on 18 june 1940, united states declared an embargo against exporting weapons to any nation other than the united kingdom. optimistically, republic continued to manufacture ep-106s which, by the 24 october 1940 order, 60 were taken over by the usaac as the p-35a. the aircraft were re-armed to american standards with a pair of 0.50 in machine guns that fired through the propeller, but retained the swedish specification of a 0.30 in machine gun mounted in each wing. flight instruments were metric, and both their labeling and flight manuals written in swedish. of these, three aircraft were kept in united states as instructional airframes for mechanics. six p-35as were delivered to ecuador to form the first combat unit, the "escuadrilla de caza".