When they purchased state-of-the-art fieldguns from Rheinmetall in 1902, and then started to build them in their country under license (‘3-in Field Gun M1902’), the USA were obviously intending to get experienced with the technology, in order to improve it and design their own gun. As per this plan, engineering of a brand new 3 inches fieldgun began in 1912, and the future weapon already received a ‘model of 1916’ name, corresponding to the aimed completion date.

Unhopefully, with a specification gathering all of the best practices from these times (recoil system, quick-action breech, split tail, etc...), the design is a very ambitious task... too ambitious ? As a consequence, design mistakes are happening, the engineering is laborious, and moreover the collaboration with the Army is insufficient, so that in 1916, there are still a lot of unsolved issues that prevent this gun from being industrialized... Another year will be needed to fix them and launch the manufacturing, only to realize that this weapon was so sophisticated and complex that it was almost impossible to manufacture, and that numerous modifications were still needed !

Meanwhile, the USA was engaged in the WW1, and were equipped with performant 75mm French fieldguns (an this gave way to a request to change the caliber of the unlucky 3-inch FieldGun M1916 into a ‘75mm FieldGun M1916’, inducing new delays...), and no-one had really a lot of time to sacrify to this badly born gun, that never took part to the war. Finally built after the end of WW1, its performances were quipe disappointing, and it will not participate to the WW2 neither !

Main characteristics :

• Weight in firing position : 1380 kg
• Calibre : 75 mm
• Tube length : 28.4 calibres
• Projectile weight : 6.12 kg
• Initial velocity : 600 / 630 m/s
• Maximum range : 8800 / 11400 m
• Elevation range : -5 / +53 degrees
• Direction range : 45 degrees