During World War II, the US Army developed a large number of self-propelled artillery pieces, namely the M7 Priest and the M12/M40 "Big Shot" vehicles. As these were open-topped vehicles with no protection for the crew, these vehicles would not survive on a nuclear battlefield. In 1950, the US Army issued a requirement for a replacement with a fully-enclosed "cab" for the crew, allowing them protection from nuclear blast, radiation, chemical weapons, and small arms fire. The result was the M53/M55 series: the M53 would carry the 155mm howitzer, whereas the M55 would carry the larger 8-inch (203mm) weapon. The vehicle was designed so that M53s could be converted to M55s and vice-versa with a minimum amount of modification; to save time and give some parts commonality, both were based on the M47 Patton chassis.
Because of the size of the howitzer, the cab was moved to the very rear of the vehicle, which required the drive train and engine to be moved forward. This left no room for a driver in a traditional position, so the driver was moved into the cab with the rest of the gun crew. This solved that problem and gave the driver the same protection as the gun crew, but also presented another problem: the cab could traverse 30 degrees left or right, which would leave the driver unable to see the road. A novel approach was found to solve the problem: the driver sat on a seat designed to always keep him facing forward, no matter which way the cab was pointed. Two doors were included in the back for quick reloading; they were to be closed in combat, but often the crews left them open to give them more room to move around and let fresh air into the vehicle.
The M55 performed well, but its biggest drawback was that it could only carry ten rounds. With a rate of fire of one round every two minutes, the M55 would be out of ammunition within twenty minutes of sustained fire. This meant that the M55 had to stay close to resupply vehicles, limiting its usefulness. The Army began working on a lighter replacement, the open-topped M110, which began replacing the M55 in 1963. As a result, only a small number of Army M55s saw service in Vietnam, though a larger number of Marine M55s would see action there. These would be deployed relatively far back behind the lines (insofar as Vietnam had front lines); the 203mm howitzer had a range of 15 miles, outranging anything the Viet Cong or North Vietnamese Army had until 1968--and even then. Their lack of ammunition, however, was still very much an issue, and the Marines replaced their M55s with M110s as soon as enough came available; the last left service in 1969. West Germany, Belgium and Turkey also used M55s, but these were all retired as well by the mid-1970s.
Until we visited the Lewis Army Museum in May 2024, I had never heard of the M55; I would see two within 24 hours of each other--one at the Flying Heritage and Combat Armor Museum in Everett, and this one at Fort Lewis. This one has the rear spade deployed for firing, and looks to have been recently repainted, unlike a lot of the Lewis collection.
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