Barbarians at the Gate
80 years ago this month. Wartime official caption: “First American Heavy Guns to Fire into Germany, 16 September 1944. Here is a battery of American 155mm. self-propelled guns, mounted on tank chassis as they fired into the village of Bildehen, Germany, which is located six kilometers southwest of Aachen on the Liege-Aachen road. They opened the barrage with 21 rounds of high explosive shells each weighing 100–pounds.”
Note the gunner with the bag of propellant, fresh from its tube, and a system of ramps to stop recoil and help with elevation. Acme Photo by Andrew Lopez for the War Picture Pool, via Allison Collection, City of Little Rock Archives
Ironically, the guns shown above started out life as Great War era towed howitzers with spoked wheels: U.S. Model 1918M1 155mm gun, the famous French GPF (Canon de 155mm Grande Puissance Filloux) a direct copy of the C modèle 1917 Schneider.
Late in 1942, some 100 GPFs that remained in storage were mounted on the turretless chassis of the obsolete M3 Lee tank to form the M12 Gun Motor Carriage as a form of early self-propelled artillery. When teamed up with the companion Cargo Carrier M30 (also a turretless M3), which allowed them to go into the line with 40 rounds of 155mm ready, they proved popular in a niche role.
M12 Gun Motor Carriage 155mm self-propelled gun with the US 987th Field Artillery Battalion near Bayeux Normandy June 10, 1944. IWM – Laing (Sgt) Photographer. IWM B 541
155mm M12 Gun Motor Carriage sniping strongpoints along the German Siegfried Line, late 1944/early 1945. At its core, it is a French 155 from the Great War
These tracked GPFs earned the nicknames “Doorknocker” and “King Kong” in service due to their ability to pierce up to seven feet of reinforced concrete and turn pillboxes into a smokey hole in the ground– a useful thing in Northeastern Europe in 1944.
Like this:
M12 Gun Motor carriage used in direct firing mode against a fortified German position during the Battle of Aachen in October 1944.
