James Holland | Bottom 5 Tanks | The Tank Museum 

The best tank of World War 2 was the Maus, no battle causalities and half of them still exist!

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?

I have to admit, the Matilda looks like something a reasonably competent hobbyist welder could make in his garage

I feel we’re starting to jump the shark a bit when even the good old panzer 4 starts making worst lists.

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

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🇬🇧🤘

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

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.

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.

You lost me at the Panzer IV. Seriously it was the most reasonable tank the Germans produced at the time.

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).

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.

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?

"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...

never thought i'd defend a matilda 1 but 60mm of frontal armour in 1940 was very good

"5 kilometers per litre" for the Tiger 2 sounds pretty good in my book...

This guy kind of lost me when he called the Churchill a medium tank.

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.

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. :-)

Lost it when he put Panzer IV in his list.

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.

"I'm Al Murray!"

Just been to the Tank Museum this week. If you get the opportunity, go. It is a brilliant place. Even bumped into David.

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.

You wouldn’t be wrong by filling a whole list with just Japanese tanks

The Type 95 was built to fulfill the Japanise mission. Light infantry support not designed for tank on tank combat

If there will be ever a list of the worst bottom tank lists makers this guy should be definitely on it.

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

He just called the churchill versatile, brave man.

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

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.

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.

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.

Fair play James Holland just dubbed the king tiger . An absolute Turkey 😂😂😂

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.

"It does not have the versetillity of a Churchill" Ah, yes a tank that drives 10 km/h is very versitile.

"Pazner 4 didnt have the best parts of the cromwell (1944!) / churchill (1941) / sherman (1942 tank)...." - Wtf is this kind of bollox?????

"Im Al Murray"....Those 2 do like to dig at each other. Love it.

James Holland: Comparing apples and pears.

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.

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.

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!

Panzer IV is worse than Cromwell? How? By having a better gun, armour, ergonomics and optics?

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

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

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 🙂

Tiger II 5km from 1L of fuel is 20L/100km. That would be amazing. HGV fuel consuption. Actual was around 500L/100km on road.

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

Churchill? Medium tank? Not sure that's correct...

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?

Always nice to put the same tank in your bottom 5 as you put in your top 5 tanks (Panzer IV)

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?

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

I am sorry to tell you, that I honestly believe, that The Chieftain and Steven Zaloga would totally disagree.... about the Panzer IV choice.

Bottom 5 car manufacturers: Porsche, BMW, Mercedes Benz, Toyota, Ferrari :D

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.

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.

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.

Always enjoy the different lists and reasoning behind the selection. Thanks.

The Matilda 1 looks like it would lose in a fight against Matilda from Robot Wars

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.

the panzer iv reason alone has just discredited this bloke, the panzer iv platform was the backbone of germany and it served with distinction

I don't know why these videos popped up in my recommendations. I can't stop watching now

I absolutely cannot believe you included the Panzer 4 ! I am speechless.

This is in my bottom 5 of bottom 5 lists.

Might want to check the Panther fuel use figures because they’re out by a factor of 20-40.

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

James has listed the panzer 4 in both his bottom 5 and top 5 tanks.

The Panzer IV was last used in combat in 1967. It was not a bad tank, it was great tank.

My best tank in WW2 1. Tiger 1 2. Panther 3. Sherman firefly 4. T34 5. Panzer IV 6. Stug III 7. Jadgpanther

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.

We need a mark felton bottom five tanks

Thank you for finally putting a Japanese tank on one of these lists! Definitely deserves its place on this list!

That was a well-presented, informative, piece. Very much enjoyed it. Thanks for making it happen!

@ 2:03 Not sure about the logic... Comparing one tank against many others, all of which had different roles imagined in their design. Churchill was an "Infantry tank", and yes it was armoured, but also had many flaws. I would argue a Churchill was not high in "versatility" stakes. Yeah, Cromwell was fast (but not in reverse) but also had issues. Sherman wasn't really that reliable, it's "modular" build just made it easier to repair. It was very tall, and had crap armour, and as it tried to be a "one size fits all" often showed glaring inadequacies in any one role. It's strength was (like the T34) was in it's numbers. Compare the tanks against one another as a whole, not take the best part of one tank, the best bit of another and then say "see, this one's not as good as all of them combined, so it's a bad tank" The PZIV must have done a few things fairly well, otherwise it wouldn't have been in production for the entire conflict. Was it the best? NO, Was it adequate at many roles ? YES.

Worst 5 contributors on the Tank Museum RU-vid 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

Didn't the Matilda II serve with the Aussies in the Pacific ? So it was in combat at the begining of the war and there at the end...but it wasn't under production.

You summed up no.3 in just one word really, Fiat 😂😂😂

the Matilda 1 is what happens when you say this tank must be as cheap as possible and take it to the extreme

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.

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

"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.

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...

Nice just finishing all ww2 in color featuring you both. More content . yay

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

No objections to any of those points and though I'd agree with the caveat that the placement of the PzKpfW.IV is probably a bit harsh (I'd reckon there's plenty worse tanks to choose from, though I'm not tank afficionado enough to name examples). I do however wonder where the comparision with the Churchill came from. If you're comparing medium tanks, I would've expected the Sherman, T-34 and Cromwell ... the fact you tossed the Churchill in there really throws me for a loop as it's concpetionally and practically an entirely different class. Resulting thereof, when you talked how the Panzer IV doesn't have as much armour as the Churchill tank I just had to scoff because none of the other mentioned tanks could boast to compare to the Churchill. Just a very odd comparision to make, but maybe that's just a Brit thing. Also, I'm honestly surprised to not see the Tiger I in that list though I assume the Tiger II took that spot by being essentially the same thing except even more wasteful and less actual combat history.

The correct compatator to the Matilda I is two guys trying to lug a Vickers and a radio. Because at the time it was funded the alternative option was no tank.

To be fair, he does bring up a good point about the add-ons on the Panzer 4. While it may have started the war as a nippy, but rather large and, what we would consider by late war standards, a poorly armoured infantry support tank. The constant up-armouring, up-gunning, eventual simplification and steadily worsening late-war armour quality meant that while the tank did evolve to meet the requirements of a stalwart, high production general purpose tank, which was quite capable in combat throughout the war, by the time it reached its pinnacle in the "H" model, it was quite a bit heavier than it was when it first rolled out of the factory. Sure, it had an updated transmission and powertrain among many other quality of life improvements, but it sacrificed a considerable amount of mobility, range and reliability at the trade-off of firepower and armour. Consider the 76mm Sherman, T-34/57 and the eventual T-34/85. Those tanks retained essentially an equivalent amount of effective armour as the Panzer 4, and in some cases better. Also, as good as, if not better firepower and certainly much better mobility. In the case of the Sherman, crew survivability too. While I'm not completely agreeing with Mr. Holland on the Panzer 4 being one of the worst tanks ever, it is most certainly overshadowed by the sheer advancements made to both the T-34 and Sherman throughout the war. Pound for pound, it is nowhere near as versatile, nor reliable, nor as well designed (in terms of upgradability). Look at the Jumbo for example. It remained nearly as reliable as a standard Sherman, but try and up-armour the Panzer 4 to the same degree, it wouldn't have worked. Just as the British are criticized for their tanks being little more than armoured boxes on tracks, the Panzer 4's overall layout is essentially the same. I'm really sorry, but no matter how much you love German tanks, no matter how cool they are, you absolutely cannot let your biases get in the way of comparing one nation's most common tank to another's, and I think that's exactly what Mr. Holland is doing, comparing what became of the Panzer 4 to what the allies eventually fielded. The fact is that the Panzer 4 could never catch up, no matter how many upgrades were thrown at it. It would have taken a complete redesign to match up with what the allies would eventually make of the T-34 and Sherman. Again, the Panzer 4 was still very comparable in combat, but that doesn't mean that it wasn't eventually the worst of the three or four most common high production tanks by the end of the war. To touch on his Churchill comment, it is a bit of a stretch, certainly to compare a heavy infantry/breakthrough tank to a general purpose medium. Still, applique to the front of a Panzer 4 further increased its burden, and the Panzer 4s drivetrain was already being stretched to its limits in the "H" model. Meanwhile, your Sherman was already very close to a Tiger's frontal effectiveness, add in the Jumbo essentially surpassing even the Churchill in effectiveness while remaining reliable, and you can begin to see why the Panzer 4 starts falling behind. Even the T-34/85 ended up with 90mm of rounded frontal turret armour. The Panzer 4 was a fantastic tank, but ultimately it was completely overburdened by upgrades and field measures. Remember, just because someone has a differing opinion, doesn't necessarily mean they're wrong, and I don't think Mr. Holland had anywhere near the time to fully explain the context of why he thinks so poorly of the Panzer 4. If you're biting his head off over it, you are, in my opinion, the one in the wrong. We're all free to form our own opinions with the information we've learned, right or wrong, don't forget that. Feel free to disagree all you want, but at the end of the day, it doesn't change the fact that you're quite literally watching a video on someone else's opinions, it's not fact. There's not a tank bible that quite literally ranks every single tank from worst to best. These videos are to get you debating, questioning and considering. I'm sure there are those who are going to rip my head off for daring to side with Mr. Holland, even the little bit that I may have, or for pointing out the shortcomings of the Panzer 4, or even my point of view. Go for it, that's why there's a comment section.

The Tiger II 5km per liter? Not bad for a 60 ton monstertank compaired to an seventees American sedan of about 2 ton and consuming the same amount per km. More correctly would be 0,5km per liter.

looking forward to the upcoming jingles episode now

I totally agree with you picking the Tiger B as a worst tank and for the reasons you give. A little extra is that in 1944, the Americans started to use white phosphorus rounds to do two things. One was to mark the position of the Tiger B for Air Force and artillery. The second was that if a white phosphorus round hit a Tiger, the crew would immediately abandon the tank to keep from dying an extra terrible death. A little Chaffee was credited with destroying a Tiger B with white phosphorus. The Tiger B that is in the museum at Fort Benning was abandoned after a white phosphorus round landed near by. And when it was recovered, the thing would only move in reverse!

James on the Matilda: "I mean... Just look at it!"

In the first 90 seconds he gets it wrong. The Matilda II saw service from the start to the end of WW2.

Since when was a Churchill tank a medium tank though lol

James! You forgot the scary dragon's eye on the Mathilda turret. THAT must have done some good!

Wow I like this guy's pure honesty an outstanding individual indeed.

Matilda I looks badass, for a Mad Max-style vehicle.

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.

Excellent presentation. Holland is a master of the English language and keeps the audience glued to the video.

If you check, you'll see that Holland includes the Tiger and the Pzkpfw IV in his 'best' list as well. Context is all.