Out of hands

In world war 2, the Russian had better tanks than the Germans. But the Russians still lost many tank engagements at the start of the war.

It turned out that there were 2 design flaws in the Russian tank. Few Russian tanks had radio. The tank commander was also the gunner. 

Spot the problem? If you are a tank commander and you did not have a radio, you had to look for your officer's tank. He was person waving flags in a battle. But if he was waving flags, his tank was definitely not firing. 

And your tank was also not firing while you were busy looking for flag signals. 

The Germans promptly started shooting at the tank with its commander signalling with flags. This resulted in the other tanks stopping or milling around waiting for instructions. 

Soon the flag waving fell out of favour and the tank commanders had to guess their commanding officers intentions.