The 4.7-inch gun M1906 (initially the M1904) was designed and issued by the US Army Ordnance Department beginning in 1906, with the first units receiving the weapon in 1911. It was of the field gun type. It was one of very few pre-war US artillery designs selected for wartime production in World War I, although (as with most of these projects) few of these weapons were delivered to France and used in action. A combination of a limited pre-war munitions industry, the short (19-month) US participation in the war, technical problems with large-scale production, and the ready availability of munitions overseas led to this.