"Worst tank of World War II?" Topic

The Covenanter is pretty aweful – but was useful for carrying bridges !

Have to wonder who thought of getting the London Midland and Scottish railway to design a tank as their first wartime industry task.

LMS for Tank Engines…yes. LMS for Tanks…Not so much.

Agree with Timbo, the Valiant.
Used postwar as a training aid for young officers.

"Now we'll give you thirty minutes, we want you to go around and discover as many things wrong with it as you can,,,"

Nevermind, trying to get a volunteer to try and drive it or shift gears and possibly cripple himself.

Another worthy contender would be the JagdTiger.

It is not a tank! But if it is allowed the T28 and the Tortoise would be strong contenders too.

Nevermind, trying to get a volunteer to try and drive it or shift gears and possibly cripple himself.

Maybe it came with a truss as part of the standard equipment?! :-)

I'm not sure this hate for the Covenanter is warranted. Yes it was a poor design rushed through with some serious defects, but come on Gents, at the point the thing was ordered there was a sudden dawning that the UK had a serious tank shortage and there was a war on the way. By the time they started rolling off the production line the war was going downhill, and by April 1940 there was a desperate need for ANY tank to fill the Home Defense role. It wasn't sent abroad because it was not suitable for tropical or desert conditions but so what? It worked well enough to give the tankers returning from France minus their tanks something to drive, and also equip the newly raised forces that were needed for home defense. How would it have faired in combat? Probably no worse than the early Crusader and better than the A10\11\13 Cruisers which were the other options.

Here's the thing. The Powers That Be recognised it was better than nothing, and hopefully adequate for Home Defense. Given the choice of a Covananter or nothing, I think they made a good call. When the threat subsided they rather sensibly recognised it was not worth upgrading but made a reasonable interim training tank, thus freeing up production of Crusaders and other better tanks for use with combat formations that went abroad. As soon as the production lines were available to replace it, it was replaced.

As far as I can see not one single crewmans life was lost because of the Covananters many weak points. Now contrast that with tanks like the Sherman, which was left in production and service long after better options were available.

So IMHO not the worst by a long way.

Was the KV2 really that bad. I know it looks as though its been designed by GW but I was under the impression for its time it was pretty useful.

It sported an impressive amount of armour and a really big gun (152 mm), but that massive turret resulted in a lot of troubles in practice.

That said, for the intended support role that KV-2 tank was intended to fill, rotating turret might not have been entirely essential. Soviet designers apparently came eventually to the same conclusion, since a few years later they came up with the SU-152 assault tank, based on the KV-chassis and mounting another type of 152 mm gun.

PilGrim wrote:

As far as I can see not one single crewmans life was lost because of the Covananters many weak points. Now contrast that with tanks like the Sherman, which was left in production and service long after better options were available.

What "better options" do you have in mind? The T-23 turret was placed on a Sherman chassis, and the M-26 turret could have been, so I find it hard to imagine what design you have in mind.

So IMHO not the worst by a long way.

So what was? Play the game!

All the best,

John

I'd have to go with most of the IJF's AFVs … they were pretty "crappy" … even though many were 30's vintage … and used improperly in many cases …

Was the KV2 really that bad. I know it looks as though its been designed by GW but I was under the impression for its time it was pretty useful.

Very poor mobility/reliability.
Turret only worked "sometimes".
Very bad accuracy and RoF.
Utterly hilarious profile.

It was useful to a degree, but not really because it was any good. It was just that there wasn't anything like it on the other side, and it was mostly facing light tanks that had a great deal of difficulty hurting it.

-Kle.

I'm amazed no one has mentioned the UK Light Tank MK VI. Too lightly armored, too lightly armed, but still produced in great numbers. While it was a prewar design it was produced after the war began as well. Furthermore, it took away resources that could have been used to build the vastly superior Matilda.

A hundred Matilda MK I tanks might have made a difference for the BEF in 1940,especially given the trouble they gave to Rommel when he encountered them, but hundres of Mk VI tanks don't seem to have helped at all.

other honourable mentions:

Ram
Bob Semple (NZ tank)
Beverette ACs
AGC-1 (Belgium)

Post-war gotta be the M551…

Nothing wrong with the Light Tanks per se. They were very usefull prewar for policing actions in various parts of the empire and in WW2 as recce vehicles. In 1940 I doubt a few more Matildas would have made any difference. The Mk I wasn't a particularly good tank anyway with only MG armament and unprotected tracks. Most were lost to breakdowns anyway.

I'm amazed no one has mentioned the UK Light Tank MK VI.

Still a better light tank than the Italian L6, which had all the features of the Mk VI except speed. And speed was the only good feature of the Mk VI.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiat_L6/40

And to think that these were the only Italian tanks to make it to the Russian front. Bad enough in Norht Africa going up against Crusaders, Lee/Grants and Shermans in M14/40s, but L6s vs. T34s? That's just suicide. I recall a photo of a proud Soviet AT rifleman standing in front of his latest kill, an L6. Probably the only tank his ATR could penetrate.

The Ferdinand or "Elefant" had NO machine gun.
Who builds a monster of a tank and then leaves the M.G. off it?

I little digression… please excuse me ;)

I think Soviet ATRs were a lot more effective than is believed. If i'm not mistaken the reason the Germans developed shurzen was to protect tanks from ATRs, which by that time knew a well aimed shot at a vision slid or the vulnerable sides could disable an otherwise well protected tank. I'm pretty sure the Soviets did not have shaped charges or HEAT (which is often given as the reason for early german spaced armour)…

James

You're right. ATRs could be a real threat to panzers in 41/42 in the right circumstances, especially a flank shot. Schurzen were designed to counter them and turned out to be rather useful vs shaped charges as well.
I've mentioned this before but there's an account (Carius?) of Tigers being driven off by massed ATR fire, mainly aimed at vision blocks.

@ optional Field;

I think you might mean Matilda Mk.II's? There were nearly 100 matilda Mk.I's in the BEF. Most useless tank of all time. Unless you count making German troops rupture themselves laughing as a benefit!

The Matilda I did have very thick armour for the time though. That wouldn't have been a laughing matter for the German AT gunners of the day.

I might be stating the obvious here but I think this is one of those topics that no one will be in agreement on as we have our different opinions and theories as what make a bad AFV.

Interesting to note though a lot of the pointers are going towards the very early war tanks and also the very late war types . This indicates to me that the mid-late war tanks were the best of the bunch eg Panther ,Tiger ,T34 ,Sherman etc.

A very interesting topic all the same:)

I was just wondering about the criticism regarding the 'unprotected tracks' of the Matilda I…

How many tanks had protected tracks?

It's rather like criticising the Panther for not having thermal imaging and tube-launched ATGMs.

When you are an infantrymen armed with a rifle, then it doesn't matter if the enemy tank is a Tiger or a Vickers Mark VI. It can still, shoot you and you can't shoot it.

You can build a lot more light tanks for the same resources as a heavy tank, and replace them more cheaply too. Which is why pre-war armies were stuffed with them.

As mentioned on another thread, the Ferdinand was a tank destroyer, not a tank. Many tank destroyers (such as the SU-100) soldier on very happily even in the present day without a secondary machinegun.

Comparing early war tanks with later war one is also somewhat unfair as in the main the later models are going to 'better'.

I guess the real question is did they do what they were designed to do at an appropriate cost. The Covenanter clearly didn't. The Vickers Mark VI did.

Arguably the Matilda II was also a failure as it was so unreliable and expensive to produce, the Valentine was a far more successful replacement. The Matilda did of course enjoy its brief moment in the sun, so is remembered fondly.

I think the Russians certainly liked the Valentine more than the Brits. Hence the reason it was kept in production in Canada log after the British declared it obsolete. IIRC the Russians used it as a scouting tank in lend lease brigades albeit a slow one, not too dissimilar to the role the T70 was designed for and used in conventional brigades.

A problem for tanks is that they become obsolete very quickly as soon as one design went into production another was waiting on the designers bench . Just think at what you had at the beginning of the war ie tanks like Matilda 1 Panzer 1 and then compare them to the late war tanks such as the Panther Ausf G with infra Red viewing equipment, The British Comet , Pershing etc. I think the transition is pretty remarkable for a 5 year period , its almost like saying any UK car with an "07" plate is now old and obsololete and should be in the breakers yard.

That's why I agree with some of the posters that really you should compare the tank in its own time slot with similarly designed vehicles around that same time zone .

What about the American T-16 tank produced in 1941 for the Dutch East Indies colonies. Under armoured, under gunned and really quite useless by the time it became available.
Another disaster which never got past the prototype stage IIRC was the A-38 Valiant from 1944. What a mess that design was.
But my heart is still with the indominatable T-35 which was so plagued with problems that it hardly saw real action.
Rod Robertson.

If we're going to control for time of introduction, I'd like to put up for consideration the Hungarian Turan – the height of 1937 technology, introduced to the battlefield in 1943.

link

I would also like to nominate Finnish BT-42, since it had a rotating turret (even though it was officially designated as an assault gun). This was another beauty that first saw battlefield in 1943.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BT-42

Finland did not have proper tank production capacity, so this vehicle was put together using Soviet BT-7 tank chassis (captured in 1939-1941), with a new custom-built and rather oversized turret placed on the top. The main (and only) armament was an old British 4.5" howitzer.

The end result was quite unimpressive: top-heavy vehicle with massive silhouette and over-loaded chassis with rather thin armour. Plus the main gun was slow to load and of little effect against contemporary armour. It supposedly worked decently against soft targets, though the lack of MG probably was not a bonus in that role.

Compared to BT-42, Soviet KV-2 starts to look quite impressive. Both had problems with over-sized turrets, but KV-2 at least had decent armour. That said, KV-2 was designed by a state that had proper tank design and production facilities, while BT-42 was put together using various leftovers from warehouses and with limited design knowledge.

The BT-42 did have a precursor in the BT-7A Artillery Tank, which was a BT-7 fitted with a larger turret, mounting a 76.2mm howitzer:

With the KV-2/BT-42 type vehicles, the point of them was to take out strong points with artillery guns or howitzers, right – like a Brummbar or similar? Was it reasonably effective at what it was designed to do?

Regards

The Ferdinand or "Elefant" had NO machine gun.
Who builds a monster of a tank and then leaves the M.G. off it?

It wasn't a tank or even an assault gun. It was a long range tank destroyer. When used in that role it was quite successfull. Neither the Jagdpanther or Jagdpanzer IV had MG's either or Russian SU's, but no one criticises them as poor designs. And the whole "quail shooting with cannon" as perpetuated in Gudarian's Panzer Lead is a myth anyway. Relatively few were lost at Kursk. It wasn't a great design sure. Bit of a kit bash really from bits left over in the spares box. :-) But when used for its intended role it worked ok.

I think you might mean Matilda Mk.II's? There were nearly 100 matilda Mk.I's in the BEF. Most useless tank of all time. Unless you count making German troops rupture themselves laughing as a benefit!

The Matilda I was responsible for routing the Totenkopf at Arras, causing much panic in the German high command, eventually leading to the first halt order on the panzer divisions. Hardly a failure or a laughing stock.

Neither the Jagdpanther or Jagdpanzer IV had MG's either

Well, half-right, the Jagdpanther had an MG:

So did the JPz IV. It had a dome-shaped flap on the hull, you slid the flap out of the way and stuck the gun through the hole.

M3 Lee or Grave for Seven Brothers.

The Japs wouldn't agree with that assessment – a great many died for the Emperor at the sharp end of a Lee. In Burma the Lee had sufficient armour for the job, had good armament, good mobility, provided excellent close support to the infantry and did everything it was asked to do, for two years solid, with outstanding reliability in appalling conditions.

I'd also add that when introduced in North Africa, the Grant/Lee, even though it was an interim design, was a good tank that was more than a match for the opposition. The Russian assessment was purely down to them using them in the main theatre of war beyond their sell-by date, when the Germans were using superior tanks against them.

Context is everything.

I think the Germans had some really really bad tanks.

The Pz I and Pz II were horrible unreliable tanks. The Pz III and Pz IV did not support weapons needed for the war until the middle of the war.

As for the KV-2, it was strong enough to resist shots from any German tank against any spot on its armor at basically point blank range during the time when it was created and really in service, before being largely replaced by the IS series tanks. Even at <60m no German tank was any sort of a threat to the Russian Giant. However its 152mm gun could kill any German tank with a single shot from well over a 1000m. The guns the Pz II, III and IV had at the time were about as effective against the armor of a KV 1 or KV 2 as a tic-tac is against a brick wall.

So I kinda find it hard to believe that people would say the KV-2, which was probably the most unstoppable and most powerful tank for the early war period, was bad. Especially compared to pretty much every German tank of the era. Hell the KV-2 could probably knock out most German tanks in service with a near miss, PzIV excluded.

The KV-2 suffered from the same problems of the T-34, KV-1 and other Russian Tanks. That is that Stalin killed 80k of his officers so Russian Training and logistics were complete rubbish, and they did not have ammunition, fuel or repair parts or enough officers for their armored force, which meant their tanks lost to infantry when they ran out of ammo and gas, or to malfunctions. Hell a SINGLE stalled KV-2 held up an entire German armored division for like a day, until its ammo ran out. Russians, imo, had far and above the most advanced and best tanks of WWII, and their superiority was proved in the Spanish Civil war on.

But yes, the Pz I and Pz II were unreliable tanks with armor that was too thin for WWI much less WWII and guns that did not threaten any modern tank and indeed often saw them loosing to armored car's and other scout vehicles. They did look neat though.

Actually the Matilda I may have won the war, albeit rather indirectly.

It stopped the Germans at Arras, largely because nothing smaller than the German 88 could punch through the armor. While it was not perfect its armor was proof against the German 37 and 50 anti-tank guns.

The delay at Arras was (one of) the keys to Operation Dynamo's success. Without Dynamo the British might well have folded in 1940 (apologies to our UK members).

More Matilda's in 1940, instead of the MK VI might have delayed the Germans enough to prevent the Fall of France.

So I kinda find it hard to believe that people would say the KV-2, which was probably the most unstoppable and most powerful tank for the early war period, was bad. Especially compared to pretty much every German tank of the era. Hell the KV-2 could probably knock out most German tanks in service with a near miss, PzIV excluded.

You are only looking at it from a narrow tactical viewpoint. All that is wasted if it breaks down before you can get it to where it's needed. It was expensive in terms of materials and man hours to build and to maintain. The turret would only rotate if it was on absolutely level ground. The fact that the Soviets soon stopped building them gives you a good idea of their real value.

You are only looking at it from a narrow tactical viewpoint.

Not just from a narrow tactical viewpoint … it must also be an a-historical viewpoint.

Can anyone name a battle, a tactical engagement, that was won using KV-2s? Any? Even a single one?

Yes, there is the story of a single KV-2 parked at a crossroads, that delayed a panzer division for a day.

Worth noting in that history is that Eberhardt Raus, the commander of said panzer division, was criticized by his peers for being "less than enthusiastic" in that period of time. So perhaps the KV-2 delayed him. Or perhaps it was a convenient excuse for not advancing.

But that's about all we know from the history of the KV-2. Because almost all were lost within the first 6 weeks of the campaign, and as donlowry noted their performance was so poor that the Soviets never built another one.

The turret would only rotate if it was on absolutely level ground.

This is not what I have heard. I have heard that the turret absolutely would rotate on sloped ground. The problem was that this rotation occurred quite regardless of what the crew wanted. The turret was so face-heavy (due to the massive gun) that anything other than a very mild slope would cause it to rotate to face downhill.

The Pz I and Pz II were horrible unreliable tanks. The Pz III and Pz IV did not support weapons needed for the war until the middle of the war.

Again, one must be willing to deliberately ignore history to reach such conclusions.

The Pz I, II, III and IV were the winningest tanks in history.

No other tanks have performed as well, winning decisive battles and decisive maneuvers in as many tactical and operational victories, against so many nations, in such diverse climatic and geologic conditions, including significant numerical disadvantages, as this set of tanks (along with the Pz 35t and 38t) managed between 1939 and 1942.

Quite contrary to the assertion that they did not support the weapons needed until mid-war, it was only at mid-war that they were matched by opposing forces, and the Pz IV (a 1936 design!) continued to be a danger to allied forces up through the end of the war.

All in all a rather better performance than the BT-5, A9 or much vaunted S35.

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)

Not sure how this can ever be resolved: criticising an early war tank for 'only having a machinegun' or 'only having a 2-pdr' is akin to mocking a Tiger for 'only having an 88mm gun' rather than an L30A1 120mm.

I think Mserafin is on the right lines: surely the worst tank must be one that was designed / introduced without any heed of the experiences / lessons which should have been learned by that point in the war?

Good points Mark 1

Sorry, but the fact that the Germans won in 39-41 using the Pz-1 thru 4 don't make them better tanks, it makes the German Army a better army.
the Pz1 and 2 were built to give the Germans practice using tanks, and were retained because the Germans needed the numbers.
The Pz3 was the tank the Germans expected they would use to fight a war. While it had good mobility and communications, the gun and armor proved inadequate in 1940. After all, they were primed for combat (meaning armed with and armored against) with 37mm guns and the French were primed for 47mm guns.
Then in 1941 the Pz3 again had inadequate armor and guns, being primed for 50mm gun while the Sovs were producing T-34's and KV's by the thousand, all primed for 76mm guns. It wasn't until the Pz4f2 came into service that the Germans had a good all-around tank that would last the rest of the war.
Take a look at the total losses in the 39, 40 and 41 campaigns, Jentz has the numbers.

Not arguing they're the worst tanks either. Without defining the term "worst" we're all just yelling at each other from trains passing in the night…
If you define "Worst" as "biggest waste of money and resources" I'd give the Tiger 2 the win. If you define it strictly on combat performance vs contemporary designs I think it'd be the M11/39.

Mark 1, can you name a war the Germans ever won?

The KV-1 and KV-2 were used in the Winter War and won numerous battles. The fact of the mater is that dispite the superiority of the KV series and T-34 tanks to the German armor, the superiority of the Russian AT guns, and the fact that Russia had like 400,000 SVT type rifles of various makes (semi auto) on the front when Barbossa happened, they still got their tails handed to them.

Germans had really good leadership, and Stalin had killed all of Russia's Leadership. When your tankers have not had any experience, for the most part, with their new tanks, have no spare parts and have no supplies, the tank suffers. Even some German Panzers had as high as a 30% brake down rate, but Germany had excellent logistics.

Donlowry,
I would argue that the fact that the KV series tanks and many others were discontinued early on had little to do with their effectiveness and more to do with the superiority of the T-34. As German AT guns eventually caught up to Russian armor, the T-34 proved faster, more reliable, and had the same gun as the KV-1, allowing for it to knock out the same targets. So I think that Ivan stopped producing most everything tank wise other then the SU-76 and T-34 for a while is just a statement of how effective those were, and not a statement about the ineffectiveness of their other tanks. And then the IS series just made it obsolete.

Das Sheep – Germans winning wars…Franco-Prussian war? Prussian-Austrian War? Invasion of Schleswig Holstein? They won a lot in the 19th century during the unification… Of course there was the Tuetoburg Forest – buts that's a bit far back. ;)

James

The KV-1 and KV-2 were used in the Winter War and won numerous battles.

As far as I know, KV-1 only saw limited test use in Winter War, and KV-2 did not saw any action at all (though may have been tested against former Finnish bunkers sometime in the post-war months).

"I would argue that the fact that the KV series tanks and many others were discontinued early on had little to do with their effectiveness and more to do with the superiority of the T-34."

The KV-2 was discontinued after "only" a few hundred were built, but the series really didn't end production until after WW2. The KV1 was an enemy's nightmare in 1941, OK in 1942 and outclassed in 1943, but with the introduction of the KV-85 and then the JS-series (which were evolutionary designs) they again became useful in a limited way. With the advent of the "universal" tank design (for the Sovs it was the T-54) the continued production of heavy tanks became pointless. IIRC the T-10 was the last Soviet heavy tank.

One of the things I think is neat about tank design is that the German's prototype runs were 15 tanks while the Sov's prototype runs were 100 tanks.

Even some German Panzers had as high as a 30% brake down rate, but Germany had excellent logistics.

This is a joke, right? Logistics were an afterthought to most German campaigns, Barbarrosa being the prime example of this. They actually believed that defeating the Soviet armies on the border would lead to the collapes of the Soviet Union, so they didn't do any planning for more than a 2-3 week campaign. This is why Army Group Center stopped for most of July, because they had overwhelmed the supply system.

Rommel was another one who under-estimated the importance of logistics, counting instead on a rapid decision to render logistical problems moot. It didn't work for him, either.

Sorry, but the fact that the Germans won in 39-41 using the Pz-1 thru 4 don't make them better tanks, it makes the German Army a better army.

I guess it depends on how we judge whether a tank is successful, doesn't it?

If you want an iron steed to ride in a techno-jousting match, well then yes the Pz 1 through 4 don't do you much good.

If you want something to win a wargame with, where you get to bring whatever you can bring along with your bucket of dice, then yes, I'd rather have a KV-2, or more to the point a Maus.

But if you judge a weapon of war by whether it was useful to the unit commanders who deployed it, to achieve what they were tasked to achieve, then the Panzer I was useful, and the Panzers II through IV were stunning successes. Yes, the army using them was better, but it was better because of the combination of coherent doctrine, training in that doctrine, AND THE TOOLS to carry out that doctrine. Give the Panzerwaffe R-35s and they could not have done what they did in 1939, 40 or 41.

(BTW, give them KV-2s and they could not have done it either!)

Mark 1, can you name a war the Germans ever won?

Well, beside the very nice list supplied by Archeopteryx, I would point out that the German Army, between 1939 and the end of 1942, was the winningest army in history. They won more battles, more consistently, against more adversaries, conquering more territory and taking control of more population and resources than any army ever has, before or since.

They did it using Pz I – IV as their ground weapons of decision. They did it with an armored force that was more uniformly mobile, both tactically and operationally, than their opponents. They were able to concentrate firepower in space and time to an extent that their adversaries never even approached. This won, quite consistently.

French Char-Bs, British Matildas, and Russian KVs were able to inflict a few minor delays, generally at a cost of nearly 100% losses to the units involved, but were never able to stop or reverse the tide of the campaigns.

Then over the course of 1943 the Germans switched to an armored force that focused on having heavier armor than their adversaries. From mid-1943 to mid-1945 the German army became the loosingest army in history. They lost more battles, more consistently, against more adversaries, loosing more territory, population, and resources than any army in history, before or since.

You can say all you want to about how the armor or guns stack up, but when the Russians had a force with indifferent mobility, but with some much heavier tanks, while the Germans had set of uniformly more mobile tanks, the Germans won. When the Russians had a force of uniformly more mobile tanks, and the Germans had a force with some much heavier tanks, the Russians won.

Oh, and the same is true if you look at the French, or the British, or the Americans.

Please note I am not speaking just of the top speed of a particular tank. I am speaking of the tactical and operational mobility of an entire force. Operationally a unit never moves as fast as its fastest tank. Rather, it always moves slower than its slowest tank.

There is kind of a lot of historical data available. There are hundreds of major and minor campaigns. If you don't fight so hard to prove your own pre-conceived notions of big-and-scary-wins-battles, if you don't work so hard to ignore history, if you just look at what actually happened, again and again, it is much easier to see the patterns and actually build some understanding.

The KV-1 and KV-2 were used in the Winter War and won numerous battles.

Now that's just silly. A handful of KVs were trialed in combat. That's not the same thing as winning numerous battles.

A single tank company, in the 91st Tank Battalion of the 20th Heavy Tank Brigade, was equipped with a one each of the T-100, SMK and KV-1 prototypes. Later it also received another KV-1 and 2 KV-2 prototypes.

In its first battle on December 18, 1939 in the Khotinnen Fortified Region the KV (not yet called KV-1, as there was no other KV type) received 9 hits (probably from Bofors 37mm AT guns), had its main gun destroyed, and observed no enemy targets. Later the gun was replaced. This is according to the after action report of Captain I. Kolotuskin (the company CO).

In February of 1940 two KVs with the M-10 152mm howitzer(not yet called KV-2, but described in the AARs as KV tanks U-1 and U-3) and an additional 76.2mm KV (U-2) were received. From this point Kolotskin's company operated as an independent tank company, sometimes attached to 13th Light Tank Brigade, sometimes to 20th Heavy Tank Brigade.

They never managed to engage a genuine concrete bunker. U-0 took a total of 14 hits during the war, U-1 was never hit, U-2 took 1 hit, and U-3 took 8 hits. For the rest of the war they claimed (in crew reports) to have destroyed 14 AT guns and 11 wooden pill boxes. Crew claims should be discounted rather heavily in almost any case.

A single company operating a handful of experimental tanks and knocking out a few guns and log emplacements is not the same thing as winning numerous battles. It is better described as achieving almost nothing useful, other than their own survival. Which was useful for the purposes of testing, but not in any operational, or even tactical sense.

The KV-2 was discontinued after "only" a few hundred were built, but the series really didn't end production until after WW2. The KV1 was an enemy's nightmare in 1941, OK in 1942 and outclassed in 1943, but with the introduction of the KV-85 and then the JS-series (which were evolutionary designs) they again became useful in a limited way.

The KV-2 was indeed discontinued 6 weeks into the war with Germany.

The KV-1 stayed in production through 1942. It was rather roundly criticized by formation commanders for having abysmal mobility and no advantage in firepower. The KV-1s sought to address the mobility issues with some automotive improvements and a reduction in armor. This stayed in production through the first half of 1943. By that time the whole KV program was so badly out of favor that if it was not for the IS-152 SPG, the factory would have been turned over to T-34 production.

The KV-85 was a lash-up. Production of turrets for the new IS tank started before the hulls were ready, so a stop-gap was engineered to enable mounting the first 2 months of turret production onto KV-1s hulls. It is amazing how much play this lash-up gets in the west … it was probably the least significant Soviet tank of the war. With only about 130 made, only 2 or 3 regiments ever operated it, and none survived the winter of 1943/44.

The IS series really is not a continuation of the KV, any more than the US M4 Sherman is a continuation of the M2 medium tank. The first major production IS, the IS-2, had a different turret, different gun, different hull, different transmission and final drive, updated engine and updated suspension. It was developed from the KV, but shared hardly a bolt with the KV.

And interestingly, even with greatly enhanced levels of protection and firepower the IS-2 tank was LIGHTER than most KVs (except the KV-1s). The Germans called it a "super heavy" tank, which was about right if its firepower was considered. But its weight was about the same as the Panther … far less than the Tiger. And it was far more mobile than most heavies. This made it a far more useful weapon.

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)

For the rest of the war they claimed (in crew reports) to have destroyed 14 AT guns and 11 wooden pill boxes. Crew claims should be discounted rather heavily in almost any case.

Considering the very limited numbers of AT guns fielded by Finnish army in Winter War, claims of taking out 14 AT guns certainly sound ridiculous.

The KV-85 was a lash-up… With only about 130 made, only 2 or 3 regiments ever operated it, and none survived the winter of 1943/44.

One regiment (73rd Independent Guards Tank Regiment) participating in the Petsamo-Kirkenes Operation in October of 1944 may have had them*, so some survived the winter of 43/44. It may have been the only regiment of KV-85s left, but they were still in use. However, some sources suggest 73 GHTR had IS-85s, so go figure. I'm not with my books, so I can't try to look it up just now .

There's some useful info on their deployment here:
TMP link

I know it's a rare bird, but I have a soft spot for the KV-85. It's a wonderful thing to throw into scenarios to balance out Tigers – it isn't as good as a Tiger, but the 85mm gun is threatening enough that the German players can't count on total immunity. Besides, there were more KV-85s produced than Pumas, but how often does one see those on the table?

* source (and a very interesting book):
link
Also, Gebhardt, in Leavenworth Papers #17, mentions KV tanks in 73 GHTR:
link

Mark there are a number of flaws in your argument. Perhaps the most obvious is the fact that the German army transitioned to the loosingest army long BEFORE the Panzerwaffe switched to heavier tanks. You can make a good case that the Germans lost the strategic initiative in both North Africa and the east in the autumn on '42. Mansteins counteroffensive being merely a tactical victory that did little to change the strategic situation. Even if you take Kursk as the turning point of the 3,000 odd German tanks commited there were 200 Panthers a couple of battalions of Tigers and 90 Ferdinands. The defeats in North Africa, Sicily, Italy and the east in '43 were all achieved with the same old Panzer III's and IV's that had served the Germans during the years of victory.
Second as has already been pointed out ascribing the Germans victories and defeats solely to the quality or otherwise of the tanks is over simplification at best and down right wrong at worst. The increasing skill of their opponents, the decline in the quality of German troops and the rapid decline of the Luftwaffe were all major factors. Interestingly the Germans started losing at the same time the Luftwafee lost air superiority in North Africa and the east, but if I had to pick one factor that was a game changer for the Germans in the east it was the decline of the German infantry divisions. An analysis of German operations shows much of the combat "heavy lifting" was done by the infantry. The destruction of large portions of the Russian army in '41 would not have been possible without the efforts of the German infantry tearing huge holes in the Russian front lines, for the Panzer divisions to motor through on their way to glory, or the reduction of the large pockets of surrounded Russians. The results for the Germans were catastrophic. The offensive burden fell increasingly heavily on the Panzer Divisions which were worn down quickly, limiting their ability to conduct deep penetrations. You see this in Mansteins counteroffensive in the winter of '42/43 where after a relatively short campaign and modest advance the Panzer Divisions involved were worn out. Defensively the poor combat performance of German infantry forced the Germans to use their mobile divisions as firebrigades to bolster their defences to hold the line.
Another nail in the coffin is the fact that the British won a spectacular victory characterised by movement against the Italians in 1940 with exactly the same tanks that lost to the Germans in France. Suggesting agasin that the tank designs are irrelevant.
As a final thought I'm not sure the Germans qualify as the loosingest army in history as I reckon Napoleons Grande Armee might give them a run for their money, as although they had less territory to lose they lost it much quicker. You would have to sit down work out the total area of territory held and divided by the time it took to lose to get a square miles lost per day figure to see who lost it quickest.

I have to agree with Fred Cartwright

I don't think it would really have mattered what tanks the Germans had fielded in the 2nd half of the war, they would still have lost – once they lost air superiority and were being hopelessly out-built by everyone, they could have had several divisions worth of Centurions and the end result would still have been no different.