General History · Question
Which one of these tanks was designed and operated by the United Kingdom?
Answer
Tog II
The story behind the answer
Tog II is the British tank. The other options point elsewhere: Tiger H1 is German (early Tiger I), M4 Sherman is American, and T-34 is Soviet. TOG stands for “The Old Gang,” a team of British WWI tank pioneers brought back in WWII to design a heavy vehicle for trench-like conditions they feared might return.
The TOG II was an enormous, slow prototype intended to crawl over shell-cratered ground and wide trenches. It never entered mass production because WWII combat favored faster, more versatile designs. Only one prototype was built, now at The Tank Museum, Bovington. Memory tip: “TOG = The Old Gang = Old-school British design,” making it easy to link TOG II to the United Kingdom.