Hi Guys,

I have the old italeri / revell Bedford gun portee & wanted to convet it into carry a german 2cm flak 30 or 38, most photos I have seen only show them on chevies or Opel blitz's. Any ideas or info as how the would be mounted/ secured to truck bed? Also would they have welded permant "drop down" sides to allow more movement for traversing gun?? Any help or such be greatly appreacatied.

cheers

Hi
Do you mean similar to this conversion.
http://translate.google.co.uk/translate?js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=1&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fblog.goo.ne.jp%2Fprinz83%2Fe%2F0aa7a00a904bea412c9a765707f89bbf&sl=ja&tl=en
Dont think hes converted the actual truck just used it as is.
Peter

Thanks for that Peter yeah along those lines but my idea is showing the truck getting converted & flak being loaded,thats were idea of cutting side frames & having sides rewelded horizontail with planking / plate go give more walk around room,but truck itself just tweaked with etch

Sound plausable??

I've seen a lot of pics of 15cwt Chevvys carrying 2cm flak
.....

but my thoughts are that the 3ton Bedford portee is a lot of truck for not much of a gun...
:-[ ] any refs for that?
but it's your kit, have fun!

Hi Jon,

No none at all that is half my issue, the idea only came up as thought if they needed extra AA, with the desert airforce gaining air superiorty. & found spare truck could use it

T-sami;

Hi!




By me, it's certainly plausible - but that's only my opinion. The Germans were ever-hungry to make guns mobile in the desert - at least along the lines of grabbing an available used truck and plopping an available -30 or -38 on it. There are any number of pics around for the Germans using lighter trucks ranging from their own Horch and Steyr utility cars and captured 15cwts all the way to putting such guns in the back of 3-tonne and up middle and heavy-weight trucks. It is certainly extremely reasonable to use the larger vehicles to carry larger guns, but no policy nor any obvious rationale exists for not putting a small gun in a big truck, if that is what you have available. And the Germans in North Africa were rather challenged by limited supplies of larger guns!

My "point" here is that there is evidence that any-sized truck COULD be used - IF there was no other locally-burning need for it - for an opportunistic "conversion". The Flak 30 and 38 guns could be readily man-handled into a truck-bed and simply parked there. While the new CyberHobby Blitz with Flak includes a fancy "flak-rack", and many photos show this to have been used, many many other flak-trucks were much less formal. Most of the flak-truck photos also suggest little or no modification beyond lowering or removing side-panels as needed to "expose" the gun - most did not appear to have elaborate reworking.

FWIIW, I did at one point have one of those Italeri/ Peerless? Bedford kits which was indeed going to go this way. I don't know what I've done with it but I did have a vague thought to remove most of the likely removable bits and pretty much plop my flak in back - maybe tie it down with cable or a chain. IMHO, an impromptu "casual" use flak-truck may be more realistic, but, as posted above, it is your kit / truck, and I'm sure those ever-innovative Germans COULD have done any of a diverse array of things to get guns in motion!

Cheers!

Bob

Hi Bob,

Cheers for the feed back, that was sort of lines i was thinking along as you stated the german supply lines to north africa were never great. And I know if was me & I needed it I would have mounted it,I could mount a 3.7 but not sure when they came out!!! @:

Mike;




IF you are thinking German 37mm flak in N. Africa... you have the Flak 36 (issued end of '36) or the Flak 36/37, which is the model '36 slightly modified to the new 1937 standard (a smallish number of 36 were retrofit-converted to 37 standard in 1937 - 38), or the Flak 37, which was the common-issue gun manufactured in the 1937 standard through 1942. The 36, 36/37, and 37 guns were all substantially the same in most details, and all served in N. Africa. In 1942, the costly, rather heavy 37 was dropped from production in favor of a new design, the Flak 43, which was cheaper, lighter, and fired faster. But this gun did not, I think, make it over to N. Africa.

So, if you are doing this Bedford conversion thing, a Flak 37 could be just your ticket! There are a few "stand-alone gun" kits out - I think Trumpeter and Tamiya make the 37, Bronco makes a 36, and maybe Italeri makes a 37? There are AM accessories and barrels for all. Again like the 2cm 30 and 38 guns of the previous discussion, these 3.7cm guns were initially towed guns on a specialized trailer (Sd.Ah. 52). The gun was dismounted from the trailer for deployment on it's attached base. This base and gun could have been muscled onto a larger truck (better with a crane, as this thing weighed in around 1600kg- hernia city!) and was used in "casual" flak truck conversions.

It WOULD look "more appropriately-sized" for the Bedford than would that rather tinier 2cm thing!

Cheers!

Bob

Bob,

Cool thank you very much for that info,now I know what to look out for at my LSH, my idea all along was for it to be winched up the kits ramps using the truck winch & having guys cranking the handles as some poor idiots push from the ground as always thought showing gun half up would look & give movement to whole scene.

Hi Mike,

Cool project, look forward to developments.

Al

Hi Alan,
Glad you like the idea just trying do decide on wether to flip the cab down but not have much info on the enging bay / compartment etc & looking for guys that work & details of winch in use, so a little way of yet.

Cheers Mike