From the Western Front of the Great War to the fields of Ukraine, tanks have been a force worthy of fear and admiration.
While its design and firepower have changed in more than a century of its existence, its role of exposing gaps on the battlefield and projecting military might on parades has never changed.
Over the course of the decades, the world's military forces have built their war machines that would do just that, such as the US M1A1 Abrams, the British Challenger, the German Leopard, and the Israeli Merkava.
However, not all tanks built over the course of history were good as some tanks were less equal than others.
With the advancement of technology and the introduction of computer-based design, many tanks fell over the wayside for their inferiority when it comes to firepower, engine performance, armor, and the quality of training their crews have.
With that said, here are 10 of the worst tanks ever built, in no particular order, according to Slash Gear automotive contributor Justin Owen.
T-35 (Soviet Union)
The T-35 was a Soviet multi-turreted heavy tank developed during the lull between the two World Wars. When the Soviet Union developed the T-18 from the World War I-era Renault FT, itself a revolutionary tank design, they decided to get themselves a heavier and more capable tank to defeat enemy armor in the battlefield.
When the T-35 went out of the assembly line, it over-promised but under-delivered.
Weighing in at 54 tons, powered by a 580-horsepower (hp) aero engine, and armed with a large 76mm gun turret and four 45mm guns on smaller turrets, the tank was intimidating but slow, and it needed a crew of 12 to mand and load all of the guns, plus the driver and commander. The tank was also too distinct for its adversaries, making them easy targets for nimbler armored vehicles. However, most of the T-35s were lost not by enemy action but by mechanical failures.
Despite this, the Soviets realized they could achieve more with a tank that has a single reliable gun and a more reliable and fast engine like the T-34, which saw the end of World War II and even saw action in the early years of the Cold War.
Disston Tractor Tank (US)
The 6-ton Tractor Tank was an affordable light tank solution for the United States created by William D. Disston, whose name was eventually christened into the design, at the behest of the now-well-known Caterpillar Tractor Company.
The Disston was supposed to be an armored vehicle based on the chassis of a Caterpillar tractor, but the armor was only paper-thin compared to other light tanks of the time. It was built to be crewed by three men and it had a 37mm gun in a turret and a .30 caliber machine gun in the hull. Additional gun ports were also cut out in the armor.
A 4-cylinder diesel, 47hp engine powered the Disston, producing a speed of a mere 6.5 miles per hour (10.5 kilometers per hour). The dismal engine performance was not suitable for a light tank of a rising power, and even if it was sold to foreign countries as stop-gaps, only Afghanistan purchased the Disston, and five of them were still in operation as of the Fall of Kabul.
Tančík vzor 33 P-1 (Czechoslovakia)
Created in 1933 as an offshoot of the British Carden-Loyd, the Tančík vzor 33 tankette was supposed to be an upgraded version when it comes to its speed and agility.
While the tank passed the driving test, the armor failed to protect the crew inside, the conditions to fire while moving became impossible, and the unreliable engine was not isolated from the crew, something that would have deadly consequences during the Second World War.
Their only share of glory was during an armed uprising before the Nazi invasion of the Sudetenland, and only because their opponents were insurgents rather than professional soldiers.
Arjun Mk I (India)
Previously, India has been buying weapons and armor from multiple sources, and during the Cold War, they bought equipment from both the United States and its NATO allies, as well as the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact, especially tanks.
While they acquired weapons from abroad, the Indians also looked forward to the day they could build their own equipment, and it all started in 1974 as an initiative.
Ten years later, the first prototype was built, but the time it took from prototype to serial production was unreasonable by any measure. Due to very delays, the Arjun tank was only produced in 2009, and the Indian Army was only forced to order 124 units to keep its domestic tank industry afloat.
To make matters worse, the Arjun faced countless defects and disadvantages in terms of how they could adapt to the Indian climate and terrain.
T-80 (Soviet Union/Russia/Ukraine)
The T-80 was a development of the powerful but few T-64 model, and was the last design of the Soviet era. The tank differed from the T-64 as it was powered by a gas turbine engine rather than a diesel variant.
Theoretically, the T-80 developed from the T-64's composite armor and the T-72's mechanical autoloader.
But unlike its lighter cousin, the T-72, the T-80's performance was much more obscure, due to the tank's fuel consumption and its dismal performance during the Chechen War.
Nevertheless, the T-80 is still used by both Russian and Ukrainian forces in the contested areas of Ukraine as of this article.
Panzer 68 (Switzerland)
While Switzerland maintains its characteristic neutrality in the first place, it was also developing its own war machine.
The first attempt to develop a tank was bogged down by delays by the time of its first successfully-made tank, the Panzer 68, was produced in 1971.
The Swiss tank was relatively small and light for a main battle tank, and it was inferior compared to its contemporaries.
The gun was smaller compared to other armor vehicles and its armor was made of rolled steel, which could be vulnerable to most other anti-tank weapons.
Design flaws, such as the radio system, a faulty gearbox that does not allow the tank to shift to reverse before coming to a full stop, and the tendency for the main gun to fire when the heater was turned on as it shared circuits with the main gun.
While upgrades and recalibrations were developed with the Panzer 68/88, it remained an inferior tank,
M551 Sheridan (US)
Alongside the T-80, the M551 Sheridan was one of the most experienced tanks on this list, serving from Vietnam to Desert Storm.
Weighing in at 15 tons, the Sheridan was built to be airdropped alongside paratroopers, able to cross rivers, and capable of packing a massive punch despite its light tank role with its 152mm missile/gun system in the turret and .50 caliber and 7.62mm guns in the hull.
The downside to this is that the projectiles fired from its main gun tube would jolt the Sheridan off the ground and may cause injuries to the crew inside. The armor was also made out of aluminum, making it prone to fires caused either by the residue of its own projectiles or enemy shells hitting the tank.
A38 Valiant (UK)
Britain's A38 heavy tank was supposed to be a formidable force on the battlefields of World War II, but it was never fielded and never mass-produced, making it the worst tank designed during the war.
Some even call the Valiant the worst tank of all time.
Despite the outcome of the war not yet certain, designers knew the tank would not be put into production, but continued to develop it anyway, especially its promising use of a double wishbone suspension similar to those used in passenger cars.
While the Valiant's armor offered good protection, its speed and handling was the reason why the tank never left the testing stand.
Despite the Valiant being a flawed tank, engineers learned very important lessons in creating future tank designs.
Panzerkampfwagen VIII Maus (Germany)
The Nazis were known for their reign of terror and brutality, but they were also known for their scientific research and development prowess in creating war machines that work,
The only exception was the Panzerkampfwagen VIII Maus, which was hurriedly built by Ferdinand Porsche at the direct request of Adolf Hitler himself.
The Maus was a super-heavy tank weighing at a whopping 188 tons, and stands 11.9 feet tall, 12 feet wide, and 33 feet long (3.6 meters tall x 3.7 meters wide x 10.1 meters long). It is armed with a 128mm gun capable of firing up to 2.2 miles (3.5 kilometers) and destroying essentially any armored equipment held by the Allies at the time.
Because of its size, the Maus could only move up to about 8 miles per hour (12.9 km per hour) and could not be carried by train. Eventually, the Soviets captured both prototypes of the vehicle, the only ones made by the Nazis out of the 150 ordered, and are currently on display in Russia.
Sabalan (Iran)
Prior to the Islamic Revolution, Iran was a valued ally of the US, and as such, they received a lot of military hardware. With the deposition of the last Shah, the new regime was forced to develop its own equipment from the arsenal the royalists and the US left.
One of them was the Sabalan, a tank the Iranians developed in 2014. In reality, it was merely a 21st-century upgrade of the 20th-century M47 Patton, and a poor upgrade at that. Aside from an indigenous fire control and communication system, as well as additional side skirts and a new gun turret, the rest were ironically American and obsolete.
With Iran being completely shut off from the world since 1979 due to strict sanctions, no spare parts for the tanks, or for any military equipment for that matter, could be legally ordered even if they were still in production.
