Did you know that for the short period of time (1967 to 1972) of the Gun Truck era there are over 500 known Gun Trucks built during that time? A lot of them had seen only one mission in their short service. Some were used for base security or as perimeter response forces. While a few were actually used for Convoy Security. The duty for convoy security mainly fell to the Military police in the begining, The were lightly armed with the exception for the V100's and there were few of these to go around. The main vehicle the MPs used was the little M151 jeep with a M-60 machine gun and no armor protection. In the early years, 1966 to 1967 The U.S. sustained heavy losses of vehicles and supplies, not to mention the loss of Personnel, dead or wounded. It became apparent to the powers to be in the Transportation Units that a better solution for protecting the convoys had to be foun. Hense the Harden convoy concept was born. At first the 2 1/2 ton trucks were used. They were taken out of line service and manned by Drivers and Mechanics, even Clerks in some cases. The trucks were poorly armored. In fact some of the very first trucks(late 1966 early 1967) had double sheets of plywood with sand bags jammed between the plywood, and sand bags layered on the floor for protection. This concept worked except for the rain whick it did almost every day, soaked the sand and made the trucks so heavy that they could not bear the weight and began to break down. Some young mechanic came up with some boiler plate and the Gun Truck as We have seen them was born.

So you only have 490+ more to build then animal??? #:-)

Is there an actual kit of a gun-truck ...... or do you scratch them all from a basic kit? I wouldnt mind attempting one of these. You have made them popular!!

There are a few companies that make conversions set for building the GT's. I make mine from Evergreen plastic stock and home cast resin. I cast my own M-54 five ton cabs and tires. You can buy the M-35 a1 and a2 kits from AFV Club to build the 2 1/2 ton trucks. Most of the trucks were based on the five ton trucks because of the weight factor of added armor, but there were quite a few 2 1/2 tons out there too. Real models makes two different conversion sets for the trucks. I build my trucks from the actual photos of the different trucks. The crew members send me the pictures and the info about the gun box lay out to assist me in building the models. I have fininshed about 24 of the known trucks. All the models will be donated to the U.S. Army Transportation Museum at Ft. Eustis, Va.

Hey thanks for the additional history I really enjoyed it. I agree with you about the AFV Club "Nancy" Gun Truck model. I have the trailer mount and back armor plate installed on the model that I built. I had not realized that they upgraded the M151 with XM134 guns. I gather that all the trucks were 2 1/2 ton with the quad 50's? We had one of them at Ft. Huachua Az in 66.