While waiting for paint to dry, I cracked open a project I put on the backburner for a long time. "Easy Rider" was one of the Artillery Group's Anti-Aircraft trucks - Quad .50 Turrets mounted in the cargo boxes of the M54 5-ton cargo truck. I particularly like "Easy Rider" because the 'batwing' armor plating applied to the Quad Turret was painted up in patriotic red, white, and blue like the US Flag. It was the ultimate in saying "yeah - you can see me - but you can't stop me!" Plus, the truck was named after the movie "Easy Rider" - cool stuff...

I used Italeri's M925 5-ton frame with modified/backdated suspension and axles. For speed, I used Real Models' M54 Cab Conversion (okay) and their standard 5-ton tires (very nice). I only used the front panel and floor from Italeri's kit to base scratchbuilding efforts on to model the cargo box. Italeri's parts mimic a dropside and naturally the later version of a truck bed - where the equipment on "Easy Rider" is early, with a toolbox underneath the floor, and no dropsides. The Quad Turret is AFV Club's version from their "Nancy" model kit with some pedestal modifications and sitting on a scratchbuilt M55 Trailer. I had to raid both the AFV Club M35A2 and M49A2C Deuce kits for some components too. This is a expensive beastie so far.

I'm still working on all four subassemblies at the same time to make sure they go together properly when it comes time for the end assembly - so what you see here is a work in-progress...





Quad .50 Deuces are cool - but - the 5-ton Artillery trucks were ultimate in carrying this kind of firepower...

Gunnie

Too Cool. Heh, Heh, Heh. I knew this one was coming. Looking good so far.
Is this one of your castings for the cab? If not who's? It looks really clean and crisp..

I made knock-offs of the Real Models resin parts because the dang set is so expensive for what you actually get. I had the Real Models parts sitting around for some time now - and I slapped these together. I couldn't use their Grill - so I worked my own out the the AFV Club parts.

For the other M54 trucks - I use my own parts. I'm more familiar with them than Real Models' parts

Gunnie