M6 Heavy Tank

At the outbreak of World War II the US Army possessed few tanks, and no heavy tanks. In May 1940 the US Army Ordnance Department started to work on the T1, 50-ton heavy multi-turreted tank. This was similar in concept to the Soviet T-35 and other 1930s ‘land battleship’ designs.

By October 1940, the Department reached the same conclusions of excessive size, difficulty in crew co-ordination and high production cost that had led to the abandonment of the land battleship concept in Europe.

A new T1 heavy tank design was laid down with a single turret retaining the mixed armament of the earlier design. The turret mounted a stabilized 3 inch gun with a coaxial 37mm gun with a loader and ammunition handler to keep up the rate of fire. Initially the design had six machine-guns, but this was cut to four in the production vehicles.

These were twin .50 cal machine guns in a bow mount, a fixed .30 cal machine-gun of dubious value in the front plate fired by the driver, and a .50 cal machine-gun on the commander’s hatch.

On 26 May 1942 a cast-hull T1E2 and a welded-hull T1E3 were standardized for production as the M6 and M6A1 respectively. The initial plan was to produce 5000 tanks at 250 tanks per month, but this was soon cut to a more realistic 115 tanks in the first production run starting in December 1942.

When the specifications were laid down for the M6 heavy tank it was normal for heavy tanks, such as the Soviet T-35, to follow the ‘land battleship’ model, having multiple turrets mounting a variety of guns and machine-guns. The T1 heavy tank specification featured a slightly more modern arrangement with both of its guns mounted in the same turret and its twin .50 cal machine-guns in a relatively conventional bow mounting.