>>7402352Since I talked about british tanks, I think it's only fair to talk about french tanks too, as they turned out to be extremely important and influencial overall.
France had the idea of making tanks at around the same time as the UK, as the two countries were already sharing a lot of information. Immediatly, the french government tasked a few companies to create tanks of their own. They asked big companies specialized in warship and locomotives production to come up with something quickly. They went the same way as the UK, using the american tractor as a base. But instead of making a whole new track system for their tanks, they simply copied it and built a big metal box surrounding the whole thing, fit a gun and a couple of machineguns inside and called it a day. This tank was the Schneider CA1. Being very small and quickly put together, it was not really great: like british tanks, it was very slow, broke down all the time, and fighting inside one of it wwas an absolute nightmare. But this was a first step that proved the concept. 100 of these were ordered by the french government. In the meantime, a competing company to Schneider called FAMH was working on a competing project. This one too used the american tractor, but tried to lenghthen the tracks just a bit so they could make the tank longer. They wanted to fit a fully fledged artillery piece inside of it too, in order to outgun Schneider's design. But this turned out to be more of a mistake than anything: requiring lots of space, installing this gun inside the tank meant there was a huge overhang at the front and the back. In turn, this overhang meant it was terrible on uneven ground, and could easily get stuck. Nevertheless, they proposed this tank, and with the support of a french general that was in support of the project, it was accepted too under the name «Saint-Chamond», the name of the city where FAMH was located. Another 100 of these were ordered.
(pic related is a CA1)
