[dragoon500ly]

In 1939, the Medium Tank M-2 entered service at the Rock Island Arsenal, with a total production run of 18 vehicles and 94 slightly improved M-2A1 tanks. With the outbreak of War in Europe, it rapidly became apparent that the new medium tanks were obsolete, as a result, the M-2 series never saw combat service and was used stateside as training vehicles.

The M-2 design featured a large number of machine guns, bullet deflector plates and a sloped glacis plate on the hull front. It was a development of the Light Tank M-2 Series and featured the vertical volute spring suspension (VVSS) and twin-wheeled bogies and a rubber-bushed and rubber-shod track, features that would be used on the future Medium Tanks M-3 and M-4. The power plant was a Wright R975 radial gasoline engine (originally designed for aircraft).

The M-2 had a high superstructure, with a sponson-mounted machine gun in each corner. Additional machine guns were fixed in the glacis plate and were fired by the driver. On top of the superstructure was a turret mounting a 37mm M-5 cannon with a coaxial machinegun and two additional machine guns were mounted on either side of the turret for antiaircraft protection.

The crew consisted of six men (tank commander/loader, driver and four gunners). Ammunition stowage consisted of 200 rounds of 37mm and 12,250 rounds of .30-caliber.

Maximum road speed was 26mph with a cruising range of 130 miles. Combat weight was 20.5 tons.

Armor protection was thin, measuring from 13mm to 51mm. An unusual design feature was the fitting of deflector plates on the rear fenders, the idea being that as the tank crossed a trench, the rear sponson machineguns could fire on these plates and the rounds would then be deflected down into the trench or into the area behind the tank. Sadly, this feature did not work.