The rest were destroyed or captured without inflicting much damage on the enemy. When it was first used in significant numbers against the Germans in 1941, more than half of the 48 tanks broke down before reaching the front. The T-35 required a 10-man crew to operate and many more to maintain. Its performance in the field was another matter. It featured prominently in interwar propaganda, making for a grand sight on parade grounds in the 1930s. Its concept was outdated from the start a five-turret behemoth, it was a battleship on some seriously slow-moving treads.
The T-35 was the pride of the Red Army until it was actually used in combat. For all the design flaws, getting anything to run in the circumstances was no small achievement. In the end, only four “Big Bobs” were built and mostly used to raise morale. For reference, a modern Abrams tank costs roughly $6 million. At least the tanks were cheap, at about $5,000 apiece, which works out to about $100,000 in today’s terms. With armor less than half an inch thick, the crew wasn’t well protected. One of the gunners of the eight-man crew had to lie on a mattress to squeeze into the cramped compartments, so he was pretty much done for it if the tank caught fire. To change gear, it had to come to a complete stop, which as you’d imagine might be a little disadvantageous in combat. It was essentially a tractor wrapped in steel with six machine guns poking out at different angles. With limited materials or expertise, Semple and his team based the design on information gleaned from an American postcard.
The situation in 1940 seemed grim for the Allies, with the British cornered in Europe and the threat of a Japanese invasion looming, so New Zealand enacted a program to convert tractors into serviceable tanks. The Bob Semple Tank took its name from the larger-than-life New Zealand politician given the task of putting it together.
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