Development and Production
The 75 mm pack howitzer was designed in the United States in 1920s to meet a need for an artillery piece that could be moved across difficult terrain. In August 1927, the weapon was standardized as Howitzer, Pack, 75mm M1 on Carriage M1. Due to meager funding, production rates were low; by 1940, only 91 pieces were manufactured. Only in September 1940, a year into World War II, was the howitzer put into mass production. By then, M1 was succeeded by the slightly modified M1A1. The production continued until December 1944.
The only significant changes during the mass production period were carriage improvements. The original carriage M1 was of box trail type, with wooden wheels. Requirement for a lightweight howitzer for airborne troops led to introduction of the M8 carriage, similar except new wheels with pneumatic tires. Another requirement, from the cavalry branch of the US Army, resulted in a completely different family of "field howitzer" split trail carriages M3A1 / M3A2 / M3A3. However, only limited number of the M1 in field howitzer variant were built, due to cavalry's switch to self-propelled guns.
| Wartime production of М1, pcs. | |||||||||||
| Year | 1940 | 1941 | 1942 | 1943 | 1944 | Total | |||||
| Pack howitzers, pcs. | 36 | 188 | 1,280 | 2,592 | 915 | 4,939 | |||||
| Field howitzers, pcs. | – | 234 | 64 | 51 | – | 349 | |||||
Read more about this topic: M116 Howitzer
Famous quotes containing the words development and, development and/or production:
“Such condition of suspended judgment indeed, in its more genial development and under felicitous culture, is but the expectation, the receptivity, of the faithful scholar, determined not to foreclose what is still a question—the “philosophic temper,” in short, for which a survival of query will be still the salt of truth, even in the most absolutely ascertained knowledge.”
—Walter Pater (1839–1894)
“As a final instance of the force of limitations in the development of concentration, I must mention that beautiful creature, Helen Keller, whom I have known for these many years. I am filled with wonder of her knowledge, acquired because shut out from all distraction. If I could have been deaf, dumb, and blind I also might have arrived at something.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“To expect to increase prices and then to maintain them at a higher level by means of a plan which must of necessity increase production while decreasing consumption is to fly in the face of an economic law as well established as any law of nature.”
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)