Vietnam Gun Truck question

Early gun trucks were the M35 truck. They went to the M54 a little later because it can carry more firepower and could carry much more weight. But they used both the M35 and M54. Many of the M35 were quad 50 cal gun trucks and whatever the units came up with armor wise. Eventually the Army developed kits to weld on for the trucks and even jeeps. But early M35s were varied with their armor and guns. Toward the end of the war they had it down and they were very successful.

The M54 version are much more popular and well known because at one time they were allowed to paint their vehicles black and use crazy names painted in wild colors. More times they were required to be OD green with smaller versions of those names. It depended on the unit commander.

Just google it, there is so much info about it on the internet. Two books to get is the "Hard ride" 1 and 2. They show many versions. Some sites have pictures of actual vehicles even later recreations with their names and an explanation about their armament and history as do the books. If you can find it on the internet there's a whole explanation on how the gun truck was developed in Vietnam and how they unknowingly ended up using the same tactics developed 50 years or more before, even some of the same tactics used during the native American wars of the late 1800s.

I also have the same conversion kit. Plus I bought some M54 Real Model conversion kits, they are  expensive and use the Italeri M923 kit.

They also used M151A1 jeeps with the armor kits and before that whatever they could scrounge up, using single and double mount m60s, or a pair of M60s. M37 trucks with armor and machine guns were also used. I have one picture of a jeep with a triple M60 mount.

There's plenty of M35 versions to do without going through the expense of getting the real model conversions. Although if you dig the whole gun truck thing I would order at least one from them. It took a little time to get but they delivered.

I'll second what BigDaddyBluesMan says.  Many of the early guntrucks were based on M35 chassis.  Here are a couple a great sites that detail the trucks and their use with lots of pics:  Vietnam Guntrucks    US Army Transportation Museum

....ditto squared......unless you are looking for a very specific truck or design.....the M35 Duce has plenty of options

Check out the site Gino posted....worth the peek

Rounds Complete!!

Yeah I already have the M35 with quad .50 from AFV, and a converted Tamiya M151 but just looking at all of the web sites it looks like the M35 would have been used early in the war, but by 69-71 they would have switched over to the 5 ton M54.  Since the Legend conversion has a minigun I'm guessing that it should be a late truck.  also with tires in the back wouldn't it be the maintinence truck? not sure if any were configured as  this conversion set - a 2 1/2 ton truck with minigun and a load of spare tires.

Dave

Yes that would be the maintenance truck that had all the tires and other stuff. They were M54s by the time they had maintenance trucks if I am not mistaken. It was a process of figuring it all out as they went along as the Army looked the other way. It's not accurate but gives you an idea of what a gun truck was like without spending $150 for a real model conversion.

I plan on using some stuff from it and just making my own version of a M35 gun truck model.

I really think the only way to go if you want the real thing is to order the real thing or as close as you can get.

I spent a lot of money and have a whole series of gun trucks and jeeps planned. But it was costly. The amount of different models was mind boggling. So many had different versions of themselves, they changed names, paint jobs, armament and with rotations and KIAs the crews would change and they would change things too.

The ones you see a lot of were just a few of the many. You can conjure up some version in your head and I bet they at one time tried it. I love the M54s with the M113 hulls on the back. One had it facing backward. They were not successful. The most successful were probably the ones with a mix of 50cals and M60s. Mini guns were great but required a lot of maintenance by trained personnel and they ate tons of ammo. But honestly what is cooler then a mini-gun? If you do a version in a fire fight you could put a big blast of flame out the front........I think that's an idea.

One jeep that i thought was really cool was a M151A1 with a ring mount from either a M548 or M35 and a 50 cal. I saw one like that and never saw another. Like the one with a triple 60 mount. The more you dig the more stuff you find. I am still looking for the M48A3 with the minigun at the loaders position called "The Grim Reaper".

I am surprised nobody ever mounted a M40A1 RR on the top, that would have given them a lot of firepower and there were many in country.

They did also use a few M37 trucks for the officer of the convoy. I am going to attempt to a conversion of one of the WWII WC whatever and scratch build it. It doesn't look too hard, they were very similar. The biggest change was the front fenders and the cab in back. But the cab is squared off without major curves which add to the complexity.

I find the ones painted a normal OD Green much better to myself then the garish semi gloss black ones with the yellow noses. Maybe I'll build a few like that but I can see it being much harder to make it NOT look like a toy made of plastic. I guess that's were the real skills come in. I'm thinking oil paints are a must for that version.

If you read about their exploits you'll find the men who served on the Gun trucks to be courage men who were a special breed. They were elite in their own right.

Making your own M54 guntruck doesn't have to be as costly as the Real Model conversions and kits.  You can follow Dave "Animal" Willet's M54 Conversion Article to bash together an M35 and the italeri M925 to get a M54.  It is pretty easy to do and can come out quite nicely.