Editing American WWII Military Equipment (section)

==Artillery and AT Guns==
The Americans used five sizes of artillery in the war.  Most of these came in both gun (long) and howitzer (short) configurations.  Self propelled versions of virtually everything were attempted, but only a few designs actually reached the field in WW2, although more would see action in Korea and Vietnam.  

* '''75mm''': The 75mm field gun was an obsolete holdover from WW1, but it was still around at the start of the war.  It was much more useful in its howitzer configuration, which was designed from the ground up for light infantry working in rough country.  Both versions were pretty easy to mount on halftracks.  The M8 (built on the M5 light tank design) used one of these as its main gun.

* '''105mm''': The main size for artillery that advanced with armor and infantry; the 105 was pretty much only used in the howitzer configuration, although long AT versions were tested.  The normal configuration was a towed howitzer pulled by a halftrack, but a minimum weight version for gliders and jeeps was also made.  The first self-propelled versions were halftracks but by the time of Normandy the main mobile version was the M7 Priest.  

* '''155mm''': The working size for divarty.  Confusingly, the US had four different 155mm systems, two each in howitzer and long gun configurations; the older two being knockoffs of French WW1 designs, and the newer pair being post-war redesigns.  Most of these were were towed, but both long gun versions received self-propelled designs (M12 & M40) during the war.  The army really wanted a mobile version of the howitzer, but after having accepted hasty, compromise designs like the M7, they wanted this one to be on the latest tank chassis (the Chaffee) which wasn't ready in time.  The units that were made went on to serve in Korea.

* '''203mm''': The America's entry in the artillery dick-swinging contest, a cruiser sized naval gun on a trailer.  Of the long gun configuration, only 139 were made, and they were kept together in dedicated battalions and sent wherever someone needed armored fortifications cracked.  The howitzer was more common; about a thousand were made and were put in units alongside the 155mm.  These were still serving into Vietnam and even had nuclear shells.  The last spare 203mm barrels were converted into bombs and used in a last minute effort to hit Saddam's bunker in 1991. They were bored out to make bunker busters and when the planes had taken off the explosives inside hadn't even cooled yet, making this probably one of the fastest successful weapon tests in history. One was tested without explosives just a bit off the factory, one missed and exploded and the third one hit a bunker and killed everyone but Saddam was not there.  

* '''240mm''': This monster howitzer was a relic of WW1, but the US made a few hundred new ones just because they still had plenty of shells... or rather, 350 pound bombs that don't need planes.  Like the long 203's, the 240's were mostly kept together as independent battalions and sent wherever they could contribute.  A dozen 240's were brought back for Korea until they ran out of shells. The first shot in Korea was fired at a highly fortified hill called the donut and was intended to be ceremonial, but instead directly impacted on an ammo dump and blew the top of the hill apart. Taiwan keeps them in service on some of the outlying islands to shell as many incoming PLA transports and troop concentrations until ammo goes out.