It was rejected and ridiculed for years – but TOG II is actually much better than you think.
In 1939, the UK Ministry of War issued the spec for a heavy assault tank. This hefty brief included the requirements to cross a 16ft gap, climb over anti-tank obstacles and enough firepower to penetrate 7 inches of concrete. Enter The Old Gang, a group of expert engineers, responsible for most of the tanks created during the First World War.
Two vehicles were created during this process – TOG I and TOG II. While the TOG projects have often been rejected as tanks out of time – relics of thinking from trench warfare – Content and Research Officer, Chris Copson, argues that these vehicles were highly innovative in terms of their mobility, armour and firepower.
Despite fulfilling their brief, TOG was sidelined in favour of other projects, and the lone survivor – TOG II – arrived at The Tank Museum in the 1950s. This lumbering beast that never saw active service, sat sidelined whilst surrounded by WW2 legends like the Churchill, Sherman and the infamous Tiger 131.
But in 2012, a miracle happened. World of Tanks included the super heavy tank in their online video game – launching TOG II into viral popularity. Since then, interest in this unique vehicle has skyrocketed, and now more than ever people want to see TOG II in real life and find out more about its interesting history.
If you’re seeing this, why not leave a comment telling us how you discovered the legend that is TOG II? Or, if you loved the video, give us a like!
Interested in learning about tanks? Subscribe to The Tank Museum and enjoy hours of FREE tank content at your fingertips.
And if you’re a real Tank Nut, why not consider becoming a channel member or joining our community on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/tankmuseum
Shop TOG II merch at our online shop: https://tankmuseumshop.org/
00:00 | Introduction
01:24 | An Innovative Spec
05:00 | Innovations in Mobility
10:11 | Innovations in Armour
11:49 | Innovations in Firepower
16:21 | Would TOG II Have Worked?
18:46 | The Legend Lives On
In this film, Chris Copson unpicks the misconceptions surrounding TOG II – that it was a ridiculous super-heavy tank built for a war from 30 years ago. Instead, this is a vehicle that was highly innovative and represented a significant engineering achievement. Thanks to videos games such as World of Tanks, TOG II is now celebrated as the goofiest super heavy tank in history, and lives on as an internet legend for a whole new generation of tank nuts.
Want to learn more about TOG II? Here are some of the sources we used to make this film:
Andrew Hills, The Tanks of TOG: The work of the Special Vehicle Development Committee in World War II, (2017)
David Fletcher, British Battle Tanks: British-Made Tanks of World War II (Osprey, 2017)
TM Archive, E2013.5165 ‘Short History of the Development of the “TOG” Series of Heavy Tanks Under the Direction of the Special Vehicle Design Committee (SVDC) of the Ministry of Supply’
TM Archive, E2013.5149 ‘TOG 2* – Driving & Operating Instructions’
TM Archive, E2013.5159 ‘The TOG Series’
TM Archive, E2013.5211 ‘Electric Transmission and Final Drive’
Gameplay footage courtesy of World of Tanks
Archive material courtesy of British Pathe
Support The Tank Museum!
– Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/tankmuseum
– Membership: https://www.youtube.com/@thetankmuseum/community
– Friends: https://tankmuseum.org/support-us/friends-of-the-tank-museum
– Online Shop: https://tankmuseumshop.org/
