Talk:Sexton (artillery)

This page is much more wiki-like than Sexton, which has hardly any information. Can we move this article to Sexton and Sexton to Sexton (church)?? 66.32.251.152 22:29, 18 May 2004 (UTC)


 * I wrote the article and I heartly approve, but others should make the decision. GreatWhiteNortherner 22:56, May 18, 2004 (UTC)


 * I have no problem with this article being placed at Sexton. Likely this is what people would be looking for if came here for it. Oberiko 23:37, 18 May 2004 (UTC)

The comment is about sexton being placed well back from the front is not terribly accurate. In the Sogel counterattack sextons endured an attack without the benefit of supporting infantry. They were so mobile that they could arrive on site before the infantry got there and sometimes sextons WERE the front line. The idea at the time was to have the guns right up with the infantry, I believe. -Glenn Spencer barnbum@hotmail.com

This page has physical data different to http://nigelef.tripod.com/25pdrsheet.htm probably because this site quotes early contemporaneous sources and probably refers to Sexton Mk 1. However, there are errors on the page and the Livesey source is wrong. First while orders were placed for 2000+ the UK order was cut by several hundred in late 1944 and nowhere near the number ordered were delivered(according to the documents in UK National Archives). Next, in UK service at least, Sexton was always fitted with a No 19 set. It's also worth noting, according to the NA records, that production was delayed by a shortege of M4 transmissions from the US and Canada was unable to produce the required number of ordnance & mountings so 2/3 were shipped from UK to Canada.

Sextons did not fire in the run-in fireplan on DDay, this firing was by regts with Priest (there's p[lenty of reliable sources for this), which re-equipped with Sexton in France in Jul/Aug 1944. Neither was it normal practice to deploy any field artillery, including Sexton, with infantry. In fact given its limited arc of fire Sexton needed to be furher back than towed 25-pr to provide effective support. Nfe (talk) 11:38, 10 September 2009 (UTC)


 * In June 1944, just after the landings in Normandy, all British Priests were replaced by Sextons and the Priests converted to Priest Kangaroos so that British stocks of US 105mm ammunition (then in big demand) could be used by US divisions in Normandy. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.149.173.73 (talk) 21:18, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

Comparison to German SP guns
I'm not sure if the comment about usage versus German assault guns is appropriate. The Germans employed both direct-fire assault guns and indirect-fire self-propelled artillery. While obviously such roles could and did overlap at times, the proper comparison for a Sexton/Priest would be to the German Wespe and Hummel SP-artillery, used in the same role, rather than to a StuG III for instance. Russ3Z (talk) 13:23, 7 April 2015 (UTC)