M7 Priest

1. Lead

The M7 Priest was the United States Army’s self-propelled 105 mm howitzer of the Second World War, and the most widely used self-propelled gun of the Western Allies. Built on the chassis of the M3 Lee medium tank, and later on the chassis of the M4 Sherman, the M7 mounted a 105 mm M2A1 howitzer in an open-topped, lightly armoured superstructure, and it gave American and British armoured divisions a mobile artillery piece that could keep up with the tanks, fire in support of the infantry, and move again before the enemy could reply.

The vehicle was nicknamed “Priest” by the British, because the pulpit-like machine-gun ring on its superstructure resembled a preacher’s pulpit, and the name stuck — so firmly that the later American self-propelled guns were also given ecclesiastical nicknames, the M12 “Bishop”, the M37 “Deacon”, and the M44 “Cardinal”.

About 4,267 M7s were built between 1942 and 1945, and they fought in North Africa, in Italy, in Normandy and across Europe, and in the Pacific, and they remained in service, in one army or another, into the 1960s.

The M7’s story is the story of American mobile artillery: a story of a weapon designed in a hurry, built on a tank chassis that was already in production, and used, for three years, as the principal artillery piece of the American armoured division.

The vehicle was not a tank, and it was not meant to fight tanks — its armour was thin, its howitzer was a field gun, and its open top left its crew exposed to air attack and to shell fragments — but it was, in the words of one historian, “the right weapon at the right time”, and its success shaped the design of every self-propelled gun that followed it.

This article describes the M7’s background and development, its design, its variants, its operational history, its performance, its operators, its legacy and the examples that survive.

2. Key Facts

Type	Self-propelled howitzer (105 mm)
Origin	United States
Designer	Ordnance Department; American Locomotive Company
Manufacturers	American Locomotive Company, Pressed Steel Car Company, Federal Machine and Welder
In service	1942–1960s (US Army); longer with foreign armies
Produced	1942–1945; about 4,267 built
Weight	About 22.9–24.5 tons (combat weight)
Length	5.92 m (19 ft 5 in)
Width	2.87 m (9 ft 5 in)
Height	2.95 m (9 ft 8 in)
Crew	7 (commander, driver, 5 gunners)
Armour	12–51 mm (hull); superstructure 12 mm
Main armament	105 mm M2A1 howitzer; 69 rounds
Secondary armament	1 × .50-calibre M2 machine gun (pulpit ring)
Engine	Continental R975 radial petrol, 340–400 hp (M7); Ford GAA V-8 petrol, 450 hp (M7B1)
Top speed	About 39–42 km/h on road
Range	About 193 km on road
Most famous action	El Alamein, October–November 1942; Normandy, June 1944

3. Background and Development

The need for mobile artillery

The M7 was born of the American Army’s experience in the 1940–1941 manoeuvres, in which the new armoured divisions — the divisions built around the tank — found that their artillery could not keep up with their tanks. The artillery of the time was towed: a 105 mm howitzer, pulled by a truck, which had to be unlimbered, set up, and laid before it could fire, and which could not move again until the guns had been limbered and the trucks had been brought up.

The tanks, by contrast, could move at 40 kilometres per hour, cross country, and fight on the move. The Army’s solution was to put the howitzer on a tank chassis, so that the gun could move with the tanks, fire in support of the tanks, and move again at once.

The idea was not new — the Germans had built the Wespe and the Hummel, and the British had built the Bishop — but the American version, built on the M3 Lee chassis, was the first to be produced in large numbers, and it was the first to be used as the standard artillery of an armoured division.

The T32 prototype and the M7

The Army’s Ordnance Department built a prototype, the T32, in 1941, by mounting a 105 mm M2A1 howitzer on the chassis of an M3 Lee medium tank, in an open-topped superstructure. The prototype was tested in early 1942, and it worked: the howitzer could fire in all directions, the chassis could carry the gun’s weight, and the vehicle could keep up with the tanks.

The Army ordered the vehicle into production as the M7, and the first production vehicles were built by the American Locomotive Company in 1942. The M7 was rushed into service: the British Eighth Army, fighting in North Africa, needed self-propelled artillery at once, and the first M7s were shipped to Egypt in time for the Battle of El Alamein in October 1942, where they fired in support of the British infantry and tanks.

The vehicle’s debut was a success, and the Army ordered more — many more — until, by 1945, more than 4,000 M7s had been built.

The Priest nickname

The vehicle’s nickname, “Priest”, was given by the British, who received the first M7s and who noticed the pulpit-like machine-gun ring on the superstructure, which resembled a preacher’s pulpit. The name was, in the British Army’s tradition of giving ecclesiastical nicknames to self-propelled guns — the Bishop, the Deacon, the Sexton — a joke, but it stuck, and the Americans adopted it. The nickname is now the vehicle’s best-known name, and it is the name by which the M7 is remembered in every army that used it. The vehicle’s official designation, M7 105 mm Howitzer Motor Carriage, is rarely used, and the nickname has, in the words of one historian, “outlived the vehicle itself”.

The nickname also spread beyond the M7 itself. The British Army, which had a tradition of giving ecclesiastical nicknames to its self-propelled guns, called the M12 the Bishop, the M37 the Deacon, and the M44 the Cardinal, and the Americans, who had at first used only the official designation, adopted the nicknames as well. The names were a joke, but they were also a mark of affection: the soldiers who used the M7 liked the vehicle, and they gave it a name that stuck.

4. Design

Chassis and superstructure

The M7 was built on the chassis of the M3 Lee medium tank, and later on the chassis of the M4 Sherman, and it kept the tank’s engine, transmission, suspension and tracks. The chassis was 5.92 metres long, 2.87 metres wide, and the vehicle weighed about 22.9 to 24.5 tons in combat, depending on the variant.

The superstructure was an open-topped, lightly armoured box, with the 105 mm howitzer mounted in the centre, on a pedestal that allowed it to traverse 45 degrees to either side and to elevate from -5 to +35 degrees. The superstructure’s armour was 12 millimetres thick — enough to stop rifle bullets and shell fragments, but not enough to stop a tank’s gun or a direct hit from an artillery shell.

The open top left the crew exposed to air attack and to shell fragments, but it also gave them a clear view of the battlefield and allowed them to load the howitzer quickly, and it made the vehicle lighter and easier to build than a closed-top design.

The 105 mm howitzer

The M7’s main armament was the 105 mm M2A1 howitzer, the standard American field howitzer of the Second World War, firing a 33-pound high-explosive shell to a range of about 11,200 metres (about 12,200 yards). The howitzer was a versatile weapon: it could fire high-explosive shells against infantry and soft targets, smoke shells to screen an advance, and armour-piercing shells against light armour, and it could fire at a rate of about four rounds per minute, sustained, and faster in bursts.

The vehicle carried 69 rounds of ammunition, stored in racks in the superstructure and in the hull, and the crew of seven — a commander, a driver, and five gunners — worked the howitzer in a drill that was, in the words of one gunner, “a ballet, performed at speed, in a steel box”.

The howitzer’s range and power made the M7 the most effective artillery piece in the American armoured division, and its mobility made it the most useful.

Engine, speed and the pulpit

The M7 was powered by a Continental R975 radial petrol engine, of 340 to 400 horsepower, in the M7, and by a Ford GAA V-8 petrol engine, of 450 horsepower, in the M7B1, and it could make about 39 to 42 kilometres per hour on the road, and about 24 kilometres per hour cross-country.

The vehicle’s range was about 193 kilometres on the road, which gave it the reach to operate with the tanks and to return to base without refuelling. The vehicle’s most distinctive feature, apart from the howitzer, was the pulpit — the raised, armoured ring on the right side of the superstructure, which mounted a .50-calibre M2 machine gun on a circular rail, and which gave the vehicle’s commander a platform from which to observe the battlefield and to defend the vehicle against aircraft and infantry.

The pulpit was the feature that gave the vehicle its nickname, and it remains the M7’s most recognisable feature in any photograph.

5. Variants

Variant	Years	Key features	Production
M7	1942–1943	M3 Lee chassis; Continental R975 engine; 105 mm M2A1 howitzer	About 2,814
M7B1	1943–1945	M4 Sherman chassis; Ford GAA engine; 105 mm M2A1 howitzer	About 826
M7B2	1944–1945	M4 Sherman chassis; raised howitzer mount; improved ammunition stowage	About 127
Kangaroo	1944–1945	M7 with howitzer removed; armoured personnel carrier	Converted
Sexton (British/Canadian)	1943–1945	Canadian-built; 25-pounder gun on Ram/Grizzly chassis; not an M7, but the Commonwealth equivalent	About 2,150

M7, M7B1 and M7B2

The M7 was built in three main variants. The original M7, built on the M3 Lee chassis, was produced from 1942 to 1943, and about 2,814 were built. The M7B1, built on the M4 Sherman chassis, was produced from 1943 to 1945, and about 826 were built; it was faster, more reliable, and easier to maintain than the M7, because the Sherman chassis was a better design.

The M7B2, built on the Sherman chassis with a raised howitzer mount and improved ammunition stowage, was produced in 1944 and 1945, and about 127 were built; it was the last variant of the war, and it was used in the final campaigns in Europe.

The three variants were, in the words of one historian, “the same weapon, on a better chassis, again and again” — a measure of how sound the original design had been, and of how the Army improved it by improving the chassis it was built on.

Kangaroo and Sexton

In 1944, the British and Canadians converted a number of M7s into Kangaroos — armoured personnel carriers, with the howitzer removed and the superstructure fitted with seats for infantry. The Kangaroo was used to carry infantry into battle, protected by armour, and it was, in the words of one historian, “the first armoured personnel carrier in the world to be used in large numbers”.

The Canadians also built a vehicle that was, in effect, the Commonwealth equivalent of the M7: the Sexton, a 25-pounder gun on a Ram tank chassis, built in Canada and used by the British and Commonwealth forces in Italy and in Normandy.

The Sexton was not an M7, but it was the same idea — a field gun on a tank chassis — and it fought alongside the M7 in the same divisions, in the same campaigns, and with the same success.

Post-war variants

After the war, the M7 remained in service in many armies, and it was modified in various ways: some armies fitted a closed top, some fitted a different engine, and some fitted a different howitzer. The Israeli Army used the M7 in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and in the 1956 Sinai Campaign, and the South Korean Army used it in the Korean War. The M7’s long post-war career, in so many armies and in so many theatres, is a measure of how sound its basic design was: a chassis built in 1942 could still be useful in 1960, because the chassis itself — a tank chassis, built to carry a gun — had been right from the start.

The post-war M7s were also used in roles their designers had not intended. In the Israeli Army, the M7 was used as a direct-fire weapon against bunkers and buildings, and in the Korean War, the M7 was used as a mobile artillery piece in the mountains, where its mobility allowed it to move with the infantry as it fought. The vehicle’s versatility, in the hands of soldiers who knew it well, was a measure of how sound its basic design had been.

6. Operational History

El Alamein: the debut

The M7 first saw action at the Second Battle of El Alamein, in October–November 1942, where the British Eighth Army, under General Bernard Montgomery, used the M7s it had received from the United States to support its infantry and tanks.

The M7s, in the 1st Armoured Division and in other formations, fired in support of the infantry as it attacked the German and Italian defences, and they moved forward with the tanks as the battle developed, firing from new positions as the front moved.

The vehicle’s debut was a success: the M7 could fire and move, fire and move, in a way that towed artillery could not, and it gave the British a mobile artillery piece that could keep up with the tanks. The battle was a victory for the Eighth Army, and the M7’s part in it made the vehicle famous in the British Army, and it made the Americans, who had built it, confident that they had built the right weapon.

Italy and the long road north

Tunisia, Sicily and Italy

After El Alamein, the M7 fought in Tunisia, in Sicily, and in Italy, where the American and British armoured divisions used it as their principal artillery piece. In Italy, from 1943 to 1945, the M7 fought in the mountains and the towns, where its 105 mm howitzer was invaluable against German defences, and where its mobility allowed it to move from one firing position to another as the front moved.

The vehicle’s crews learned to use it in ways its designers had not intended: as a direct-fire weapon against bunkers and pillboxes, as a short-range mortar against targets behind cover, and as a tank, in emergencies, when no tank was available. The M7’s record in Italy was a record of a weapon that could do many things, and that did them all well.

Normandy and the breakout

In June 1944, the M7 took part in the Normandy landings, where the American armoured divisions used it to support the infantry as it fought inland from the beaches. The vehicle’s mobility was invaluable in the bocage — the hedgerow country of Normandy, where artillery had to move constantly to keep up with the tanks — and its 105 mm howitzer was effective against German defences, bunkers and tanks.

In the breakout from Normandy, in July and August 1944, the M7 moved with the tanks across France, firing in support of the advance, and it fought in the Falaise Pocket, in the liberation of Paris, and in the drive to the German border.

The vehicle’s crews, by then, were veterans, and they had learned to use the M7 as the Army had intended: as a mobile artillery piece, firing in support of the tanks, and moving again before the enemy could reply.

Across Europe and the Pacific

In the last months of the war, the M7 fought in the Ardennes, in the Rhineland, and in the drive into Germany, where it supported the tanks and infantry as they fought their way to the Rhine and beyond. The vehicle’s 105 mm howitzer was used against German defences, against towns and villages, and against the last German tanks, and its mobility allowed it to keep up with the rapid advance.

In the Pacific, the M7 was used by the American Army and Marine Corps in the Philippines and on Okinawa, where its 105 mm howitzer was effective against Japanese bunkers and caves, and where its mobility allowed it to move with the infantry as it fought inland.

The M7’s war ended in 1945, with the surrender of Germany and Japan, and the vehicle was, by then, the most widely used self-propelled gun of the Western Allies — a weapon that had fought in every theatre, in every campaign, and in every army that used it.

Losses and cost

The M7’s cost was paid in the lives of its crews. The vehicle’s thin armour and open top left its crew exposed to air attack, to shell fragments, and to small-arms fire, and the vehicle’s crews suffered heavy casualties in Normandy and in Italy, where the M7 was often used in direct fire, at short range, against German defences. The vehicle’s record is therefore a record of both remarkable success and remarkable sacrifice, and the men who served in the M7 — the gunners who worked the howitzer in a steel box, under fire, and who moved again before the enemy could reply — are remembered in the American and British armies as among the bravest soldiers of the war.

The M7’s casualties were heaviest in the fighting in Normandy and in Italy, where the vehicle was often used in direct fire, at short range, against German defences, and where its open top left its crew exposed to mortar fire and to snipers. The vehicle’s crews accepted that risk, because they knew that their howitzer was the infantry’s principal support, and that, without it, the infantry could not advance. The M7’s record is therefore a record of men who fought in an open-topped box, under fire, and who did so because their comrades needed them to.

7. Performance and Specifications

Specifications in full

The figures in the table below are the standard M7 figures, taken from American Army manuals and from post-war studies. The weight figure of about 22.9 to 24.5 tons is a range, because the M7, M7B1 and M7B2 differed in weight, and because the vehicle’s weight varied with the ammunition it carried.

The range figure of about 11,200 metres for the 105 mm howitzer is the maximum range with a standard high-explosive shell, and the rate of fire of about four rounds per minute was the sustained rate; in bursts, the crew could fire faster.

The armour figure of 12 to 51 millimetres is the range for the hull, with the thickest armour on the front and the thinnest on the superstructure, which was 12 millimetres thick.

Specification	M7 Priest
Weight (combat)	About 22.9–24.5 tons
Length	5.92 m (19 ft 5 in)
Width	2.87 m (9 ft 5 in)
Height	2.95 m (9 ft 8 in)
Main armament	105 mm M2A1 howitzer; 69 rounds
Maximum range	About 11,200 m (12,200 yd)
Rate of fire	About 4 rounds per minute (sustained)
Secondary armament	1 × .50-calibre M2 machine gun
Armour (hull)	12–51 mm
Armour (superstructure)	12 mm
Engine	Continental R975 (M7); Ford GAA (M7B1)
Top speed (road)	About 39–42 km/h
Range (road)	About 193 km
Crew	7
Production	About 4,267

Comparison with other self-propelled guns

Compared with the German Wespe, the M7 was larger, more heavily armed, and more numerous — 4,267 M7s against about 676 Wespes — but it was also more lightly armoured, with an open top against the Wespe‘s open top and a similar superstructure.

Compared with the British Bishop, the M7 was faster, more reliable, and more heavily armed, with a 105 mm howitzer against the Bishop‘s 25-pounder, and it was the weapon the British preferred when they had a choice. Compared with the towed 105 mm howitzer it replaced, the M7 was a revolution: the towed gun could not move with the tanks, while the M7 could, and the towed gun had to be set up before it could fire, while the M7 could fire at once.

In its own time, the M7 was the best self-propelled gun in the world, and its balance of firepower, mobility and numbers is the reason it was built in such numbers and used in every theatre.

8. Operators

The United States Army

The M7 was built for the United States Army, which operated it from 1942 until the 1960s, and which issued it to every armoured division — three battalions of M7s per division, with 18 vehicles per battalion — and to the infantry divisions that needed mobile artillery.

The vehicle’s crews were American, its officers were American, and its story is an American story: the story of an Army that built a mobile artillery piece on a tank chassis and then used it, for three years, as the principal artillery of its armoured divisions.

The M7 remained in American service after the war, in the Korean War and in the National Guard, until it was replaced by the M44 and the M52 self-propelled howitzers in the 1950s and 1960s.

Allied and foreign armies

The M7 was also used by the British Army, which received the first M7s and used them at El Alamein, in Italy, and in Normandy, and by the Canadian, Australian, New Zealand, South African, Free French, Polish and other Allied armies, which used it in the same campaigns.

After the war, the M7 was used by the Israeli Army, the South Korean Army, the Philippine Army, and many other armies that received it as military aid. The vehicle’s widespread use, in so many armies and in so many theatres, is a measure of how widely the American Army’s improvisation was shared — and of how many soldiers, in how many countries, owed their lives to a howitzer on a tank chassis, built in a hurry in 1942.

9. Legacy and Influence

The first modern self-propelled gun

The M7’s legacy is the self-propelled gun itself. The M7 was the first self-propelled gun to be produced in large numbers and used as the standard artillery of an armoured division, and its success proved that artillery could be mobile, that it could keep up with the tanks, and that it could fire in support of the tanks and move again at once.

The self-propelled guns built after the war — the American M44, M52 and M109, the British Abbot, and the Soviet 2S1 — all followed the M7’s example, and they all owe their existence, in part, to the M7’s success. The M7 also proved the value of the 105 mm howitzer as a self-propelled weapon, and the 105 mm howitzer remains, in the M119 and in other guns, the standard light howitzer of the American Army today.

The human legacy

The M7 also left a human legacy. The vehicle’s crews — the gunners who worked the howitzer in a steel box, under fire, and who moved again before the enemy could reply — are remembered in the American and British armies as among the bravest soldiers of the war, and the vehicle’s nickname, “Priest”, is still remembered in every army that used it.

The M7’s story is, in the end, a story of men, not of a vehicle: of the men who designed it in a hurry, of the men who built it in factories that had never made weapons, and of the men who used it, in North Africa, in Italy, in Normandy and across Europe, to support the tanks and infantry who fought the war.

The M7’s crews, about seven men per vehicle, served in every major campaign of the Western Allies, and their names are remembered on the memorials of the armoured divisions they served in.

10. Surviving Examples

Museums in the United States and Britain

Several M7s survive in museums in the United States and Britain, and they are among the most accessible Second World War self-propelled guns a visitor can see. The U.S. Army Armor and Cavalry Collection at Fort Benning, Georgia, holds an M7, and the National Armor and Cavalry Museum holds another.

The Imperial War Museum in London holds an M7, and the Tank Museum at Bovington holds an M7B1, with its pulpit and its 105 mm howitzer. These vehicles are displayed with their howitzers, their pulpits, and their ammunition racks, and a visitor can see, at a glance, how the vehicle worked — a howitzer on a tank chassis, in an open-topped box, with a pulpit on the side — and how simple it was, for all its effectiveness.

Survivors abroad and visiting them

Outside the United States and Britain, M7s survive in museums in Canada, Australia, Israel and the Philippines, where they are displayed as part of the story of the armies that used them. The Israeli Armored Corps Memorial at Latrun holds an M7 used in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, and the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa holds an M7 used by Canadian forces in Normandy.

For anyone who wants to understand the M7, a visit to the Tank Museum at Bovington or to the U.S. Army Armor and Cavalry Collection at Fort Benning is the best introduction there is, because both museums display the vehicle with its howitzer and with the story of the men who used it — and because both museums let a visitor see, at close range, the vehicle that was, for three years, the principal artillery of the American armoured division.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the M7 Priest?
The M7 Priest was the United States Army’s self-propelled 105 mm howitzer of the Second World War, built on the M3 Lee and later the M4 Sherman tank chassis. About 4,267 were built between 1942 and 1945.

Why is it called Priest?
The British nicknamed it “Priest” because the pulpit-like machine-gun ring on its superstructure resembled a preacher’s pulpit. Later American self-propelled guns were also given ecclesiastical nicknames.

What gun did the M7 carry?
A 105 mm M2A1 howitzer, firing a 33-pound high-explosive shell to a range of about 11,200 metres. The vehicle carried 69 rounds.

Where did the M7 first see action?
At the Second Battle of El Alamein in October–November 1942, where British Eighth Army M7s supported the infantry and tanks. It then fought in Tunisia, Sicily, Italy, Normandy and across Europe.

What is a Kangaroo?
A Kangaroo was an M7 with its howitzer removed, converted by the British and Canadians in 1944 into an armoured personnel carrier, carrying infantry into battle under armour.

Where can I see an M7 Priest today?
The Tank Museum at Bovington, the Imperial War Museum in London, and the U.S. Army Armor and Cavalry Collection at Fort Benning, Georgia, all hold M7s.

Related articles

• 44M Tas Tank
• A-20 Havoc
• Balao-class Submarine

Sources

1. Wikipedia, “M7 Priest” — specifications, production of about 4,267, El Alamein, Kangaroo, Sexton.
2. Ian Hogg, British and American Artillery of World War 2 (Greenhill Books, 2002) — 105 mm howitzer and M7 performance.
3. Chris Bishop, The Encyclopedia of Weapons of World War II (Barnes & Noble, 1998) — M7, Wespe and Bishop comparison.
4. Steven J. Zaloga, M7 Priest 105mm Howitzer Motor Carriage (Osprey New Vanguard, 2000) — design, variants and service.
5. U.S. Army manuals, TM 9-732: M7 105mm Howitzer Motor Carriage (War Department, 1943) — operation and specifications.
6. The Tank Museum, Bovington — M7B1 exhibits and service history.