The United States possessed a massive industrial infrastructure and large numbers of engineers that would allow for mass production of tanks.

Following the Chief of Infantry recommendation from May 1940, the US Army Ordnance Corps started to work on a 50-ton heavy tank design.

Four .30 caliber machine guns were to be installed in ball mounts, two in the glacis (front) plate and two in the rear corners of the hull.

The design was somewhat similar in concept to multi-turreted breakthrough tanks developed in Europe in the 1920s and throughout the 1930s, such as the 1925 British Vickers A1E1 Independent or the Soviet T-35 of the early 1930s, albeit on a much more powerful scale: the older tank designs were typically armed with a single light or medium-caliber main gun and multiple machine guns, and had armor only sufficient to protect from small arms fire.

The project was publicly disclosed in August 1940 when the Army awarded Baldwin Locomotive Works in Pennsylvania a $5.7 million contract for the production of 50 tanks.

In early 1942, the Ordnance Department set a production target of 250 a month, with Fisher as a second contractor to meet a planned expansion in the size of the army.

[6] By the end of 1942, the Armored Corps were of the opinion that the new M4 Sherman gave adequate solution for the time, while being reliable, cheap and much easier to transport and they had no need for a heavy tank.

[10] In August 1944, the Ordnance Corps recommended modifying the T1E1s to build 15 specially armored and armed tanks to meet a need for attacking heavily fortified areas.

Several toured the United States for propaganda purposes, where they gave performance displays (such as car crushing) at War Bond drives and the like.

All were eventually scrapped except for a single T1E1, which was put on display at the United States Army Ordnance Museum, Aberdeen, Maryland.