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Field ArTillery - US Army Center Of Military History

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134 THE ORGANIZATIONAL HISTORY OF FIELD ARTILLERY<br />

Tractor hauling a 4.7-inch gun to a firing position at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, in 1918<br />

progress waned, how ever, because of a lack of funds and because the designs developed<br />

were not mecha nically reliable and the weight of the larger models exceeded<br />

bridging capacities. <strong>Army</strong> leaders also did not clearly see the value of self-propelled<br />

artillery. 17<br />

Some relief appeared for the <strong>Army</strong>’s motorization program in 1933, when<br />

Congress authorized the purchase of $10 million worth of automotive equipment<br />

through the Public Works Administration (PWA). With the passage of the National<br />

Recovery Act of 1933, which was designed to help the nation recover from the<br />

Depression, the PWA was established to coordinate the work relief system. Its<br />

motorization program aided the depressed automobile industry considerably while<br />

improving the <strong>Army</strong>’s artillery. 18<br />

In 1931, the War Department had approved the organization of a truck-drawn<br />

75-mm. gun battery for testing by the <strong>Field</strong> Artillery Board, which had relocated<br />

from Fort Sill to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, in 1922. The battery used Ford trucks<br />

as prime movers. Because of a shortage in high-speed tractors and because trucks<br />

were less expensive, the use of the latter for towing all but the heaviest of guns<br />

17 Annual Rpt, CofFA, FY1922, pp. 3, 22, file 319.12, box 637, Entry 37a, RG 407, NARA; Cary,<br />

“Motor Vehicles,” Ph.D. diss., pp. 185–86.<br />

18 Annual Rpt, CofFA, FY1934, p. 4, file 319.12, box 1329, Entry 37g, RG 407, NARA; Sunderland,<br />

<strong>Field</strong> Artillery School, pp. 122–24.

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