Editing Tank (section)

====France====
[[File:American troops going forward to the battle line in the Forest of Argonne. France, September 26, 1918. - NARA - 530748.jpg|thumb|left|French [[Renault FT]] tanks, here operated by the US army, pioneered the use of a fully traversable turret and served as pattern for most modern tanks.]]

Whilst several experimental machines were investigated in France, it was a colonel of artillery, [[Jean Baptiste Eugène Estienne|J.B.E. Estienne]], who directly approached the Commander-in-Chief with detailed plans for a tank on caterpillar tracks, in late 1915. The result was two largely unsatisfactory types of tank, 400 each of the [[Schneider CA1|Schneider]] and [[Saint-Chamond (tank)|Saint-Chamond]], both based on the [[Holt tractor]].

The following year, the French pioneered the use of a full 360° rotation [[gun turret|turret]] in a tank for the first time, with the creation of the [[Renault FT]] light tank, with the turret containing the tank's main armament. In addition to the traversable turret, another innovative feature of the FT was its engine located at the rear. This pattern, with the gun located in a mounted turret and the engine at the back, has become the standard for most succeeding tanks across the world even to this day.<ref>{{cite book |last=Zaloga |first=Steven J. |title=The Renault FT Light Tank |date=1988 |location=London, UK |publisher=Osprey Publishing |isbn=978-0850458527 |page=3}}</ref> The FT was the most numerous tank of the war; over 3,000 were made by late 1918.