David Fletcher looks at the history of the M44 self-propelled howitzer
Cardinal. Who’s heard of that? I came across it in a photograph the other day and on closer inspection, Cardinal turned out to be the British name applied to the M44 self-propelled howitzer, which was quite well-known in its day. Of course, Cardinal fits in with the other names given to selfpropelled guns in British service such as Bishop, Abbot or Priest for instance.
An M44 used to be exhibited in the Royal Artillery Museum at Woolwich and is probably now in store pending transfer to a new location, while there are others preserved in Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Spain and Greece and there are any number on display in the US, as you’d expect.
Its origins go back to January 1946 and the deliberations of the Stilwell Board. Over the next few months, a number of new ideas were put forward resulting in a replacement for the 155mm Howitzer Motor Carriage M41 built on a modified M24 (Chaffee) Light Tank chassis.
When T99 first appeared in 1951 it featured the 155mm gun (fitted with a muzzle brake in those days) with all-over cover for the fighting compartment and powered by the Continental AOS-895-3 engine, a six-cylinder oppo…
