Inside the Tanks...
...in association with...
...The Tank Museum...
...Richard "The Challenger" Cutland...
...The TOG II*.
This monster behind me, is the TOG...
...or to be more accurate, the TOG II...
...and once again Wargaming...
...is at the world-famous Tank Museum...
...in Bovington, England...
...with another unique insight...
...into the world of tanks.
Let me try to position...
...this beast for you.
The clue is in the name, TOG, ....
...which was actually a nickname...
...that stood for 'The Old Gang'.
This Old Gang included...
...some of the first tank pioneers...
...Stern, Tritton, Ricardo...
...Wilson, Swinton and D'Eyncourt...
...who, in Britain, in 1939, ...
...had been organised...
...into something called the...
...Special Vehicle Development Committee ...into something called the...
...Special Vehicle Development Committee
TOG I
Their fear was that the coming war...
...would be fought just as...
...the previous one had been...
...with lines of strong defences...
...that were enormously difficult...
...to penetrate.
So they approached the British Army...
...with a proposal for a new... So they approached the British Army...
...with a proposal for a new...
...super-heavy tank...
...which could cross broken ground...
...and trenches, in support...
...of attacking infantry.
A monster 'land ship'...
...that would cut a swathe...
..through enemy defences...
...and it was a monster.
The first prototype...
...rolled out in 1940 and weighed...
...in at 81 tons...
...that's 25 tons more...
...than the Tiger I and even 11 tons...
more than the Tiger II.
As originally conceived...
...it had a 75mm howitzer in the hull...
...like the Char B1 Bis...
...and the first Churchill.
With a tiny 2-pounder...
...in a small turret taken from...
...the Matilda II.
Two more 2-pounders...
...in sponsons at the side...
...and no fewer than 4 machine guns...
...to provide all-round fire.
Its armour, close to 75mm thick...
...could stand up to hits...
...from 47mm anti-tank guns...
...at 100 metres and also against...
...105mm shell-fire.
The tracks...
...just like early WWI designs...
...ran around the entire hull...
...and there was no suspension...
...for wheels at all.
The whole lot was driven...
...by a petrol/electric arrangement...
...with a 600bhp diesel engine...
...driving an electric generator...
...which, in turn, powered motors...
...which drove the drive sprockets.
The prototype did not impress...
...since the electric generator...
...overheated and burnt out...
...this was almost exactly the same...
...set up that Ferdinand Porsche...
...would later use...
...to drive his unsuccessful...
...prototype for the Tiger I...
...which also had a nasty tendency...
...to catch fire.
TOG II
Tank technology and the new style...
...of tank warfare...
...epitomised by the blitzkrieg...
...were already moving on...
...and the TOG I was abandoned...
...in favour of a redesigned TOG II...
...and this one here...
...is the only surviving example.
It was just as heavy...
...as the first prototype...
...but incorporates some improvements.
The tracks were no longer WWI style...
...that run from the front idler...
...through a tunnel...
...to the rear drive sprocket.
The sponsons were also gone...
...and a side door for the 6 man crew...
...was installed above the track tunnel.
It also now had suspension...
...as well as 2 electric generators...
...which actually seemed to have...
...functioned quite well...
...although it was still...
...hopelessly under-powered...
...with a top speed of just under...
...14 kilometres per hour.
On top, the puny 2-pounder...
...ridiculous on a tank of this size...
...had finally been dropped...
...and a varitety of turrets were tried...
...culminating in this one...
...mounting a 17-pounder gun.
This had been lifted wholesale...
...from the challenger...
...good name...
...a 17-pounder version...
...of the Cromwell cruiser tank.
The whole mounted 75mm Howitzer...
...had also gone...
...replaced by 7.92mm BESA machine gun.
In short, it had begun to look...
...like a WWII tank...
...rather than a WWI throwback.
Inside
Let's now take a look...
...inside this monster.
The first position...
...is clearly identified...
...in the centre of the vehicle and towards the front...
...is the driver's position.
Just to the right of the driver...
...we would have found one of our...
....7.92mm BESA machine guns...
...and you can see the port there...
...where it would have been mounted.
Directly behind that...
...you can see...
...this very large turret basket.
Now this would have actually moved...
...obviously, in turn with the turret...
...and located up, inside the turret...
...we would have found the commander...
...the gunner...
...and the first of our 2 loaders.
As for the second loader...
...well nobody's really too sure...
...where his actual position was...
...so we're assuming...
...that he would somewhere...
...be wandering around inside...
...the rest of this vast compartment...
Engine
Look at the amount of room...
...you've got on the back decks...
...of this vehicle.
It's absolutely incredible.
I mean, there's enough room...
...to hold a party here.
Directly in front of me...
...you can see we've got this...
...great big 600 horsepower...
...diesel engine.
Behind the engine...
..we have the 2 generators...
...and behind those generators...
...we had 2 electric motors...
...that drove the rear sprockets.
End of the Line
Even had it gone into production...
...it's very doubtful whether the TOG...
...would have ever had any useful role...
...on the battlefield...
...other than making...
...a nice, big target.
The problem was that...
...other, better tanks...
...had already arrived...
...which, between them, could match...
...or out-perform the TOG...
...in every way.
The Churchill for armour protection...
...and the infantry support.
The Sherman...
...for speed, manoeuverability...
...and eventually, firepower.
So the TOG remains an oddity.
A tank that looked backwards...
...in warfare...
...that was moving forwards...
...and a warning...
...that the demands of war...
...often require revolution...
...not just evolution.