[quote="Eugen]BTW, do you know dates of arrival of this weapons? The only mention I was able to find is "September 1940" - which is certainly not enough. And according to this -
http://www.nzetc.org/tm/scholarly/tei-WH2Arti-c1-3.html - NZ gunners received 75-mm "French guns" (certainly US made) at the end of July
[/quote]
Hi Eugen, LWD covered part of this, I'll add what addtional details I have been able to find.
US War Department sales for cash during 1940 totaled 1,095 75mm guns broken down as:
200 M1917 to Finland
395 M1917 to the UK
500 M1897 to the UK
The Anglo-Allied request for purchase was made 21 May 1940 and the War Deprtment acknowledgement declaring the first 500 guns surplus (so eligible for sale) was on 22 May and another 100 were declared surplus by 3 June. The full 'bill of sale' was completed 11 June, so they were available for shipping from that date.
By September I've so far run into mention of at least four 75mm guns emplaced in beach defenses and as we've seen a number of Commonwealth field regiments and batteries had already been issued them:
55 Field Regiment (14 – 75mm)
142 Field Regiment (10 - 75 mm)
96 Field Regiment (12 - 75 mm guns)
5th NZ Field Regiment, E and F Battery (8 - 75mm each)
But of course as 25-pounder became available many of the 75mm were re-issued, first to the 'Home Counties' brigades and later divisions and then to the Home Guard. However, a fair number of them may have been shipped to Egypt, since the 75mm shows up there in the Western Desert as well. I'll check but I believe some arrived there as early as November or December of 1940, evidently coming from England?
The point is that they only needed to be a stopgap to fill the minor shortfall between new production of 25-pounders and the losses sustained in France. Thanks for the reminder about Nigel's wonderful site, we know that the numbers of artillery in the UK as of the end of May 1940 were:
126 18-pdr
269 18/25-pdr
90 25-pdr +252 produced June-September = 342
So 737 total field guns, sufficient for 30 regiments with a small reserve of 17 pieces. That's enough to fully equip 10 divisions. Now a quick check shows there were just 17 regular regiments in the UK at that time, plus 5 RHA, while there were 82 TA, so 104 regiments to be equipped and a requirement for 2,496 pieces in total. That of course amounts a minimal shortfall of about 864 guns to WE, even if we add in the 895 US guns.
321 4.5-inch howitzer
14 60-pdr guns (being converted to 4.5-inch)
5 4.5-inch/60-pdr guns (converted)
94 6-inch howitzer
There were something like 27 medium regiments formed, so a requirement for 432 pieces. The 434 available were just sufficient, especially when the production of June-September is added in.
20 6-inch gun
14 8-inch howitzer
39 9.2-inch howitzer (siege)
29 12-inch howitzer (railway and siege - note that 10 of these are accounted for with XII Corps)
There were some 12 heavy regiments to man these pieces and to supplement personnel manningthe coast defenses.
Later, Lend-Leased 75mm totaled 230 guns, all M1916, 170 to the UK and 60 to other minor nations. Since those were Lend-Lease rather than Cash-and-Carry, I expect the earliesr that shipments could have reached the UK was after March 1941.
