By May, 1918, the first 12 divisions of American troops had reached France. They were all equipped with Hotchkiss heavy machine guns and Chauchat automatic rifles--both kinds supplied by the French government. During May and June, 11 American divisions sailed, and the heavy machine-gun equipment of these troops was American built, consisting of Vickers guns. For their light machine guns these 11 divisions received the French Chauchat rifles in France. After June, 1918, all American troops to sail were supplied with a full equipment of Browning guns, both of the light and heavy types. Part of these Brownings were issued to the troops before they sailed, and the rest upon their arrival in France. The Savage Arms Corporation built nearly 6,000 Lewis guns of the ground type before diverting their manufacture to the aircraft type exclusively. On May 11, 1918, this concern had built 16,000 Lewis guns for the American Government, of which more than 10,000 were for use on airplanes. By the end of July the company had turned out 16,000 aircraft Lewis guns, not to mention 6,000 of the same sort which it had built and supplied to the American Navy. By the end of September we had accepted over 25,000 Lewis aircraft guns. On the date of the signing of the armistice approximately 32,000 of these guns had been completed. By the first of May, 1918, the Marlin-Rockwell Corporation had turned out nearly 17,000 Marlin aircraft guns with the synchronizing appliances. Thirty days later its total had reached 23,000. On October 1 the entire order of 38,000 Marlin guns had been completed, and the company began the work of converting its plant into a Browning factory. On May 1, 1918, the Colt Co. had delivered more than 2,000 Vickers guns of the ground type. Before the end of July this output totaled 8,000, besides 3,000 Vickers guns which were later converted to aircraft use. In addition the Colt Co. had undertaken another machine-gun project of which nothing has been said before. This concern had completed manufacture of about 1,000 Vickers guns for the Russian government. At this time the aviators at the front began using machine guns of large caliber, principally against observation balloons and dirigible aircraft. The allies had developed an 11-millimeter Vickers machine gun for this purpose, which means a gun with a bore diameter of nearly one-half inch. The Ordnance Department undertook to change these Russian Vickers guns into 11-millimeter aircraft machine guns. This undertaking was successfully carried through by the Colt Co., which delivered the first modified weapon in July and had increased its deliveries to a total of 800 guns by November 11, 1918.