At the beginning ot the 20th century, the USA were not having an powerful enough artillery manufacturing. Entering into war, the US Army had to face the insufficience of their own Artillery material in both quantity and quality, and had to order foreign material, French and British.

This '3 inches Fieldgun M02' is a perfect example of that weakness : built by US arsenals (Ordnance Department) on the base of a German Rheinmetal design (Germany previously delivered 40 guns), the performances of that gun were really too deceiving to equip the US Expeditionnary Forces in Europe battlefields.

These guns were therefore used for the homeland borders defence, and particularly during the 1916 fights at the Mexican border, but never in Europe.

One of the ways to easily recognize this gun from its German cousin 77 FK 96 n/A is the tubular shape of the front seats. The breech is also completely different (screw type for the the US version, block type for the German). There is a lot of surviving examples of this gun nowadays in USA.

Main characteristics :

• Weight in firing position : 970 kg
• Calibre : 75 mm
• Tube length : 29.2 calibres
• Projectile weight : 6.8 kg
• Initial velocity : 518 m/s
• Maximum range : 6860 / 8650 (buried trail) m
• Elevation range : -5 / +15 degrees
• Direction range : 8 degrees