It may be said we were thoroughly impressed with the difficulties attached to the transplanting to this country of the manufacture of French 75-millimeter recuperators. It was a question whether this device could possibly be built by any except the French mechanics trained by long years in its production. At first it seemed that we could secure no manufacturer at all who would be willing to assume such a burden. Not until February, 1918, were complete drawings and specifications of the recuperator received from France. At length the Singer Manufacturing Co., builders of sewing machines, consented to take up this new work, and on March 29 the company contracted to produce 2,500 recoil systems for the 75-millimeter gun carriages. In April, 1918, the Rock Island Arsenal was instructed to turn out 1,000 of these recuperators. [Illustration: TWO VIEWS OF THE FRENCH 75-MILLIMETER GUN. This type of gun has been used by the French Army since 1897, and was the gun most used by the Allies in the Great War. This gun throws a shell weighing 12.3 pounds a distance of 8,400 meters or shrapnel weighing 16 pounds a distance of 9,000 meters. The weight of the gun and carriage is 2,657 pounds. The service muzzle velocity of the shell is 1,805 feet per second, while for shrapnel it is 1,755 feet per second.] [Illustration: THE 75-MILLIMETER FIELD GUN, MODEL 1917 (BRITISH). This gun throws a shell weighing 12.3 pounds a distance of 8,300 meters, and 16 pounds of shrapnel a distance of 8,900 meters. The weight of the gun and carriage is 2,887 pounds. Its muzzle velocity for shell is 1,750 feet a second and for shrapnel 1,680 feet a second.] The production of gun bodies for the 75-millimeter units was quite satisfactory. The Bethlehem Co., the Wisconsin Gun Co., the Symington-Anderson Co., and the Watervliet Arsenal were the contractors who built the gun bodies. Gun bodies of three types, but all of the same 75-millimeter bore, were ordered--the American type (the modified 3-inch gun), the British type (the modified 3.3-inch gun), and the French type. Our ordnance preparation would have given us enough 75's for the projected army of 3,360,000 men on the front in the summer of 1919, together with appropriate provision for training in the United States. Of the 75's built in this country, 143 units were shipped to the American Expeditionary Forces before the armistice went into effect. Meanwhile the French had delivered to our troops 1,828 units of this size. The total equipment of 75's for our Army in France from all sources thus amounted to 1,971 guns with their complete accessories.