M-12

Great photo mate

The 155 mm Gun Motor Carriage M12 was a U.S. self-propelled gun developed during the Second World War. Only 100 were built; 60 in 1942 and a further 40 in 1943. It mounted a 155 mm gun M1917, M1917A1 or M1918 M1, depending upon availability, a weapon derived from the nearly identical French 155 mm GPF gun of World War I vintage. The M12 was built on the chassis of the M3 Lee tank (some sources claim that later M12s used the M4 Sherman chassis, but this might be a confusion with the M12's use of "Sherman-style" bogie trucks with trailing idlers). It had an armored driver's compartment, but the gun crew were located in an open topped area at the back of the vehicle. An earth spade (similar to a bulldozer blade) at the rear was employed to absorb recoil. This layoutlarge gun mounted in an open mount at the rear, with a spadewas the pattern adopted for many years by other heavy self-propelled artillery.