Brutus

Animal,
A brilliant model and a fine tribute to the men who fought in them.

A great tribute piece Animal !!! Well done.

A fine job Animal!

Very nice, thanks for sharing!

Great job animal!! Great tribute to the men who served.

Eric

I wonder if that's the same type of truck Carlos Hathcock was in when he got burned so badly. I know I've read what type of vehicle it was,but I can't quite remember offhand. It had to have been some sort of open bed truck like that though. I might have to look into that. Excellent looking model! My dad's best friend in Vietnam grabbed a grenade that was thrown into a truck like that, and threw it back out. As a consequence, he lost his hand and forearm, they've been pulling shrapnal out of him for years afterwords. He's in a wheelchair now, but his doing that let my dad come home, and eventually, have me. None of the guys who have served in combat get near the recognition they deserve.

madda

Superb!

Nicely done. Great weathering!

beautiful work. Congrats

The truck looks good. Have you posted any others? Hathcock was riding on top of a track.

WOW, thats awsome, animal! I wanted to jump right in and drive away. My dad is a Viet Nam vet too. Thanks for your service and what a great model! Bob

Thanks for all the kind words. Hathcock was injured riding on an APC. They were gas burners in Nam. The M-113 he was riding in took a hit by an RPG round. APC's go up like roaman candels when hit in the fuel tank. He got burnt trying to help others out of the disables vehicle. I hav many more photos of differeent Gun Trucks on my web page and I have some of my work on display at the U.S. Army's Transportation Museum at Ft. Eustis Va. If yougo to Http://community.webshots.com/user/gtadw you can see some of my other work. By the way they are building a gun truck in Kuait. It will be a beefed up APC shell on the back of some type of five ton truck. They are calling it the Alabama Slamer. Gun Trucks are also still being used in South America and in the Phillipeans.

Here is my url for my web pagehttp://community.webshots.com/user/gtadw

I read both of Hathcock's books a little while back, and I do remember that the vehicle he was in was torn up by a box mine. I know that for sure, without even having to go and look it back up. He was in fact burned throwing guys out, he happened to wake up first was all, I'd bet any one of them would have done the same thing. I dig yer work there animal, keep it up. Not enough guys model vietnam era stuff really.

madda

Thanks Madda I'm a fan of your art work also..

Well thanks man! You kinda put a bug in my head to build a vietnam era transport or apc or something for my dad. I'll have to find out what kinda vehicle he might have been in though. Do you have any idea what kind of vehicle a Marine might have been in from 68-70?

madda

The Marines used the same vehicles as the Army did. In fact we sometimes got some security for our convoys from the Marines. We hauled a lot of supplies and troops for the Marines. Besides the 2 1/2 and five ton trucks they had APC's, of course the M-48 and M-60 series tanks along with the Ontos and Jeeps. They also had the landing tracked vehicles.They also used the little Mule a lot.

I want to thank each one of you that took the time to view the Brutus. It is very important to keep the memories of the Gun Trucks and their crew alive. I hope someday that they will get the reconigition they deserve.