Maybe this would help ?





Frenchy

I need to know how the metal frame is attached to the cab.

Hi Gary,
Thanks for the little tips on personal weapons. I'll keep it all in mind although there aren't that many revolvers in 1/35th, right?
I'll keep my eyes open for that Crayola clay you mentioned but I dont think they sell it over here. I might be wrong, though.
I agree with your point that most figures dont look ready for combat. Practically every photo from the war has the troops with their pockets bulging & yet figures have theirs almost flat. What would be the best material to use to remedy this? Milliput again?
And yes, I agree, everybody loves a convertible!
Joe.

Oh, and one more thing. Just going back to the cargo question. You mentioned ammo/rations/beer/etc, but would this be split up? What I mean is would one truck carry ammo, another take the rations & yet another take the beer? Or, would each truck carry various commodities? ie: I could put a pallet of 155 ammo together with boxes of C Rats & some Budweiser crates on the back of my M35A1?
Look forward to your reply.
Joe.

Okay, let me see if I've got this straight: The 155mm ammo I will load onto my M54 5ton Cargo truck when I build that along with all other artillery ammo due to the weight issue. Correct so far? Okay, no problem there.
The deuce & a half I can load with up to four pallets of beer or soda (80 cases per pallet-now that's a lot of AM printed sheets) although that is pushing it a bit. Some, but not too many C Rats cases (I'm not sure if there are any other type of Vietnam era ration cases as an AM product). So, I think I will go with your suggestion in your above post: mabye a dozen boxes of each (beer/soda/C Rats) together with 7.62 & 5.56 cases.
How was the load secured? I remember when I was truck driving some years back I would have placed a couple of lengths of timber (mabye 2 1/2 feet long each) at the top, on the outside edges of each pallet, running parallel with the truck & then tied it all down with a length of rope using what we call a dolly knot over here to get it down real tight. Does that make sense? What was the SOP for US drivers in Vietnam?
Now we come to the sandbag question which I really need to clear up here & I'd like you to put me straight on this for any future works that I'm going to do. Am I correct in saying that all trucks in Vietnam had a layer of sandbags throughout, at all times? A layer on the floor of the cab? A layer on the floor of the cargo bed? And then the cargo placed on TOP of the layer of sandbags on the cargo bed? Is that right? And that would be on all trucks ( M35, M54, etc, etc) throughout Vietnam? Good heavens! That's a lot of sandbags! I better get good at making them, eh?
I look forward to your reply, my friend.
Joe.

Hey Joe,
Where I was in '66/67 cargo trucks only had the floor of the cab sandbagged.We had one truck that picked up FNG's at the Plieku airstrip with the bed floor sandbagged.S--t trucks would be impossible to load or unload with a sb floor. By early '67 many trucks were being unloaded with forklifts,sling loads by 5t wreckers as more equipment arrived,not to mention a lack of bodies to unload ever increasing convoys from Qwen Nhon.


Banding(steel strip about a half inch wide tightly wrapped vertically with a locking strip crimped in place to prevent the band from loosening) in several places around the pallet kept stuff in place.The troop seats in the up position stopped sideways movement to a minimum.As Gary stated 4 pallets(about 4'x4')would be a good load for a deuce.

Whatever you decide to model could be ok in one place & not another.SOP's varied greatly between units.Photos from a certain time & place are your best bet for accuracy.

Hope this helps,
Jake

Hi Jake,
Thanks for your input buddy. It's always nice to have somebody new to tell us about their experiences. Especially since you're a vet & have first hand experience of actual operations in country.
I know exactly what you mean when you talk about the crimped steel band. In fact, they are still used; certainly in England.
The M35A1 didn't have drop sides so would not have been able to be unloaded with a forklift. So what should I stack my boxes on? Should they be stacked on a pallet ordirectly loaded onto the bed of thew truck?
Thanks guys.
Joe.

Or mabye I could use that net idea & have a few pallet loads of ballantine loaded into it & title the diorama "Tonkin Gulf bound"!
What do you think?
Joe.