"GMC M12: King Kong on Tracks " Topic

"One of the best weapons of French origin adopted by the US Army in WWI was the 155 mm GPF cannon, designed by Captain Filloux in 1917. The gun had a simple, easy to service, reliable, and effective recoil mechanism, a significant horizontal aiming arc, and a long range. However, the GPF was fairly heavy. It was no accident that it was one of the first candidates for an SPG.

In 1919, ten Gun Motor Carriage Mk.II SPGs were built with the M1917 gun (that was the index given to French GPF guns) installed on an unarmoured chassis of a Holt tractor. These vehicles did not fight, but improvements continued. The modernized Gun Motor Carriage Mk.IX was tested in 1925. However, work on SPGs stopped in the USA for the next 15 years. The conservative top brass in the artillery branch opposed any such work. They had different arguments for this, both economical (the SPGs were rather expensive) and tactical. Towed guns were smaller than SPGs and were easier to camouflage. In the case of a breakdown, the SPG became completely useless, while a towed gun just needed a new tractor…."

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I always liked the Matchbox kit of the M40, although it needed some crew figures.