![]() Had it been manufactured, the FCM F1 would have easily been one of the largest tanks ever to rumble across a battlefield. Franceįrance was defeated by Nazi Germany before it could put its 140-ton FCM F1 tank into production. France was defeated by Germany before the FCM F1 could enter service. The sole model is currently on display at the Tank Museum in Bovington, England. Far too large, heavy and expensive for front line use, the TOG 2 program was eventually discontinued. A few feet shorter than the American T-28, the TOG 2 carried a 76-mm, 17-pounder main gun and could reach speeds of 8.5 mph. Prototyped in 1941, it was the largest tank ever produced in the U.K. The TOG 2, of which only a single prototype was ever constructed, was comprised of the turret of a British Challenger tank sitting atop a much larger chassis. The TOG1 and 2 were both 80-ton tanks designed to cross the same kinds of cratered and muddy fields of northern Europe that made mobility all but impossible on the Western Front of the First World War. The British planned super tanks of their own, and fairly early in the war. It was rediscovered in 1974 and would go onto to be exhibited at Kentucky’s Patton Museum of Cavalry and Armor. One was dismantled after VJ Day, the other abandoned in a depot on a stateside U.S. Only two of the tanks were ever built and neither of those were constructed in time for the end of the war. Due to its immense size, it had a top speed of just 8 mph and an impractical range of less than 20 miles. Without a rotating turret, the T-28 was more like a self-propelled gun or a tank destroyer than a conventional tank. Also known as the T-95 105-mm Gun Motor Carriage, the T-28 was 36 feet long (10 feet longer than the King Tiger) and weighed nearly 100 tons. The Allies also hoped the T-28 would take part in Operation Downfall, the invasion of Japan. The T-28 (see picture at the top), designated the Super-Heavy Tank in 1946, was originally planned to plow through fixed German defences like the Siegfried Line, while also making short work of the King Tiger. Amazingly, the M6 itself might easily have been crushed under the treads of an even more ambitious tank being planned the United States. The only vehicles the M6 would ever go up against were ordinary automobiles - in the final year of the war M6s thrilled crowds by crushing old cars at War Bonds fundraising drives. The 27-foot long, 57-ton machine carried a crew of five and featured two main guns: A 76-mm and a 37-mm. The American M6 supertank might have rivalled the King Tiger had it been produced in large enough numbers to see service in World War Two. Yet the Sherman wasn’t the heaviest tank the United States was working on during World War Two - not by a long shot. ![]() Compare that with the approximate 7,500 Panthers and Tigers produced by Germany. Between 1942 an 1945, the United States manufactured a staggering 53,000 tanks (President Roosevelt actually wanted even more built). Fortunately for the Allies, American factories could produce far more Shermans than the Germans could Panzers. While the 30-ton M4 Sherman may very well be the United States’ most famous tank of the Second World War, it was smaller and largely inferior to German models like the Panther or the Tiger I and II. The M6 Supertank would have been a match for the King Tiger. Here are a few of the ‘super tanks’ that were in the works. A true giant, the Tiger II would actually have been dwarfed by even larger tanks had the war lasted long enough. Also known as the King Tiger, the new war machine carried an 88-mm main gun, had a crew of five and was protected by up to 18 cm (more than half a foot) of armour plating in some places. Within four years, Germany would be developing tanks like the Tiger II – a comparative monster of nearly 70 tons - seven times more than the earlier Mk. The 16-foot long light tank carried a paltry 20-mm main gun and weighed in at a measly 9 tons. Consider the Panzer II – the backbone of Germany’s tank corps for the invasions of Poland and France. ![]() Small, thinly armoured and under-gunned, the first tanks of World War Two were light-weights when compared to the lumbering beasts that would lurch off production lines within a few short years. TO UNDERSTAND JUST how ill-prepared the armies of the Second World War were for the scope and nature of the coming conflict, one need look no further than the tanks that rolled into battle in 1939. “Small, thinly armoured and under-gunned, the first tanks of World War Two were light-weights when compared to the lumbering beasts that would lurch off production lines within a few short years.” ![]() Amazingly, this 95-ton beast, which was fitted with a 105mm main gun, wasn’t even the smallest tank in the works. The American T-28 super tank was still in the planning stage when the Second World War ended.
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