Artillery aficionados will refer to field artillery as the 'queen of battle', and with good reason. Artillery is used to try to destroy as much of the enemy's defenses and kill as many of the defending troops as possible before a battle. It is also used to deprive the enemy of sleep by firing short barrages at various intervals, thus making him less effective in combat. Before that, when soldiers fought in lines, it was used to decimate the closely packed soldiers in that line. However, artillery had to be moved and it was not a quick function, requiring a lot of preparation, so it was often relatively far behind the actual fighting.

What was needed was something that could be moved relatively quickly and keep up with the pace of the battle and movement of troops. This wasn't an issue during the static fighting of WWI, but WWII was different. In the US, the need was initially met by fitting 105mm howitzers into the M3 halftrack, making the US Army's first widely used GMC (gun motor carriage) or HMC (howitzer motor carrige). But the half track had difficulty handling the terrain and the fighting compartment was small, not allowing much in the way of ammunition carriage.

So the M3 and later M4 tank hulls were used to develop what later became the M7 Priest. It was pretty much what was needed. Able to handle rough terrain the same as a tank, able to keep up with troop movement and large enough to have a fairly good stowage of ammunition. It was also more robust and able to withstand the recoil of the gun.

It was a huge success, much like the StuG was for the Germans, though the role was different. It was used in all American campaigns in Europe and the Mediterranean and in the late war in the Pacific where the HMC wasn't required that much due to the different type of fighting.

The M7 was also developed by the British and Canadians into the Sexton which also used the M4 tank chassis, but mounted the British 25 pounder. The Sexton had more ammo storage and using the 25 pounder meant that the Brits did not have to carry different ammo for the HMC as for the regular towed artillery. Because the Priest batteries were not on the front lines, losses were quite small compared to the standard Sherman. The gun continued to be used post war with many being used in Korea.

Author Zaloga does his usual fine job of telling us the story of the Priest, from the original need for an HMC through the development, deployment and modification of the vehicle. This is all complemented by a superb selection of period photos as well as the art work of Richard Chasemore to bring to us a well done story of this important piece of Allied war equipment.

A great book to have on your shelf and one that you need to pick up.

August 2013

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