1897 French 75 mm

In 1898 the French army adopted a revolutionary new piece of field artillery, the Matériel de 75mm Mle 1897 or as it came to be called in English, the French 75. The gun is considered to be the first modern artillery piece because of its rapid firing system. It used a hydro-pneumatic recoil absorbing mechanism that allowed the crew of six to fire the gun repeatedly at a target without re-aiming after every shot. By the end of WWI, about 12,000 had been produced and were in use by many different armies including the British and Americans.