You will probably be interested in seeing the first part of this section (part 2) of my interview with the Panzermuseum Director, in which we kick off the discussion with the German reaction to the Allied invention of tanks. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFGZV-PDbWM

The bottom line is that there were two immediate reactions.

1. “Huh. The allies have a new toy. Doesn’t seem to be doing very much, kind of breaking down a lot, and we’re generally knocking out the ones which don’t. The lines are generally holding.”
2. “We are working on this new stormtroop concept which is holding great promise. We are probably better off keeping with this.”

Both of these reaction were correct, as far as it went. The early allied attempts to use tanks were indeed generally unimpressive, it would not be until Cambrai that the British really were able to demonstrate usage. The Stormtroop concept did indeed work at breaking the Allied defenses. And the Germans had better things to do with their steel than muck about with vehicles which didn’t seem to have much going for them, such as build U-Boats. As a result, they only made a few A7Vs, mainly for the experiment. The vehicles themselves were actually rather impressive, technologically, being based off a planned transport vehicle. Today we look at them and laugh as 20-man monstrosities, but it wasn’t as if the Mark IV was much better. (The Marks were better at trenches, the A7V better at other terrain).

It was only in the last year of the war that the Allies started demonstrating the real potential of tanks, at which point the Germans decided to re-assess their dismissal of tanks in the priority of things, and a large number of LKs were ordered, with deliveries to start in 1919. Of course, that would never happen. The LK was eventually sold to Sweden, and saw service as the fM/21. As tanks of the time went, it really wasn’t bad, see my tour here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8i638eL7drU