Historic context :

At the beginning ot the 20th century, USA artillery industry was not performing well. Its national productions could not rival with the rapid evolutions occuring at the same time in europe, and even the materials built in cooperation with European industrials lacked the needed level of performances.

This '3 inches Fieldgun M02' is a perfect example of that situation : built by US arsenals (Ordnance Department) on the base of a design of the German company RheinMetall, who did deliver a first batch of 40 guns, the performances of that gun were really too deceiving to dare equipping 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, and the US Army faced the need of better equipments by ordering numerous foreign material, French and British.

The inheritance of this gun to the famous German 77 FK 96 n/A is evident, but several details allow to discriminate them easily, including the shape of the recoil recuperator system, the front seats or the trail. The breech is also completely different (interrupted screw type for the the US version, sliding breech block type for the German).

There is still a lot of surviving examples of this gun nowadays in USA.

Technical data :

• Complete description : 3 inches fieldgun model 1902
• Design year : 1902
• Calibre : 76.20 mm
• Weight in firing position : 970 kg
• Weight for transportation :
• Tube length in calibres : 29.20
• Grooves : 0
• Projectile weight : 6.8 kg
• Initial speed : 518 m/s
• Fire rate :
• Range : 6860 m to 8650 m (buried trail)
• Elevation range : -5 / +15 degrees
• Direction range : 8 degrees field