mean it was getting kicked.
It really says something about you when you use it's time in service when the M4 and T-34 ( it's direct competition) are still being used 50 years later.
Lost it when he put Panzer IV in his list.
5km/liter for a Tiger II?!?!!!! That would be absolutely fantastic for any tank of any time period. I think he mixed the numbers up with his everyday car or something. 5 liters/km is more like it. :-)
5km/liter should work out well for a V8 powered car with 300-400hp.
Thats means it consumes 20 liters of fuel for 100km.
Modern diesel buses use around 30 liter of fuel for 100 kms or 3.3l/km.
It´s always funny when people complain about fuel consumption of the tigers but never mentioned the 96 KM range of th superb Centurion (:-)
@@michaelpielorz9283 yeah the double standards are insane...ppl like Holland will use completely different standards for "flaws" and "success" when talking German tanks and rarely criticize as much (if at all) British or american tanks had the same/bigger issues...Chieftain isnt much better.
The whole fuel consumption argument is complete BS, almost all tanks had an average 200 kilometer road range during ww2, i think only T-34s had something like 300.
And when we take a quick look at the actual numbers the idea of German tanks somehow magically consuming insane amount of fuel compared to allied tanks evaporates completely
Panther
Fuel capacity 730 litres (160 imp gal; 190 US gal)
Operational
range
Road: 260 km (160 mi)
Cross-country: 100 km (62 mi)
Sherman
Fuel capacity 138-175 US gal (520-660 L; 115-146 imp gal) depending upon variant
Operational
range
Road:
100-150 mi (160-240 km) depending upon variant[3]
Cross-country:
60-100 mi (97-161 km) depending upon variant[3]
Panzer 4
Fuel capacity 470-670 L (120-180 US gal)
Operational
range
Road:
235-320 km (146-199 mi)
Cross-country:
120-210 km (75-130 mi)
I assume the bigger range is the last J variant.
So for a whopping 150 liters of extra fuel you dont run a Sherman but a Panther , and you cant even run two panzer 4s
So yeah all those Sherman fanboys really have to stop repeatign the same old commonly accepted mantras and look up the actual facts, because how things are going in 2025 they will claim Shermans could fly and run on air and water...
he was supposed to say 1/2 mile per gallon or 5 litres per km... can't even memorize the stats of such an iconic tank considering the guy's supposed to be a tank expert...what a joke.
Panzer 4; mildly underpowered, but suited to the German needs in 43-45: BAD
Tiger II: overpowered, but unsuited to the German needs in 43-45: Also BAD
Consistency: BAD
It's not consistent. They both had their issues in different ways.
The Panzer IV was well past it's prime, especially in 44 and 45, and barely suited the German's needs. The only way it did was being A TANK that they were able to build and service by that point in the war. It required up-gunning and especially up-armoring to keep pace with the Allies' designs by that point in the war. In contrast, something like the Sherman didn't, and even by 1945 there were still Shermans in use by the US that would be identical to other Shermans from when they first rolled into combat.
The Tiger II on the other hand, it's issues came down to it being over engineered, and was rolling out at a point when the Wehrmacht couldn't hand the logistics a Tiger II would require. It consumed fuel rapidly, which was becoming rare. It used up massive quantities of metal, which was becoming harder for the Germans to source and refine. It's gun was far more powerful than it needed to be, and required a separate ammunition line to produce. It was a new pattern of tank, which required you having to train your crews differently, either by retraining any surviving crews from other models, if there were any, or by training brand new crews, which takes time to get right. And then there's the unreliability of really all the later war heavy tanks, as well as the Panther, due to their complexity and weight.
Speaking of weight, you then need equipment that can lift and move the weight of some parts of a Tiger II, which is a large problem as to why when one broke down it was out of the fight for quite some time.
That's also ignoring the fact that the Germans really had no use for those massive behemoths of tanks like the Tiger II. By the time it rolled into combat, the war had seriously gotten out of hand for the Germans. The way the war had gone meant that tanks like the Tiger II would not be causing any breakthroughs for the rest of the Wehrmacht to exploit, and the limited numbers also ensured it.
The Germans needed something smaller, more reliable, and less expensive than the Tiger II by 44, but also something more up to date than the Panzer IV.
@@PhoenixOfArcadia he had a bad list simple as yhat
@@PhoenixOfArcadia you talk too much bull...
There was a Jagdpanther and Nashorn, and Elephant who used same ammunition - with idea that you kill any treat at long range. For that 88mmL71 was perfect.
King Tiger was replacement of Tiger I. Over Engineered? It was simpler to produce than Tiger I, more survivable and better tank killer. Its suspension was simplified from overlapping to interleaved and upgraded with new roadwheells and yet it was better ride than Allied tanks who were half of its weight. Only problem was that pen pushers decided to use same engine as Panther. Still KT was faster than Churchill.
Germans created it, they knew better what they needed at the moment. You on other hand didn't and still don't.
@@AKUJIVALDOActually, the pen pushers knew full well that they needed a more powerful engine for the Tiger II, but didn't have a suitable engine ready yet and couldn't afford to wait. The desired engine would have been the Maybach HL 245 which was an evolution of the HL 230 with fuel injection that was supposed to be good for about 900 hp.
Duh!! You mean like the Tiger I and the Panther???
"gets upgunned as well, this one has a 75mm"
yes, as opposed to the early 75mm, or the first long 75mm, this one has indeed the L48 75mm...
Only 1 model of pz4 didn't have a 75 and i think that was only a prototype (long 50mm). He should really say "with a 75mm l40 compared to the original l24 which was actually a howitzer rather than a tank killing weapon2
The gun on this model is a KWK L/43 75MM.
There was also a KWK L/48 available.
A L/46 didn't exist
@@martijnlangermans5644 thx I miss remembered. I thought it was l42 abd l46 for some reason
@@Cheezymuffin. no problem that's why we're here to help each other
If there will be ever a list of the worst bottom tank lists makers this guy should be definitely on it.
Yes him and lindybeige would be fighting for the top spot.
@@baastex dont you speak about lindy that way
@@joshjwillway1545 Why? Lindy does not understand the difference between the facts and his strong belief of British superiority
@@baastex Lindy isn't a historian so I wouldn't hold him to the same standards. Holland however, very unimpressed.
@@dreamcrusher112 He sells himself as a historian so he placed himself on that standard and untill the Spandau video I thought he knew what he was talking about. Well that changed.
I very much respect the fact that you took the context of history into account when making this list. Also, your justification was so good for each tank (I admit I was reluctant to admit it for some...) that I ended up agreeing with you. Good job!
Fair play James Holland just dubbed the king tiger . An absolute Turkey 😂😂😂
Well, in the context of the war it was a White Elephant.
@@shockwave6213 well it was very complexed tank . Produced on mass as a spearhead in the Ardennes offensive . Plus the shortage of fuel . They had to use synthetic fuel which was produced from coal
. Above all the Ardennes forest was very narrow roads . The bridges couldn’t hold the weight of the tank . As a column king tigers knock the first one out and the last one out you have a stalemate and blocked the road
more tiger 2 were destroyed by their crews because of breakdowns/ running out of fuel. than were destroyed by the enemy.
On paper, it was amazing. In practice, it was one of the worst tanks Germany could have produced. It used too much metal, was too heavy for most bridges, used up too much fuel for a country that spent the entire war low on fuel, etc.
@@foxymetroid I think if we look back on some of the German Tanks in the right hands . The right crew. The knowledge in and out goings of the tank . It did show its potential. Like the tiger 1 and the panther . With the crews under Whittmann , Otto Carious , kurt knispel . There crews knew how to maintain there tanks . But again too complexed and hard to maintain
These bottom 5 videos are always hilarious. It's just as subjective as the top 5 tanks but people get infinitely more butthurt about the choices
Just been to the Tank Museum this week. If you get the opportunity, go. It is a brilliant place. Even bumped into David.
The Type 95 was built to fulfill the Japanise mission. Light infantry support not designed for tank on tank combat
Thank you
Somebody forgot to tell the Americans.
Someone forgot to tell the Japanese that they might see opposition.
@@fhlostonparaphrase the only tank opposition the Japanese saw was in 1943-44 when Sherman's were brought along. So literally late war. They've been fighting in the south Asia since 1930s and they were the guy with the best tanks. Even the British lost a lot of fights because they didn't have any kind of tanks in the area.
@@arandomfawn5289 No opposition to your post there ;)
But as with the rest of the Japanese strategy, it wouldn't hold up against another fully industrialized nation.
Khalkhin-Gol springs to mind, but TBF the Soviets had huge tank losses there vs Japanese anti-tank guns.
The PZKW IV was not a bad tank for most of WWII, only toward the end was it outclassed. I think that there are many other tanks that deserve a look in this position of your list.
"Im Al Murray"....Those 2 do like to dig at each other. Love it.
"It does not have the versetillity of a Churchill" Ah, yes a tank that drives 10 km/h is very versitile.
That's an under exaggerated speed. I think it could do over 20.
@@4realjacob637 Maybe the Churchill could reach speeds over 10 km/h but it was nevertheless a really slow tank thats why I think it is a bit rediculous to mention the churchill when it comes to versitillity.
@@prussiansausage6972 yeah, it's meant to be a heavy tank not super versatile
@@4realjacob637 Yes that is true but other heavy tanks like the Tiger I and IS-2 for example could reach speeds of over 30 km/h. So the Churchill is on the slower end of the scale when it comes to mobility.
@@prussiansausage6972 I'm not saying it was better than a tiger.
People always complain about german late war tanks being overly ambitious and complex. But what else should they have done? There's no way they could compete with the production output of the soviet union, even if they managed to build several times as many tanks. Yes, they would have lost less badly perhaps, but it still would have been a guaranteed loss. Hoping for technology somehow, miraculously giving them enough of an advantage was literally the most reasonable option by that point, aside from surrender perhaps
Not to mention the fact that soviet tanks were designed around having an infinite supply of men to replace dead crews, whereas Nazi Germany had the opposite problem. It's all really not that simple, c'mon guys
adequate anti tank weapons would have worked. from 44-45 the Stug concept was much better, plus mass production of Pak 40 etc. Save Armour for counter attacks, with an emphasis on operational mobility which the King Tiger couldnt have. Guderian knew what he was doing.
Resources would have been better allocated to producing antitank weapons at that point. A few hundred thousand more panzerfausts and antitank mines plus thousands of additional PaK 40s would have destroyed vastly more allied armor than every advanced tank combined, and done it for a significantly lower cost.
That's the catch, a country can't go 100% defensive doctrine. Even if they had the sense of cutting the mega projects like JadgTiger and Maus but instead focus on the small and cheap stuff like StuG and Hetzer, they still need one offensive weapon in their arsenal. Can't win a war if you have no means of gaining ground, and the Tiger II is their best asset for that job.
@@philipbossy4834 - Unfortunately, using Tiger 2 for an offensive weapon is also a big waste when it's logistical support are all shot up. Panther is more than enough for an offensive tank. They should have put all of their resources into the Luftwaffe. The moment they've lost air cover it's just all a slow impending death. Without air superiority any offensive attack is doomed to fail, just like the Ardennes Offensive.
PZIV may not have been as awesome in various categories as the other tanks,but it was reliable and more importantly it helped hold the line against on the Easrern Front many times.
For that alone..doing its job,its a good solid tank.
Going into this video, I believed the M14/41 to be the worst tank of WWII. Interesting points from JH, and he is just a continued pleasure to watch, hear and read. I really likes his language when explaining about WWII, and I like how he throws in extra lines to describe what he thinks. Thanks to the Tank Museum and James Holland for this video, that was nice and fun 🙂
well it was more reliable, on mechanical side, than the panzer 3 and could fire he shell, cruiser tanks doesn't. from the official report form the field (Relazione Andreani) the problems were an underpowered engine, the around was to sensitive, and there wasn't much spare parts and logistical services to support the armour divisions, such us trucks, heavy tractors and similar
Always enjoy the different lists and reasoning behind the selection. Thanks.
Churchill? Medium tank? Not sure that's correct...
The Churchill was a 40 ton tank, the Sherman would weight up to 38 tons depending on which version you are talking about.
Worst 5 contributors on the Tank Museum UA-cam channel, we have Al Murray at number 5 with James Holland at number 4..
The best one ever was that young child talking about the Chieftain
James Holland: Comparing apples and pears.
8:52 Half a gallon per mile or 5 kilometers per litre, I'll take the metric that is much better fuel economy.
I think I will start measuring my fuel consumption in metric.
He just called the churchill versatile, brave man.
Hobart seemed to agree with him
It's a British tank enough said.
Off the top of my head they used it as an engineer vehicle, a bridge carrier, ramp carrier, recovery vehicle and flamethrower carrier - and probably more that I can’t think of right now. Seems reasonably versatile to me.
@@callsigncthulhu8579 agreed. If that isn't versatile, there was never a versatile tank.
@@callsigncthulhu8579 Also a mine clearer (flail tank).
Surprised to see the Panzer IV on this list. From '39-'43 it was a beast.
'43 the T-34s were rolling off the assembly line and '44 the Easy 8 entered the scene and it was game over.
In his defense it was capable mainly due to great crew ergonomics and training while having opponents with mostly no armor at all. That short 75mm is a horrible AT gun but good anti infantry gun. I would put Covenanter in 5th place and Panzer 4 in 2nd place for that design outlived itself and was produced too long due to wartime situation.
Bear in mind he was basing the tanks off of the context in different periods of the war. A large part as to why the Pz IV edged into the list at 5th was due to it's continued use in 44 and 45. He even admits that in 39 to 42 it was a solid tank, and by 43 it still wasn't that bad, but by 44 it was behind the curve.
Not surprised. Mr Holland has a very parochial view of WWII in general.
@Geefwee Bodoe Meh, Panther and Tiger tankers died too. Just like with Luftwaffe aces, the tanker aces racked up impressive kills because of their experience, but most German tankers were new recruits and they died faster then may flies. An experienced crew in a Panzer IV will still do well. Some kids in a Tiger will still get creamed. The whole point of tank combat is not to have the best armored tanks so you can sit there and shrug off incoming rounds. Because you can't shrug off every round and at some point someone gets in a lucky shot or brings along a bigger gun. The whole point is to not get hit. Either by speed or concealment. The Germans realized this after the war and while the Brits started to build moving pillboxes like the Chieftain that only sold to rich Arab playboys, the Germans designed fast and reliable tanks, the Leopard 1 and 2 series, that sold to basically everyone.
@@PhoenixOfArcadia Right up until 1945 the Pz IV could reliably kill almost anything it ran into. Whilst the T-34/85 and M4 with 76mm were "better" tanks, none of them could resist the other's guns so any encounter between them was determined by intangibles such as crew training, positional advantage and who saw the other first.
I'll say this about the Japanese and Italian tanks, if the war had come a decade earlier they would probably have creamed their Allied counterparts. And the Panzer IV most definitely does not belong on this list. Any tank that served from 1939 to 1945 and could still be upgunned and uparmored was a good tank. Only the Sherman, Churchill and T-34 were capable of those feats. If anything the Panzer IV was the best tank the Germans produced, because it could be upgunned and uparmored. And a lot more reliable then the Panther.
I dont want to disagree with the hero of the Crimson Fists but I will say this, late war in which he classified the P4, it wasn't being uparmoured at all, it was being dearmoured if anything.
I'm not sure I agree with it being on the list and he does say hes being harsh, but at the same time, it would be a boring list if it didnt have something to get everyone talking about on it :D
@@nuttyjawa True. Nothing creates clicks and angry responses then controversial statements.
Only slightly more reliable than the Panther. On average 68-71% (EF vs WF) vs. 62-65% available rate during the last year of the war, and this could also reflect more aggressive use of the Panther vs. the more fragile PzIV. A lot of tanks were actually sidelined due to combat damage, not only mechanical breakdowns. Tiger: 65-70%. The Tiger(s) was probably used even more aggressively than the Panther.
@@TTTT-oc4eb More reliable than amazing PzIII. 5000km of milage was not a rarity. Compare it to 500km of the T-34. Or 1500km of KV-1.
That was a well-presented, informative, piece. Very much enjoyed it. Thanks for making it happen!
Bottom 5 car manufacturers: Porsche, BMW, Mercedes Benz, Toyota, Ferrari :D
If there was to be a sarcasm trophy, you have earned it.
Seems like his goalpost moves as he goes from one tank to the next. I mean, he criticizes Panzer IV for not being as good as Allied medium tanks and talks about how it was kept in service throughout the war with upgrades and it's a bad tank because of that. He complained that Ha Go was still in use after production stopped and that it was never updated and was not fit for purpose and had poor battlefield performance. When he talks about Matilda, he touches on its success during the battle for France in spite of its shortcomings and then says production was ended and the tank saw no further service, and that made it a bad tank.
He gives no criteria for what makes a good tank. He also does not represent these vehicles in context of what they were built to do. I'm no tank expert but any fool knows you don't take a sports car to pick up a load of gravel and you don't win stock car races with a bicycle. Each of these machines had a set of parameters for which they were built. Did they perform well in those parameters? How did they do outside of those parameters?
Well said , I agree 100%.
Great comment. The entire video is cringe.
Blimey it's only a light hearted vid comrade 😳
@@spm36 It's still meant to be informative and I think it fails rather badly.
The Panzer IV was on the list BECAUSE it needed those upgrades via up-armoring and up-gunning to remain even somewhat viable against Allied armor by 44 and 45. It was well past it's prime as a Medium Tank by that point in the war, and in contrast some of the Allies' tanks, such as the Sherman didn't need the same level of upgrades through the entire war. While the up-gunned 76 (W) models or up-armored like the Jumbos existed in US service, they were only alternate models. By the end of the war the 75mm gun that the Shermans first roll into combat with could still be seen. The 76mm didn't become standard until AFTER WWII, and by that point replacements were already in development.
The problem with the Ha Go is that it was still in use when newer, better tanks, should have been in production for Japan. The Ha Go's use throughout the entire war with the US would be as if the Germans kept using Panzer I and II's through the ENTIRE war as their primary tank, from Blitzkrieg to the Battle of Berlin. Sure it may have been fine in the interwar years, and against a nation that wasn't an industrial power like China, but it was woefully inadequate when Japan started to become at odds with other major powers, namely the US and Britain. Japan KNEW they would inevitably be at war with the US, hence the surprise attack at Pearl Harbor with the attempted goal at crippling the US Navy, yet they continued use of the Ha Go despite the fact it would very quickly become inadequate against armor the US would employ.
The Matilda I was a bad tank design from the get go, especially for an Interwar and WWII tank. A tank that ONLY had a single Vickers Machine Gun is a horrible idea by that point. It was acceptable during WWI with the Renault FT and the Whippet series, but that was due to the Germans effectively having no tanks of their own. By the 30's, if a nation wanted to have an effective army, it was clear it would need tanks, and likewise tanks were designed to have a way of fighting other tanks, hence the inclusion of cannons in the turrets as well as MGs. A tank with only MGs is a bad idea in general, as it's limited to engaging soft targets, IE infantry and unarmored vehicles. For an INFANTRY TANK, which would need to be capable of fighting anything that would threaten an infantry unit, having only an MG is a horrible idea as you still remain vulnerable to things like armor or entrenched positions. There is a reason why MG only tanks very quickly disappeared as nations began developing tanks of their own.
Very strange criteria and then applied quite arbitrarily.
So, in 1944, the Panzer IV was no longer competitive with the best tanks of that year, although the rather ridiculous Churchill was also counted among these best tanks, but let's attribute that to national pride.
The question should not be whether the Panzer IV was inferior to the best, but whether there were worse tanks at that time!
So the Panzer IV in its '44 version is supposed to be worse than the T-34/76, which was still being built in 1944?
... worse than the M4 with the 75-calibre gun, which was still predominant in 1944?
... and even with the Cromwell, as a non-Brit, you start to wonder (it was very mobile but inferior to the Panzer IV in practically every other aspect).
And it's strange to try to piece together criticisms from diffrent tanks.
So I put the frontal armour of the Chruchill with the (claimed) reliability of the Sherman plus the mobility of the Cormwell against the Panzer IV.
Why don't we also take the range of a Superfortress, the Panzer IV was clearly inferior there!
But what about the mobility and mechanical reliability of the Churchill?
How about the armour protection and penetration of the Cromwell's main gun?
And was the reliability of the Sherman really that great? Or was there just a lot more of it and a lot more spare parts?
he doesn't understand what a good tank is, PzIv as a prewar design ended up being still capable of dealing with most of the allied tanks by the end of the war, if that doesn't talk about good design and a capable platform then what is that? PzIv could actually be in a top-five list IMHO.
@@MrSinaAzad I suspect it's mostly about provocation and stimulating the Youttube algorythms.
In his video on the 5 best tanks, he also named the Panzer IV as one of the best. Here it was probably a means to an end to stimulate the discussion by simply claiming the complete opposite.
Really? Its supposed to be a bit of fun. If everyone had the same list it would be boring. So many experts trying to prove how much more they know when the reality is they missed the point entirely.
Very well said. Seems arbitrary to me to denigrate a design that did everything as well as or better than the Allied equivalents. Equal or better armor than Cromwell, Sherman, or T-34 (76), better gun than all three, better radio than Soviet design, equal to U.S. and British, Reliable enough to use the PZ IV chassis as the basis for a dozen other AFV (Jpzr IV, Stug IV, Flakpanzers such as Wirbelwind, Nashorn, Hummel, Sturmpanzer, et al. And the Germans used a stationary gun sight because that was their doctrine. They were on the defense, they didn't need to run and gun. Stabilized gun sights on the Sherman were notoriously unreliable, and the crews tended to abandon their use. While I agree with the rest, regarding the Pz IV, this was a totally wrong analysis.
Not to mention the different doctrines behind the designs of the tanks.
I invite everyone to find the "Top 5 Tanks" that James Holland did in 2019 and watch it. It has both the Tiger 1 and Panzer IV on it. Which makes it incredibly weird to see a Tiger 2 and a Panzer IV on the worst 5 tanks list
nah. not going to be able to waste my time on that
@Grumpy git gaming Ineffective offensive weapon? Makes no sense, since its gun is pretty much the same as the Tiger 1 just better.
Unreliable engine? It has the same engine as a Tiger 1 just bored out. There were Tiger 1s that used the same engine. In fact most Tiger 1s used the same engine...
Too heavy? So is the Tiger 1. They either both have to be deemed too heavy or both deemed not too heavy.
I think this whole super heavy tank thing don't worked really well. The Panther design was more what modern tank's look like. Mobile and hard hitting gun.
I think people are over thinking this. Both videos are promotional pieces for the museum - I wouldn’t be surprised it they asked him to include certain tanks they wanted to show off. These videos aren’t meant to be academic analysis
@@gopr3117 Well maybe they should up their standard than as it really looks like they show it as educational material
The gyro-stab on the Sherman probably shouldn't be used as a criterion, as nearly all American crews (at least) disconnected it. Reason being they didn't know how to use it properly. An exception would be some units in 2AD (IIRC) were instructed and had good success.
The idea that the crews didn't know how to use it came from the fact by the end of the war most crews were indeed not trained, but for the reason I'll give below.
I've read training documents and feedback stating the things didn't actually work a lot of the time. Their usage was restricted to minimal speeds and the only thing the Sherman's gyro actually did was to keep the sights in "roughly" the right area when the vehicle stopped. And then add to the party the fact crews had to calibrate it pretty much constantly.
Calibrating required firing at least 3 rounds and keep in mind it was standard that you would need to calibrate it roughly three times a day. You also have to recalibrate it when there was a change in temperature, you changed ammunition types, there was humidity changes and after a certain amount of shots. Iirc that number was around about 15.
The benefit wasn't exactly great even if the crews knew how to use them and at the start of the Sherman's introduction 'all' crew had been trained. You have to keep in mind it was regarded as top secret technology and when a tank was 'lost' and would be captured, crews were trained to destroy the gyro before the tank itself.
When the US Ordinance asked crews why they didn't use the Gyro they gave the reason above. It was only later in the war that the crews stopped being taught how to use it because a pretty much pointless device. The 3rd Armoured Division loved it, but they had actually been very heavily pressured by the Armoured Board to use it so they could compare the 3rd Armoured Divisions experiences with other Tank units, which by then stopped using it.
The lack of training was actually more to do with the Maintenance crews not being taught how to maintain the Gyro due to it's perceived secrecy.
The British crews, however, did know how to use it...
Different divisions had different training. Some Sherman crews in Africa reported not even knowing what the Gyro did, and when someone was provided to teach them how to use it, found the Gyro in an inoperable state because no one had been trained to maintain it.
If you were trained in a Sherman back in the US you got training on the Sherman Gyro. If you were upgraded from Lees or other tanks, you wouldn't.
The British upon learning of the Gyro, went to the Americans who had been trained and learned what the system could do, then went back and trained the rest of their crews.
The Americans didn't share the knowledge.
Although the insufficiency of the Gyro and weaknesses in the design were limiting it's effectiveness and probably did lead to many crews relying upon it less, the differences between different services and organizations within the war are interesting.
And why did the panzer 4 get a mention when we had stuff to laugh at in the USA, Japan, Australia, and some of the madness of tank destroyers by the Germans?
Heck. Complain about the firefly. Giggle at 1939 tankettes.
And not one french tank was mentioned this day.
I am sorry to tell you, that I honestly believe, that The Chieftain and Steven Zaloga would totally disagree.... about the Panzer IV choice.
Excellent presentation. Holland is a master of the English language and keeps the audience glued to the video.
The Panzer 4 is one of the best tank designs in history. Saying it's bad because late war tanks saw improvements can basically be applied to everything in the modern day, my new TV is better than a TV 10 years ago. Does that mean the old TV is terrible?? The fact that the tank was still relevant at the end of the war and could penetrate all allies tanks with the kwk 40 just shows the design to be solid, it was cheap and spacious, and well liked by the crews, the argument could be made for Germany doing better if it only produced Pz4s.
Not sure how you can compare it to a Churchill, a heavy tank with a speed of 20kmh and a pea shooter. By the logic of putting tanks on a worst list based on the time they are being used you can pretty much have most WW2 British tanks on there because they were all slow and out gunned by everything, and anything useful came too late to make any difference.
Nope, you can't have a reason and reality with British on WW2, especially not on German side. It is simply not their tea.
Always nice to put the same tank in your bottom 5 as you put in your top 5 tanks (Panzer IV)
In Terms of Tiger II i have to say that its main problem was the long development circle. The Tank was ordered at january 1943 but the first Prototype was just build only at the end of the year . There is an excellent video from the german tank museum about the history of Tiger II
Nice just finishing all ww2 in color featuring you both. More content . yay
I don't know why these videos popped up in my recommendations. I can't stop watching now
Panzer IV is worse than Cromwell? How? By having a better gun, armour, ergonomics and optics?
panzer IV has poorer cross country performance/mobility. (Due to differential steering plus 600hp Meteor engine) Thinner armour on turret than Cromwell.
@@gleggett3817 You mean the bolted armour of the cromwell is better then welded armour of the Pzkw 4? have you evere seen the effects of a shell hitting bolted/ rivited armour? it aint pretty
@@baastex Cromwell production included welded as well as rivetted vehicles.
@@gleggett3817 Thicker armour should be compared to the guns it's most likely to be shot with. From a practical point of view both the Cromwell and Panzer IV could be taken out by the most common enemy guns. The Pak 40 and KwK/StuK 40 for the Cromwell and 6 pounders and medium velocity 75mm guns for the Panzer IV - they're both "kill-or-be-killed" tanks.
@@hjorturerlend equally the Panzer VI and Cromwell have guns which fire an HE shell which is effective against AT guns.
Thank you for finally putting a Japanese tank on one of these lists! Definitely deserves its place on this list!
The Matilda 1 looks like it would lose in a fight against Matilda from Robot Wars
Harsh, but probably accurate :D
Thanks for the your evaluation. I mostly agree except for Panzer 4 when the Ausf G could hold its own a giant both the T 34 and the Sherman. A better candidate would be the Lee/Grant that was obselete by 1940.
the Matilda 1 is what happens when you say this tank must be as cheap as possible and take it to the extreme
You summed up no.3 in just one word really, Fiat 😂😂😂
6:00 I would defend the Italian navy at least, they had much less need for an aircraft carrier as Italy itself was their aircraft carrier and in terms of radar yes they were most behind, if they weren't against the Royal Navy that had widespread adoption and well trained tactics, it may have been less of an issue. Although to be fair Italy did have the most advanced rangefinding equipment and set ups on the planet, which in the right conditions made up for it. Italy were more advanced in their naval special forces which were the best in the world at the time.
And tbh late in the war (for them) they did have some really good planes, even at one point, the Germans were interested in licenced producing an Italy fighter to replace the BF 109.
agreed stopped wathcing at that point
Yeah, running down the Italians is lazy clichéd historiography. Like you say, in many respects the RM was first class and gave the RN a whole lot of trouble
The Italian Navy had a lot of problems and seriously lacked what was needed for effective combat in the Mediterranean theater, which is the only area they needed to be concerned with. What they needed was effective submarines, light cruisers with destroyers with extensive AA batteries and many light carriers for ASW and anti-surface warfare. The lack of radar and effective dual purpose AA guns, effective fighter/bombers and dedicated ASW hunter/killer surface groups was pretty stupid, as well as a program of mass production of merchant/transport ships to replace anticipated loses. Their big mistake was entering the war as a combatant, as they gained nothing and would have been better off in everyway if they followed Spain's example of sorta being neutral.
@@jager6863 I'm going to preface this because my god your list is ridiculous what you are asking, means every single navy on the planet is terrible, it show a juvinile view you are acting like it's a video game and not to do with infrastructure.
Now they did have effective submarines within two days of entering the war they had sunk a cruiser, they never suffered a shortage of light cruisers or a time when that effected their capabilities so not sure why that mattered, and why in the world would they need carriers Italy is their carrier.
In terms of fighter bombers, they did have them and not sure how much that did anything for their war effort. What is your obsession with ASW their were not many british subs in the Med as it's very hard to operate subs in the med due to it being easier to spot them. To call it stupid shows you don't even understand the war. The merchant ship thing requires them to have a strong merchant ship building base and equipment to build them, which they didn't.
Well duh of course, I mean their bigger mistake was getting Mussolini as their leader, but okay.
The only really problem with Italian naval aviation was their dependence on level bombers for maritime interdiction.
I absolutely cannot believe you included the Panzer 4 ! I am speechless.
"Pazner 4 didnt have the best parts of the cromwell (1944!) / churchill (1941) / sherman (1942 tank)...." - Wtf is this kind of bollox?????
Yep, didn't understand that one as well ...
I would have understood it, if he took the short barreled 75mm, however, the long barreled one really should not be on this list.
After all, the Panzer IV and III chassis were the workhorses of the german army.
The only way I could understand this is if he were to limit it to the first variant of Panzer IV, but there were so many Ausf.'s of the III and IV that they could have had their own futbol/soccer team with those 2 tanks alone. But saying the entirety of the Panzer IV line up is like saying the Churchill is bad because the AVRE is not a viable frontline weapon; which it isn't supposed to be (I know this and I'm just making a blatantly faux argument for the sake of the comment.) So with out a clarification as to whether or not it's the entire Panzer IV line up or if he has just 1 Ausf. in mind, this is a confusing choice.
If it's by his criteria of points in the war, then yes the Panzer IV is being out done by other machines in 1943 - 1945. But he doesn't tell us WHEN on his criteria these tanks are falling into place because the Matilda I wasn't being used in 1945; that's for sure.
How can a Panzer IV be included in worst tanks? Surely the fact that a 1930s design can still fight and defeat more modern tanks in 1945 speaks to how fundamentally good it is. Ridiculous inclusion
The same way as it's cousin T-28 armed with 85mm gun would be awful if still produced in 1944. He's not talking about legacy vehicles, he's talking about PRODUCTION of them still ongoing.
It wasn't in 1944/45 capable of defeating the new Soviet armour and the 75mm long gun was the limit of what could be fitted. In his book on the PzIV, Thomas Anderson - a German writer BTW - calls the T34-85 'a far superior tank'. In September '44 alone, 771 PzIV were lost in combat.
In November' 44, a decision was taken to soon cease PzIV production and focus on the 38t chassis, and Panther. The PzIV was by that time clinging onto adequacy. That's not to say it wasn't a great tank. It was, but it was long in the tooth from '44 onwards.
@@rrobb9853 no one declines that it was outdated in late 44. but comparing it to more modern design still doesnt seem valid. And the Cromwell? Really?
James Holland “The Lad who never let’s the guest speak” 😂
I completely agree with your #2 choice, the Tiger II. "Yes, it's incredibly terrifying if you come up against it," but the thing about the Shermans is that they turned up. Ask a Wehrmacht infantryman if they'd rather have 10 Shermans (including a couple with 76mm or 17 pounder cannons) to cover them or a single Tiger II that's too heavy to get over a bridge or waiting for non-existent parts. You can understand the Italians (and to a lesser extent, the Japanese) having crap tanks. For the Germans, with a good-sized economy and wealth of experience of armoured warfare, it was inexcusable, typifying Hitler's spiralling madness and faith in his Wunderwaffe.
As for #1, the Matilda I - it reflects British thinking at the start of the war in that it was always going to be the RAF and Royal Navy that would stop the Jerries from invading. Hence, tank development and manufacture came well down the list of priorities. At one point, the British even considered stopping all tank production and just buying Shermans, demonstrably excellent tanks. Good job they chose not - as the Churchill is my second favourite.
James has listed the panzer 4 in both his bottom 5 and top 5 tanks.
The panzer VI is the most versatile german tank ,it performes well in any role you think of!!
SPOILER ALERT :
Matilda 1 and King Tiger battling it out for first place there and who would have thought that a Matilda 1 could win a battle with a King Tiger.
its not a comparison between the tanks 1v1, the logic is if they were effective for their cost at the time of use
@@apokos8871 Wow.
Love the channel 👍👍
Wouldn't say we agreed with everything on this list but to be fair to James, his arguments stack up well.
Love these videos, we'd love to do one of these one day!
Since when was a Churchill tank a medium tank though lol
Might want to check the Panther fuel use figures because they’re out by a factor of 20-40.
I always love the documentaries he does too!
Going here tomorrow super excited!!!
Tiger II 5km from 1L of fuel is 20L/100km. That would be amazing. HGV fuel consuption. Actual was around 500L/100km on road.
I agree with most of this list of marvelous failures but Panzer IV does not belong here. Don't forget Panzer IV is one of the few interwar designs which were used through the whole war and was still a deadly opponent till the end.
Not really about ‘failures’, rather about worst tank in service compared to its contemporaries. The Lee/Grant, for example, was a dog compared to the Sherman, but for its time was quite a useful AFV.
Great piece of film!
James on the Matilda: "I mean... Just look at it!"
Well, James, a thoroughly enjoyable 'chat'. My late father fought in WWII in Shermans of several variants, finally in the 76mm gun version. He trained at Bovington and Catterick, initially in a Rolls Royce armoured car then a Matilda and others. He would have agreed with all you say about the Matilda, but in desperate times one uses anything to hand. He remembered several encounters with panzer IV tanks and their demise.
I'm a little bit reticent about criticising James and his choice of 'worst five tanks', it was a valiant attempt.
My knowledge comprises a modest library of some 4,000 books, a master's degree in history and, far more important, my late father who was in IInd Lothians and Border Horse yeomanry in North Africa and Italy.
He faced the relatively new Tiger Mk VI on the Goubellat plains in Tunisia. He modestly used to say that he was the first to notice unusually large haystacks in the fields - they were camouflaged Tigers and this prompted rapid warnings on the number 19! If he had the foresight to have listened to modern day critics, he - and others of the Lothians - wouldn't have engaged them. As it was they did and some were disabled (trickier to 'destroy').
Never remove the human attributes of bravery, determination and experience from the equation of tank versus tank.
@@derekmills1080 Thanks derek, i really enjoyed reading this...
@@F4Wildcat much appreciated. Just for your information, I bought my late father Rick Atkinson's 'An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa, 1942-1943' - an excellent book published in 2002 for which he won the Pulitzer Prize. My father was particularly impressed that he mentioned the Lothians breakthrough at Hammam-Lif. This was carried out by three tanks, one was knocked out but the remaining two desperately 'charged' (as Lt Gen Wilson* said in his 'Unusual Undertakings') and destroyed a battery of '88's. My father was in the first tank through - he always thought this a 'dubious' honour.
He wrote to Mr Atkinson and, as a result, was asked to assist in his book 'The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943-1945', published in 2007, sadly after my father passed away.
You will find both our names mentioned in the acknowledgements at the rear of the book (Frank and Derek Mills). Hope this is of extra interest. Both Mr Atkinson's books are part of his WWII trilogy and I recommend them to you.
* He later became a friend of my father.
comparing the churchill and the panzer iv? silly. the panzer iv was around from beginning to end, modified, true hardly deserves to be on a top 5 bottom list.
sounds to me a set of blinders
I mean you can still compare them. Just that one is a medium tank and the other is a heavy tank
That's Mr Holland in a nutshell
I agree with him that the Sherman is better than the Panzer IV though
@@badcornflakes6374 True but that doesn't make Holland any better.
The Sherman is a newer design than the Panzer IV, it should be a better machine.
@@badcornflakes6374 the pak 40 is better then the m3 tho
Great place to come for the Dunning Kruger effect:) So many experts here:D
That Matilda 1 looks like it wouldn't survive the morning after curry was served for dinner at the mess lol.
James really thought he had a hot take about the tiger 2 when he just regurgitated what every tank enthusiasts already knows
Tiger II is an AWESOME tank!
You're forgetting James Holland is a respected historian who helped to shape those ideas
@@leothecat9609 Wow, I didn't know James Holland was publishing papers and shaping the discourse in the 60s, that's a good trick for someone born in 1970. Those ideas are far older than James Holland is - and bluntly I don't respect him much as a historian either.
This is in my bottom 5 of bottom 5 lists.
XD
Wow I like this guy's pure honesty an outstanding individual indeed.
I used to live in Bovingdon, Hertfordshire. The number of times I had to tell visitors that the Tank Museum is 130 miles to the South West in Dorset...
The armour upgrades of the Panzer IV made it a viable tank for the duration of the war. Any allied tank with no better than the 75mm would have struggled to penetrate the frontal armour of a late model Panzer IV while it wouldn't have had much issue with taking out any allied medium tank
How many allied medium tanks had less than 75mm armament in 1944/45?
@@rrobb9853 literally none lmao
@@rrobb9853 With no better. Not, with less than. The M3 75 mm/40 and ROQF 75 mm were the most commonly used guns on Western Allied tanks like the Cromwell, Churchill and most M4's.
looking forward to the upcoming jingles episode now
He's already done one.
@@Musketeer009 he's done another, bottom 5 this time
@@viking1236 Has he? I'm looking forwards to that then.
Mentioned in this week's Mingles or drowning simulator vid, forget which
You just know the TOG is gonna make both lists....
I just wanted to say. Having Al Murry read James' audio books was a fantastic choice. Love ya James.
I love when it comes to Ha-Go this sentence "AP shells fly straight trough them not doing much damage" this tank was so cramped that shell must fly trough crewmebers in fighting compartment or engine
We need a mark felton bottom five tanks
This is a interesting list. The PZ IV did go through evolutions got longer barrel gun, added plates, tank skirts. The chassis was a base to many other variants. I’d say that the panzer 2 was a worst early tank being it’s strength was it’s speed and use but it wasn’t the best at that time. I’d love to discuss this
I’d Argue putting the KV tank in this list
Why the KV tank?
@@miguel.sa_ plagued with mechanical failures. KV2 couldn’t traverse on sloped ground. Very weak transmission
An old WW2 tank commander told me about how many Tiger 2s were blown up because it would break down or ran out of fuel. It was unbelievable. He said he counted at least 30 during the war.
James! You forgot the scary dragon's eye on the Mathilda turret. THAT must have done some good!
"60mm of armour isn't going to do you much". Well, it did. It was basically impervious to the main anti-tank weapon the Germans had at the time.
Yep, one of the main factual mistakes he made. 30mm was typical for frontline German tanks in mid-1940.
@@sirrathersplendid4825 He was referring to the Mathilda I, which had 60mm armour. It made it pretty much impervious to German Pak 36's, which was actually quite impressive. It 'did you a lot'. The tank was awful in just about every other way, though.
@@wbertie2604 - Perhaps I should have added the words “by comparison”. The typical German tank of 1940 had 30mm of armour so just half that of the Matilda I.
@@sirrathersplendid4825 Many had less. The equivalent two man, MG-armed tank was the Pz I!
@@wbertie2604 - Sure, but 30-40mm was regarded by the Germans as adequate for combat grade tanks such as the Pz II, III and IV. Many of the early models (Ausfuhrunge) which had barely 15mm were uparmoured to 30mm before the France 1940 campaign.
In the first 90 seconds he gets it wrong. The Matilda II saw service from the start to the end of WW2.
Correct, the Pz IV's unique claim to fame was that it was the only tank that was in PRODUCTION from the beginning to the end of the war.
The Matilda II did continue to see service in the Far East until the end of the war but was not in widespread service by then and was out of service in the West by, what, the end of 1942? So perhaps there is an argument to suggest that the Panzer IV was the only tank to stay in widespread service until the end of the war.
@@graemes813 When you have to start qualifying like that, you don't have an argument. The Matilda II was in service from start to finish. otherwise you just pick a number (say 40,000 T-34s and compare it to the 8000 Pz IVs produced and say "the Pz IV was not in widespread service").
@@politenessman3901 perhaps but on that basis then there were some other tanks that were in service from the beginning of the war to its end including: Panzer II and Panzer III (numbers were used to garrison Norway, for instance, and a few popped up against the Allies until the end of the war). Same goes for some Japanese tanks. As someone noted earlier, perhaps it would be more accurate to state that the Panzer IV was the only tank produced throughout the war.
@@graemes813 It may well be more accurate, but then we are arguing about a point he didn't make.
7:53 i thought that about the Pz 4 but the King Tiger is absolutely understandable to be on this list
“If you don’t, then I’m Al Murray”. 😂😂