3-inch M1902 field gun


The 3-inch field gun M1902, a.k.a. M1904 and M1905, was the U.S. Army’s first nickel steel, quick-firing field gun with a recoil mechanism. Like its predecessor the 3.2-inch gun M1897, it was a rifled breechloader.

Design

The features of rifling, breech loading with fixed ammunition, and a hydraulic-spring system to absorb the gun's recoil and quickly return it to the firing position combined to improve the range, accuracy, and rate of fire of the gun compared with previous weapons, allowing it to be used more effectively in operations with infantry. These new capabilities allowed the gun to provide accurate indirect fire on targets not in a direct line of sight, which provided crucial firepower for infantry attacks. It was also one of the first US artillery guns with an armored shield to protect the crew from small arms fire. The gun fired steel, shrapnel, or explosive shells that weighed. The use of nickel steel construction meant that the M1902 could fire a heavier shell at a higher muzzle velocity and greater accuracy than any other field gun of American origin to that point. It had a muzzle velocity of with an effective range of, and a maximum range of. The maximum rate of fire was 15 rounds per minute.

Service history

This weapon replaced the 3.2-inch gun M1897 in most combat units, but both weapons remained in service until after World War I. General John J. Pershing brought several of the guns with him during the Mexican Punitive Expedition in 1916–17, but they were not fired in combat.
The M1902/5 was in service from 1905 through 1919. During World War I, the Army primarily used the French 75 mm gun instead of the M1902s, which were mostly kept in the United States for training. Although this weapon appears in World War I-era tables of organization and equipment, very few of the M1902s were used in combat in Europe. They were gradually phased out of active service in the 1920s.

Surviving examples