David Fletcher's British Battle Tanks describes influential officers expecting a return to fortified trench warfare between the Maginot and Siegfried lines. Albert Stern assembled the Special Vehicle Development Committee, whose veteran designers became known as the Old Gang and gave the TOG tanks their name. It remains unclear whether Stern chiefly imposed the project on the authorities or received an invitation and official encouragement. The committee included former Director of Naval Construction Eustace Tennyson d'Eyncourt, bringing naval design experience back into tank work. Germany's rapid advance through France overtook the intended trench-breaking role. Work continued for possible engineering lessons, although the reading questions the justification for pursuing the project after its original requirement had disappeared.
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The Old Gang's trench-breaking TOG tanks
The TOG program reunited First World War tank designers around a huge trench-crossing vehicle whose assumptions and transmissions were overtaken by mobile war.