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Date: |
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Description: | (cast on breech)
75mm Field Gun
272
Model of 1917 (British)
(plate on carriage)
75mm Gun Carriage
Model of 1917 (British)
Bethlehem Steel Co. 1918
(Finnish plate on barrel)
75 K/17
(Finnish plate on trail)
75 K/17
Lavetti No. 1493
Val. 1918
The US decided early in World War I to switch from 3-inch (76 mm) to 75 mm calibre for its field guns. Its preferred gun for re-equipment was the French 75 mm Model of 1897, but early attempts to produce it in the US using US commercial mass-production techniques failed, partly due to delays in obtaining necessary French plans, and then their being incomplete or inaccurate, and partly because US industry was not equipped to work to Metric measurements.[1] By 1917 US firms had produced 851 QF 18 pounders for export to Britain. Hence production of a 75 mm version offered a simple interim solution, being basically a copy of the British QF 18 pounder rechambered for French 75 mm ammunition, utilizing existing production capacity.[2] It remains very similar to the 18 pounder, the main visible difference being a shorter barrel with straight muzzle.
The gun was developed too late to see action in World War I.
Finnish service : Finland purchased 200 old guns from the United States for its Winter War against the USSR in 1940. They arrived too late to be used in that war but were designated "75 K/17 " and after necessary overhaul were used in the Continuation War from 1941, and many continued in use for training until the 1990s. This example came from Finland
gun | Publisher: | http://www.iwm.org.uk | Source: | Imperial War Museum | Creator: | Bethlehem Steel Company | Identifier: | http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/o... | Go to resource |
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