The earliest hardened trucks in Vietnam had no guns of their own, relying on the crews' personal weapons. The pictures showed them having some sort of standard armor plates, all with rectangular slits and evenly-spaced pairs of holes on the edges, though what they were originally meant for I have no idea.

I was wondering if such plates were available as aftermarket items?

Hi Tom

These plates were specifically designed for the job. According to James Lyle's The Hard Ride (great book !) "Armor plating of 1/4 " thickness were normally used but plating up to 1/2" thick was occasionnally used. These plates came in 36"x48" plates with ready-made ports cut into them. The armor, including the vision blocks has been given specific ordinance part numbers which were listed in supplements to TM9-2320-211-34P showing drawings and instructions on how to install the individual pieces."

You can find such plates in Hobby Fan conversion set HF027 for AFV Club M35A2 kit.


HTH
Frenchy