Dieppe to Berlin: SP Guns

M7 Priest SP Gun

PHOTO: M7 British Priest Gun during the Italian Campaign, 1944

The M7 'Priest' Self-Propelled Gun consisted of the chassis of the M3 medium tank with an open-topped superstructure into which the standard field artillery 105-mm (4.1-in) Howitzer M2A1 was mounted. The gun mount was a modification of the field equipment split trail bolted to the vehicle deck. Elevation and traverse were somewhat restricted by the manner of mounting.

To the right of the fighting compartment was a high 'pulpit' in which a 0.5-in (12.7-mm) Browning machine-fun was mounted for AA defense: it was this structure which led to the vehicle being nicknamed Priest by British troops who crewed the lend-lease M7s.

PHOTO: M7 Priest with desert camouflage

The British Purchasing Mission in the US requested 5500 M7s, to be delivered by the end of 1943. This total was never reached, but the first production vehicles were sent to the British 8th Army in Egypt and first saw action at the Battle of Alamein in October 1942. They remained in use with British troops into the Italian campaign, being eventually replaced by the 25-pdr SP Sexton equipment. It remained in service with US forces until replaced by the M37 in 1945.

In 1944 the design was changed, the chassis of the M4A3 medium tank being used as the basis. These models were known as M7B1. Small numbers were produced with the horizontal volute (spiral) spring suspension and 58-cm (23-in) wide track of the M4A3E8 tank; these were known as M7B2.

PHOTO: Bdr. L.A. Boyle, Gunner H.W. Embree and Gunner L. Armstrong, 14th Field Regiment, RCA, seating on a Priest self-propelled gun in Normandy, 20 June 1944