during the first world war, America looked to imporove its tank core. Having no prior heavy armour corps they looked too Euroupe, in search of armour to buy. With Britain and France being the two main allied super powers which had the best armour at the time, the US set their sites on them. The Americans experimented with the British mark IV Heavys and French FT tanks, and decided to purchase the FT models from France. However, France was spread too thin at the time and so a contract was written between the two countries, in which the Americans would has a license to produce FT tanks in the US. The American model was dubbed the "Light Tank Model 1917", and 4000 were ordered, and went into production in april 1918
| type | Light Tank |
|---|---|
| country | United States Of America |
| crew | 2(driver and gunner) |
| Main armament | 37mm m1916/Marlin Rockwell m1917 machine gun or Browning 50 |
| Secondary armement | n/a |
| Engine | Buda HU modified 4 cylinder |
| Max speed | 8 km/h or 5.5 mph |
The M1917 saw no operational uses during the first world war, and was mainly planned to be used by the Americans if the war had continued onto 1919. The US already had tanks loaned to them by Britain and France mainly the Renault FT and the Mark V landship, so they had little space to employ their armour. When the Light tank did see service, it suffered from similar issues that the FT did. one such issue was that when the tank would cross barbed wire, it had tendencies to have the wire wrap around the track and the drive mechanism, causing the tank to become stuck.
The M1917 saw a lot of the homefront however, and was used to promote the sale of warbonds to the public in parades. During the deppression in America and the prohibiton war, the tanks were used to show the governments strength in fighting the illigal sale of alchohol. They were used to drive over the contraband items, and were even used to "blow up" the confiscated alchohol.