Which Seventy-Five?

An Ordnance Decision Game

Walter Jack Duncan A Battery Of French 75s

The year is 1919. The Great War has ended, and the far-flung elements of the American Expeditionary Forces are making their way home.

In the United States, senior leaders of the US Army are grappling with the question of peacetime organization. As the senior ordnance officer in the War Department, you are charged with advising those leaders on all matters relating to weapons and ammunition.

Clarence Charles Williams

The Protagonist

You are Major General Clarence Charles Williams, USA.

In 1894, upon graduation from US Military Academy at West Point, you accepted a commission as an artillery officer. In 1898, after service in the Spanish-American War, you transferred to the Ordnance Corps.

In the twenty years that followed, you supervised the manufacture of artillery matériel, ranging from propellants to complete artillery pieces, in a variety of factories. (Some of these were government arsenals. Others were owned by private firms.) In particular, you served at the Rock Island Arsenal, the Watertown Arsenal , and the Bethlehem steel works. In 1912, you spent six months in England studying British methods of making guns and howitzers.

Your Mission

General Peyton C. March, the chief of staff of the Army, has asked your opinion about the best field guns to issue to the peacetime military forces of the United States. Specifically, he requests that you evaluate the three 75mm field guns currently in service with the US Army in order to determine which one ought to become the standard weapon of its type.

Peyton C. March

To complicate matters, neither you nor General March know how big America’s peacetime army is going to be. General March wants a force of half-a-million regular soldiers. Others call for substantially smaller establishments.

The Guns

Some facts about the three candidates for the standard field gun of the post-war US Army can be found in the following tables.

Characteristics of the three 75mm field guns possessed by the US Army

Factories where elements of the three 75mm field guns were manufactured

Number of 75mm pieces of each type in possession of the War Department

The Problem

Using the comments section at the bottom of this article, provide General March with your recommendation and the thinking behind it. Please be succinct. General March is a busy man.

Solutions

You can find solutions proposed by readers in the comments section of this post and the author’s solution at the far end of the following link:

Which Seventy-Five? (Author's Solution)

For Further Reading:

The 75mm Guns of American Field Batteries (1917-1919)