75mm Artillery

[Doug Knight]

Hi
According to the Dept of Munitions and Supply history, Canada manufactured 75-mm shells for the Americans following the Lend-Lease agreement. War Supplies Limited, a Crown Corporation whose function was to sell Cdn supplies to the US, secured orders for 700,000 rounds of 75-mm AP shot and 1,000,000 rounds of 75-mm shell. The shells were of US design and inspected by the Inspection Beard of the US and Canada.
As far as actual production goes, I have several references from files in the National Archives – they are not necessarily consistent.
As of 15 April 1942, 1,000,000 rds of QFHE empty shells on order with 643,000 produced, 700,000 empty smoke shells on order with 129,000 produced, 700,000 AP shot on order with 2,000 produced, 2.4 million cartridge cases ordered with 2.393 million produced.
The 75-mm HE round consisted of the HE Shell M48, Cartidge case M18, M22A3 or M31A2 primer, and an M48 or M54 fuze. It will chamber in the French M1897 gun (the “French 75”), the American 75-mm M1897, M1917 field guns, and the M2 tank gun on the M3 Lee/Grant tank and the main gun on the M4 Sherman – which may help explain the difficulties encountered by the Sherman with the German tanks. They also fit the aircraft guns on the Mitchell Bomber. Canada used the Sherman and we also had about 100 – not sure of the numbers – of the towed guns for training in Canada early in the war. A couple also ended up as coast defence guns and on the armoured train.
As of 30 June 1944, 1,990,000 rounds of 75-mm smoke had been produced.
Doug