Review Bolt Action Priest SPG

The 105 mm Howitzer Motor Carriage M7 was nicknamed Priest by the British Army because of the pulpit-like structure for the auxiliary machine gun.

The Warlord Games model comes in three beautifully shaped resin pieces, the hull and each track. There was very slight distortion of the tracks which were adequately straightened when they were superglued to the hull. Flash was absolutely minimal.

The guns, pulpit and a few other bits and pieces were metal: again flash was minimal and it all fitted together easily.

The model comes with three American crew: a loader, a commander leaning on the pulpit and a man with a walky-talky - that's showing my age!

As I wanted to use the SPG in my British Army I replaced the head of the loader, and the upper torso of the commander using a British armoured commander model.

The only issue I had is that the release-agent on the resin parts is rather fierce and I should have cleaned the model more thoroughly before undercoating.

In the Pacific, the Priest was preferred to the Sherman by US Marines as a direct fire bunker-buster because of the greater explosive power of the 105mm gun. The Japanese lacked effective anti-armour weapons, making such a tactic viable with such a lightly armoured vehicle.

A great model: highly recommended.