Matthew from the American Heritage Museum at Hudson, Massachusetts, here gives an excellent introduction to the first American produced tanks, the M1917, a U.S. licensed copy of the French Renault FT, a compact World War I tank that pioneered the classic turreted layout still used today. The US Government placed an order for 4,440 tanks to be built, but only 950 were produced before the order was cancelled. A handful of them arrived in France just after the Armistice.
Regarding the few examples that were received at Bourg in November 1918, I ran across one account where a tanker was stunned to find that bullets would pass right through the (presumably) armored plates, expressing horror at the idea of sending soldiers into combat inside such contraptions. Obviously, he did not know that the plates were made from unhardened (mild) steel. Those machines were useful for familiarization, but that was it.
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