The 75 mm Field Gun M1897 on M2 Carriage was a field gun and anti-tank gun which was used by the US Army during the interwar period and World War II.
When the United States entered World War I on the side of the Allied Powers in 1917, it lacked sufficient arms to supply its rapidly expanding armed forces. Although the United States had been providing arms and supplies to the Allies, few of these weapons were being used to arm US forces. The few weapons that the US Army did have were often of a different caliber than British or French weapons, thus using incompatible ammunition. When the United States entered the war, the Allies had an adequate supply of arms but they were running short of manpower; since the United States had more manpower than weapons, the Allies decided it made logistical sense to use British- and French-supplied weapons to arm American forces to bring them rapidly into action rather than wait for the country's industry to catch up with its armed forces.
Originally of French design, the Canon de 75 modèle 1897 was supplied to the United States in large numbers and became the standard field gun for the US Army during World War I. The mle 1897 was a revolutionary breech-loading artillery piece that combined a Nordenfelt eccentric screw breech, fixed "quickfire" ammunition, and a hydro-pneumatic recoil mechanism. The combination of fixed ammunition, recoil mechanism, and simple breech made the mle 1897 one of the fastest-firing and most accurate field guns of its era. It had a box trail carriage with a gun shield, and two wooden-spoked steel-rimmed wheels on an unsprung axle, designed for horse traction.