When the first tanks finally arrived, the tank crews quickly got to grips with their new vehicles. “Unless I get some tanks soon I will go crazy for I have done nothing of any use since November and it is getting on my nerves,” writes an impatient Patton in a letter to his wife.Ī tank corps without tanks, Patton’s men instead trained with wooden mock-ups, learning how to work their guns in the FT’s confined turret. Rockenbach and Patton faced a massive challenge getting the Corps into action. In December 1917, Colonel Samuel Rockenbach was placed in command of the still tankless U.S. Patton also shaped the Army’s tank strategy, writing a highly detailed report on how to best deploy tanks. Patton admired the FT’s speed, mobility, maneuverability, and its ability to knock over small trees. It wasn’t blazing fast, but it could provide mobile firepower wherever, whenever. Designed to be supported by infantry, the FT reached top speeds at around 6mph. The FT was a two-man light tank, the first to incorporate a turret which could rotate 360-degrees, armed with a 37mm cannon.

Patton and his men began training with the French Renault FT. Patton pushed hard for his assignment to the Tank Corps and was eventually ordered to establish a light tank school to train the first generation of American tankers. Patton standing next to a FT tank, summer 1918. Tank Corps, while in the U.S., Captain Dwight Eisenhower helped create the U.S. In France Captain George Patton worked hard to assemble the U.S. Two men, who would go on to become major figures during the next world war, began fitting this new battlefield beast into the U.S. were interested in combining the British heavy and French light tank doctrines into one force, using them to punch through an enemy’s frontline. In the spirit of cooperation, Britain and France shared tank designs, and the U.S. Seeing the metal monster in action, Pershing ordered the formation of an American tank corps before the end of 1917.

Even before the American Expeditionary Force arrived in France, General Pershing took a liking to the tank. Most American military observers were unimpressed but some officers felt differently. The British had only debuted their heavy tanks in September 1916, during the Battle of the Somme, and it would be another six months before these tanks delivered an impressive breakthrough at the Battle of Cambrai. entered World War 1 in April 1917, they had little idea of the tank’s potential. tank owes much to the French and British. Much like the beginning of its sidearms and rifles, the early U.S.

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