My oldest brother was in the Marine Corps in the mid ‘70’s and trained as an artillery officer.
He said the 105’s they fired had manufacturing dates from 1939 stamped on them.
Was it true that when the USS Missouri was recommissioned for the Gulf war that the 16” shells were vintage WWII? Thought I had read that somewhere.
When I was a Mech Infantry Platoon Leader in 1975, the 90 mm recoiled rifle in my platoon had the serial number of 00007. That’d right, four zeros before the 7.