M43 Howitzer Motor Carriage

The 203 mm Howitzer Motor Carriage M43 was a United States self-propelled artillery vehicle built on a widened and lengthened Medium Tank M4A3 chassis, but with a Continental engine and HVSS that was introduced at the end of the Second World War.

History
Equipped with a 203 mm (8") Howitzer, it was designed to replace the earlier M12 Gun Motor Carriage. Its prototype designation was the T89, but this was changed to the M43 in March 1945. The M43 suspension had a load limit of 40.7 tons and a traverse speed of 22 d/s. It was first built with the Wright-Continental R-975C1 engine, but this proved not powerful enough for it to keep up with tanks, so it was changed to use the Wright-Continental R-975C4 engine, which had around 460 horsepower; 80 more than the first one. This engine weighed exactly the same as the older version, so the power to weight ratio was much improved. The first equipped radio set was the SCR 610, with an average signal range of 420m. This was not sufficient for the U.S. army, so it was upgraded to the SCR 619, with an average of 750m. This enabled the SP artillery piece to get co-ordinates and hit them much better than with the original radio, bringing out the amazing potential of this vehicle, which performed well in the Korean War.

Variants

 * 8 inch Howitzer Motor Carriage M43 - 8 in (203 mm) HMC, standardized August 1945; 48 were built.
 * The Army planned to use the same T38 chassis for a family of SP artillery.
 * Cargo Carrier T30 - a few built before cancellation in December 1944 to make more chassis' available for GMCs.

Surviving vehicles

 * one at the Fort Sill museum, OK
 * one in Wyoming, MI
 * one in American Society of Military History Museum, South El Monte, CA