By the end of July the production of Browning machine guns at all plants had reached the total of 10,000; and two months later 26,000 heavy Brownings were in the hands of the Government. In the following six weeks this production was enormously increased, the total receipts by the Government up to November 11 amounting to about 42,000 heavy Browning guns. In round numbers Westinghouse produced 30,000 of these, Remington 11,000, and Colt about 1,000. We shipped in all 30,582 heavy Brownings to the American Expeditionary Forces, 27,894 going on supply ships and the rest in the hands of 12 divisions of troops. These shipments actually put in France before the armistice was signed enough heavy Brownings to equip completely all the American troops on French soil. However, at the time these supplies were arriving the fighting against the retreating German Army was at its height, and there was no time for the troops on the line to exchange their British-built and French-built machine guns for Brownings, nor to replace their Chauchat automatic rifles with light Brownings, of which there was also an ample supply in France. A report of the Chief Ordnance Officer, American Expeditionary Forces, as of February 15, 1919, shows that, except for antiaircraft use, Vickers and Hotchkiss machine guns with troops had been almost entirely replaced by heavy Brownings on that date, and that Chauchat automatic rifles had been replaced by light Brownings. [Illustration: BROWNING EXPENDABLE CARTRIDGE BELT BOX, MARK I, MOUNTED ON A BROWNING MACHINE GUN TRIPOD, MODEL 1917.] [Illustration: BELT-FILLING MACHINE FOR BROWNING MACHINE GUN, MODEL 1917.] [Illustration: BROWNING TANK MACHINE GUN, MODEL 1919, MOUNTED ON TANK.] [Illustration: BROWNING TANK MACHINE GUN, MODEL 1919, ON BALL MOUNT, SHOWING CASING.] When the armistice was signed we had placed orders for 110,000 heavy Brownings and were contemplating still further orders. We later reduced these orders by 37,500 guns. Because the Marlin aircraft gun had performed so satisfactorily, and because our facilities for the manufacture of this weapon were large, the production of the Browning aircraft guns had not been pushed to the limit, which latter action would have interfered with the production of the Marlin gun at a time when it was most essential to obtain an immediate supply of fixed synchronized aircraft guns. Only a few hundred Browning aircraft guns had been completed before the close of the fighting. In its tests and performances this weapon had been speeded up to a rate of fire of from 1,000 to 1,300 shots per minute, which far surpassed the performances of any synchronized gun then in use on the western front.