Known as the M7 Priest to British forces due to its pulpit-like machine gun mounting, this American designed and built self-propelled gun was officially designated as the 105 mm Howitzer Motor Carriage M7.
PRIESTS INTO NORMANDY
During the Normandy landings, including onto Sword beach, Priests provided fire support both from landing craft during the assault phase and then also later onshore once landed.
As with a wide variety of vehicles, Priests were adapted with screens and wading stacks which enabled them to wade through deeper water without being swamped. I knew I just had to convert a couple of Priests to represent those used during the early hours of D-Day in the Sword beach area.
WHAT ARE MY OPTIONS?
There are, relatively speaking, a lot of options if you need a 20mm Priest or two, and I went with the Raventhorpe model from the ‘Ready to Roll’ range. I chose these having already painted up a couple of Armoured Dozers and Humber Light Reconnaissance Cars from the range. They’re quite well detailed, cheap, and didn’t need any real build time – so a winner!
THE CONVERSION
Having studied some photos of British Priests (the wading screens being different to US versions), I ordered a couple models and wading stacks, and dug out some styrene sheet.
First step was to measure out and cut the styrene and then super glue it to the resin model.
Once the 105 mm gun and MG are glued into place it’s onto painting. I used my now tried and trusted SCC15 mix, which you can read about in detail through several earlier posts:
If I was going to convert any more I would add in some more detail, stowage, rails, rivets and the like. I would probably also use the Italeri quick build kit if I was going for a more accurate model. But for a pair of models that I’ll likely only ever use for Sword games, these look close enough to the actual vehicles – especially half way across an 8 foot beach!
These two Priests are ready to join 40+ other vehicles fitted for wading including Churchills, Centaurs, Crusader AA, Universal Carriers, Sherman III’s, Sherman ARV, Sherman BARV, Sherman Vc Firefly and M10c Achilles.
So there we have some arty support for my British troops landing on Sword. Can’t wait to get them out and into the action later this week!
WARGAME DESPATCHES 
Awesome conversions. Wading Priests are a rarity to see! Also, the paint job on them is great. I love the richness of the color you’ve achieved.
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Thanks Ben! Yes they’re quite rare, I’ve only 2 to field myself.
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They look as good as your others. I do like the results you get on your tanks. Not.long now!
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Cheers, very kind words. Not long at all, another late night expected this evening painting the last few figures and 3 AA tanks…!
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Very nice, Dave! 🙂 I hadn’t realised Priests had the superstructure side extensions for D-Day until I read the Osprey New Vanguard book about them. Neat work there!
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Appreciate the support from you John. They are quite distinctive, until I did some research for this conversion I didn’t know the US and British wading screens were different! Plus there seems to be quite a variety in the wading stacks used across US and British Shermans. Even to the point of some British units using the curved style and others using the squared off. Gives me a little more to try for next year! 🤣
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