you
now this is tog - it's the heaviest tank
in the museum it weighs 80 tons in fact
it's tog 2 star which was it in its
final form with torsion bar suspension
before that being a First World War
style of tank
it had no suspension at all just rollers
fitted in the frames as you'll see it
was actually built by Foster's & Sons in
Lincoln on its Foster & Cowan Lincoln
who were the the original First World
War tank builders they came back and did
all the construction of this thing as
well
now the tanks diesel electric it's
powered by a Paxman Ricardo v12 diesel
engine 600 horsepower and that drives
into two electrical generators by
English Electric and they in turn drive
into two electric motors which power the
tank along and one of the drawbacks is
with all these diesel and petrol
electric systems is the amount of room
they take up which is why there's so
much of this tank behind the turret
going back four miles it seems largely
just to accommodate all this kit it's
also incredibly heavy it makes the tank
very heavy and really unnecessary in
every other respect but the trouble is
that Sir Albert Stern who was head of
the old gang the people who designed the
tank he'd been a petrol electric man
since the first world war usually wrong
but it didn't stop him from trying and
he was the while I think who Wallace
insisted that diesel electric would do
for this tank and that's one of the
reasons it's so big and so heavy as it
was finished in this final form
it's got 65 millimeters of armor on the
front which is quite good and it's not
as good actually as Matilda which was 18
millimeters but it was quite good in its
day but it the turret it's got on it is
the same as that fitted to the a 30
challenger later on it's the turret with
the 17 pounder anti-tank gun this only
came in at the last minute when this
thing was first built
it had a large turret with a triple
amount in it a 2-pound of a 3-inch
howitzer and a besom machine gun that
was very fashionable for a while it also
had a three inch howitzer in the hull or
the second turret had a three inch
anti-aircraft gun fitted and then they
went to the third turret with this 17
pounder they couldn't really make up
their minds it was only a prototype
anyway it was designed for a war that
never was going to happen because they
thought that there be a new western
front between the Maginot Line and the
Siegfried line which is where this tank
was going to play about but in fact it
had been designed for a war that had
been over for 20 years by the time they
got round to building it so it was a
complete waste of time waste of
resources and everything far too big
far too clumsy to use as a fighting tank
and but that's really the reason behind
its size now the other thing which is
quite unusual is that the turret doesn't
rotate on a ball race as most turrets do
it's actually on a phosphor bronze ball
in the center of the fighting
compartment and the reason for that was
you can actually Jack enterin tear it
out there was a lever and if the shells
struck the turret ring and caused the
Bulge of any sort you could actually
Jack the turret up with a little lever
until it went over it that's why it's
another reason it's got so much room
inside the tank had a crew of six it's
rather difficult sometimes figuring out
what all six of them would do there
clearly was three in the turret there's
one driver in the center in the front
maybe another man with him but what the
sixth man did Lord alone those I suppose
he just sort of put him in there because
there was room to do so there's enough
room actually to hold a dance in the
fighting compartment the stacks of room
in there and it's quite an interesting
tank and they say that it so the
development of the the track system and
the transmission particularly was very
influential later on I really don't know
where they get that idea from because
nobody ever used these
electric again thank goodness in tanks
in Britain anyway the other thing they
always say about the tank is that the
length of track in touch with the ground
is so long against such a narrow vehicle
that it was impossible to steer well
have actually seen a bit of footage of
this thing moving and it doesn't
actually appear to have much of a
problem steering so even that may turn
out to be a bit of a myth in the end
there's a lot of stories attached to
this tank and it's not really that
wonderful a machine but it's interesting
as I say being the biggest and heaviest
in the museum makes people stop and
stare with it anyway now the only other
thing I'd like to do is walk around to
the side and show you something there
now this portion here is where the
sponson went when they originally
designed the tank they were thinking
very much on first world war lines and
it had a female tank sponson on the side
on each side in fact and only the
mock-up that I've seen pictures of it
had a besom machine gun front and back
just so that they could sweep the sides
but that idea was dropped along with the
whole machine to hold gun which they
thought of at one point they did away
with those completely and brought the
tank more to a more modern appearance
with these two rather ludicrous side
doors they're very handy for looking
inside but not a lot of good for
protection you really need fairly thick
Armour which it's got in most places but
that's really the only thing it just
brings it into line with the early first
world war tanks but then the old days
before it had the sprung suspension it
was very much like a first world war
tank bumping along the ground had a top
speed of about 8 miles an hour which
wasn't really fast at all but as I say
they did say it was difficult to steer
and I don't believe that for a minute I
think with diesel electric drive you
could probably steer quite easily even
though it is a big machine
you