The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1919-05-14
BIG GUNS WERE READY FOR
 TANKS WHEN WAR CLOSED

Washington, May 14.-Behind the armies in France which smashed road to victory through the German defenses last Fall, the United States was forging, before the armistice was signed, weapons gigantic and pow erful, counted upon to make ultimate victory certain. In the American ar tillery program alone, the full frul- ton of which could not have been reached before 1920, there was Tn creation an agency believed by army here to be of itself able to bring the victory.
 An official and detailed account Of that program is contained in the chapters made public today of "Americas Munitions" the historical report prepared under the direction of Assistant Secretary Crowen, who was director of munitions during the war. The whole story of guns, from the 37mm. infantry cannon" with its- inch and one-haIf bore, designed for use in the front lines of combat, to the 16-inch motar on railway mount which was to work havoc on the enemy from points miles behind t6a fighting front, the story of the eX- traordinary efforts of American in dustry to equip an army with artil- lery on a scale never before attempt ed is graphically pictured. Through it all runs the same spirit of partner ship in the war enterprise between industry and the government that made possible such an undertaking.
 The chapters devoted to guns are so extensive as to make up a consid- erable volume in themselves. They contain the names and the statistical records of those firzs in the years to come.
 Among the many interesting things in the report is the account now of ficially given of the reasons that i'm pelIed the War Department to cast aside except for training purposes all of the S-inch field artillery with which the American army was equip ped when the United States entered the war, and to substitute for these weapons three types of guns fitted to take ammunition of the 75mm type employed by the French light pieces.
 There has been much controversy because of the alleged failure to adopt at the outset of the war the French 75, famous for it's perform ances in the war. as the standard American piece of this type. The re- port shows that the gun was adopted for combat purposes, but that it's production in quantity in the United States proved to be even more of a problem than the governments ex- perts had anticipated For that reason the American 3-inch gun. redesigned for 75 ammunition, and the British 3.3-inch field gun, similarly recham- bered, were both put into produc- tion in order to make use of every facility for manufacture. The Ameri- can and British type were intended primarily for training work and were so employed But the wisdom of put ting these guns into production on quantity scale is emphasized in she following paragraph:
 Tn the year and One-ha1f of our war experience the manufacturing production problems were all prac- tically solved with one exception that of building French hydr0pneu- matic recuperators for the 75mm guns. This, perhaps the hardest manufa curing job . the whole range of war industrial enterprises and nat urally the last one to come through. had not been solved when the arnjs- tice was signed However, it is only fair to state that the solution of this recuperator problem was imminent on November II, 1918"
 The recuperator is the recoi1 device which makes these French guns what they are. Their construction was a French secret and to build them there is required a degree of precision comparable only, the report states to that necessary in building as delicate an instrument as a sextant It was with difficulty that any American manufacturer was persuaded to un- dertake it. yet in April 25, 1919. 67 of these recuperators had been com pleted and 53 of these passed by French experts and accepted by the government They were the first of these devices built out of France or by other than the skilled French workmen.
 Construction of the guns them. selves and their carriages vent for ward swiftly. Under the agreements the French and British were to sup ply the first American armies with all of their field artillery and inter- mediate batteries with the exception of the powerful American 4.7 rifle and howitzer which was taken over by the troops and which proved higel- 1y effective against German field guns. The American Expeditionary Force received from the French before the armistice was signed 1928 75mm guns and TIP 155mm howitzers. They had also received from the French 216 155mrn rifles and from the Brit ish 123 S-inch howitzers with 40 92- inch howitzers completed and ready for delivery. Additional contracts were made with the British for S02 howitzers of 6-inch calibre for deliv- eryy April, 1919.
 To fill their own factories with iy1rrs for oil ', ar, 5 British were drawing heavily on American industry when the United States entered the war. These or ders were not interfered with. but on the contrary were stimulatd and expanded in order that the United States might furnish the forgings 1T trade for completed guns and at the same time create a wholly new source of supply for the bulk of it's own artillery program. The report show that between April, 1917, and the conclusion of hostilities there were supplied to the Allies forgings foI 1.1o2 guns of calibres ranging from 3-inch to 9!5-inch: additional gur