I have a couple of questions for all of you who are familiar with things from the early OIF period. I am building an M1043 of the 101AD from a few semi-famous photos taken the day Uday and Qusay Hussein were killed. I originally buried these questions in my build log so they weren't seen by many of you who may be able to help.

1. Which radios would have been carried by the trucks? Most of the trucks appear to have only have one antenna which I assume means they only carried a single radio. I have the ProArt SINCGARS set from way back. Is the rack design from the Tamiya kit or the one from the Eduard set for the M1025 accurate? Were there always speakers mounted on the roof over each seat as I've seen some modelers portray?

2. Were the ammo racks in the bed of the truck actually used to hold ammo cans? I have never seen a period photo with the racks full, or even used. The M1026 we have at work has all of the racks removed. Any photos or a walk around showing the bed of a Humvee in use would help.

3. If the M2 is mounted, would the Mk.19 have been carried in its rack in the bed of the truck?

4. I still need help with the design of the bumper. I have good photos from the rear of a couple of the trucks, but no idea how the bumpers were built or mounted. I have posted the photo below that shows the inspiration trucks, but no detail can be seen. They appear to be made out of square steel tubing.

This is an amazing community. I am so glad I made the decision to become an active participant! Thank you all for your help.

Eric

Some answers that may help...




SINCGARS would have still been used, most likely the smaller ASIP radio that is in the Pro Art set. The mount in the Tamiya kit is good if you only use the shelf, the rest of the radio is an older system. Not sure on the Eduard set. If only one antenna, then one radio. Usually only the lower radio will be used, with the upper or lower space in the mount empty. Add a piece of 0.015 sheet styrene to make the shelf that separates the two sockets, see below. Most radios have a speaker installed for each radio. They could be installed anywhere you want in the cab. Mine were both down the center on a shelf we made out of plywood.






The racks did come w/the trucks. Some crews used them, some didn't, some removed them.




Again, no hard answer. If a secondary weapon was carried, some strapped them down properly, some didn't.




They are square tubing with an "L" bracket that bolts to the side of the rear frame. They are really just steps.

Hope that helps.

Thank you so much Gino. The info on the radios and everything else is invaluable. I guess I can pretty much wing it! Is there any reason why the passenger side front door would be missing from most of the trucks? In the photos it looks like it is off of most of the trucks.

No idea on the passenger door being specifically off. During the invasion though, we had both front doors of to allow easy ingress/egress. Mind you, I had an unarmored soft top HMMWV, so the doors provided no protection whatsoever. In the above pic, those are M1025s w/non-armored doors. Minimal (if any) protection is provided by the doors. So it may be for the same reason we did it.

Gino, the doors are the ones from the M1046. They are the first of the lightly armored ones without the "x" visible from the outside. I have read that adding these doors changed the designation to M1043. Is this info correct? If not, it just proves you can't beliveve everything you read on the internet. I bought a second M1046 last night on eBay. I am going to build it along with the 1043. Samofalov just added the correct TOW misssile system sight to his store on Shapeways. Now I can build a TOW missle launcher to sit beside the 1043. Thanks for the info. I've been around aircraft my whole life and know a few things about them. I choose to build armor to give me something new to learn.

Yup, just looked again and they are the "armored" M1046 doors. I don't know why they would remove them, but it looks like they did.