The need for mobile artillery support for armoured units had been identified early on, and this was realised first with the T19. This was however seen as only a stopgap, and a fully tracked vehicle was the preferred choice. It was decided to take the same 105mm M2A1 howitzer and mount it to the chassis of the M3 Medium Tank.

The height of the transmission and drive shaft through the M3 necessitated the gun being mounted quite high up, with the fighting compartment being surrounded by vertical armour plates to provide some protection to the crew. It was decided that a defensive armament would be required, and a ring for mounting a machinegun was added to a small tower on the front right corner. Eventually, production would switch over to using the M4 hull, and additional ammunition storage was fitted.

The M7 Howitzer Motor Carriage would first see combat with the British at El Alamein, who would call it the Priest. It would serve on all fronts with the Western Allies, although would be quickly superseded in British use due to logistical reasons. They were an extremely successful design that stayed in US service through the Korean War, with other nations such as Israel and Germany using it into the 1960's. Our M7 HMC was made by max3dd, Stubbfan and Matt Baker.

Following on from his work updating Rad's venerable 40mm Bofors model, Seth Soldier also went on to produce one of the many variants that were used by the Finns. The main difference that you will notice is with the reflector sights. There were many licensed manufactures of the Bofors, and as such there was much variation in the types of gunsights fitted to them. The type that we have gone with is probably a variant of the original model chosen by Bofors, and was used by Finland and Hungary. A simpler version of this sight was also used by the Belgians, French, British, Finnish and the Polish.

M7 HMC
Class: Self Propelled Artillery
Speed: 39 km/h
Armament: 105 mm M2A1 Howitzer
M2 Browning .50 Cal

40 ItK/35 B
Class: AA Gun