World War I Tanks
- Tank Mk V & V* used by American Heavy Tank Battalion (the 301st)
- Renault FT used by American forces
- The M1917 was the U.S.'s first mass-produced tank,[2] a license-built near-copy of the French Renault FT.[2] The US Army ordered approximately 4,440 M1917s between 1918 and 1919, receiving about 950 before cancelling the contract. A requirement of 1,200 was decided, later increased to 4,400, and some sample Renault tanks, plans, and various parts were sent to the US for study. The design was to be carried out by the Ordnance Department, under the job title "Six-ton Special Tractor," and orders for the vehicles placed with private manufacturers. However, the project was beset by problems: the French specifications were metric and incompatible with American (imperial) machinery; coordination between military departments, suppliers, and manufacturers was poor; bureaucratic inertia, lack of cooperation from military departments, and possible vested interests delayed progress.
The Army in France was expecting the first 300 M1917s by April, 1918, but production had not begun by June, which forced the US to acquire 144 Renault FTs from the French. Production of the M1917 did not begin until the autumn, and the first completed vehicles emerged only in October. Two arrived in France on November 20, nine days after the end of hostilities, and a further eight in December. - M1917 – US-built copy. 950 built, 374 of which were gun tanks and fifty of which were radio tanks. During World War II the Canadian Army purchased 236 redundant M1917s for training purposes.
- The Ford 3-Ton M1918 was one of the first light tank designs by the U.S. It was a small two-man, one-gun tank, armed with a M1919 Browning machine gunand capable of a maximum speed of 8 mph. Design on the 3-ton tank started in mid-1918. The 3-Ton was a two-man tank designed so that American forces could use another tank besides the Renault FT. Its two Model T ford engines were controlled from the driver- seated at the front- with a gunner beside him who had control of a .30/06 machine gun (either an M-1917 Marlin or M-1919) on a limited-traverse mount.
A contract for 15,000 of these vehicles was awarded; however, the U.S Tank Corps felt it did not meet their requirements. The contract for the 15,000 tanks was ended after the Armistice, leaving only the fifteen original vehicles produced.