I wish they had produced it for the lend-lease. Countries like China would have loved it. the M4 medium tank was doing well in China but the soft terrain of south China and the jungle made the M5 excellent. the M7 would have been a perfect medium tank there.
Brazi too would have loved it. They chose the M3 medium tank and the M5 over the M4 mostly because of the weight, which made it less adapted to their terrain.
france as well would have loved it in Indochina.
there was a market, it was just not exploited well enough
armor might be technically better tham the shermans, because the early sherman had that rounded bit at the hull front that is only 38.1mm thick and even spaa can pen it. only the turret is a little weaker
Fun fact: a lot more than 13 M7s were made though presumably never finished
Aside from a handful of photos of the 40-odd vehicles there’s essentially no documentation on when or why they were produced nor what happened to them
Anyways +1 I’d like the M7 and T7E2 as TT and the M7E2/M7 late (M7E2 is a better name IMO) as a premium
+1 The M7 would be the perfect Light Tank to fill the gap between the M24 and the Hellcat. Depending on the situation, it could even be more powerful than the Hellcat.
+1, would have liked to see it earlier while the M24 was still rank 2 but this is still a great vehicle that deserves adding. Unique, but not unconventional.
