I'm finishing up a build of AFV Club's M115 howitzer and have their M548 sitting in a box. I've found photos of each of them being used in Vietnam individually, but does anyone know definitively if the M548 was used as a prime mover for the M115? I'd like to have the M115 being transported by the M548 but don't want to throw reality out the window.

Thanks in advance,
Mika

The M548 is an ammo resupply vehicle for units equipped with self propelled howitzers like the M107, M108, M109 or M110. It also has other uses since it is basically a tracked, amphibious cargo truck. I'm not sure if it was ever used as a prime mover for towed artillery pieces.

The 548 was an ammo carrier. It is based on the M113 & hasn't the oommph to pull the M115 or much else.

Although based on the excellent & venerable M113, the removal of much upper hull to make open cargo space weakened the hull and allowed it to flex while moving especially unloaded. This in turn caused many issues with the drive train and made it the maintenance nightmare of the M113 family.

Thanks for the replies everyone. I'll go with the thought then that if they're together, the M548 will be doing the gruntwork of toting ammo to the big shooter.

In WW2, this thing was pulled by the M8 HST and the 7t 6x6 truck - what would be the equivalent in Vietnam (excluding the helos).

Thanks,
Mika

I was tracking that the M115 was only used through the Korean war. It was replaced my the M114 155mm towed howitzer, and the M109 SP howitzer by Vietnam. The M123 10-ton Mack was designed to pull it, but was only made in limited numbers since the M115 was phased out. As stated above, the M548 would not be able to tow it. It weighed much more than the M548 did.

OK, guess I'll scrap the entire Vietnam idea for the gun, but that's fine. Doing some more searching on the net for info points out that Iran had some of these guns up to the 90's. I'll see if I can find a bit more info, but having an M115 being pulled by an ex-Soviet MT-LB would be tres cool also.

Mika

Good luck with your M458, you might need it.
Pete