As many will be aware, Academy offer a pair of 1/72-scale Opel Blitz Cargo Trucks (including a late-pattern wooden cab version). Is there any evidence that this version would have been used to mount a flak weapon on the rear cargo bed?

Some things :
1) there are not two trucks in the Academy box, but only one with the choice between the two cabs...
That's not the same...
2) there was on "old" Esci Opel blitz with a Flakvierling on the cargo bed, but that truck didn't exist at all, the Falkvierling was too heavy for the "poor" blitz. Those Kit was a "fake"...
3)The "last years" of the WWII, for at least the "standardisation", Nazis ask Mercedes Benz to built the frame of the "Opel Blitz" with an "Einheits cab"(squared from wood), so in fact, the "Opel Blitz Einheitsfahrerhaus" is in fact a Mercedes Benz truck...in some way....
4) The only Flak gun I know was on a "Blitz" was the 2cm Flak 38, some time with an armored cab. We can find this truck in Lybia or in "Ost-front", even if the pictures are quite rare...
Fujimi offers us a very good kit (in 1/72nd !!) of that truck !
I'have seen an Opel blitz montage without a cab for the Dak (in fact, a cut metal cab), but never seen a proof of evidence it does have really exist...But in fact a "good" idea, so the gun can fire too to the "front" of the truck...
5) And I never seen an "Einheits Opel blitz" with a Flak gun, but it doesn't mean it never existed...
But when the Einheits truck appeared, the 2 cm flak was too "light", the standard gun was the Flakvierling or the 3,7cm Flak, too heavy, and so.... bigger truck like Me 4500 were used
6) We can find "heavier" flak (3,7 cmFlak 36) on Opel Blitz Maultier...
7) the "only" picture of an Opel Blitz Maultier with an Einheits cab I know is a civil and Post war picture, and so, it's maybe too a "post war built" or better a "repair" buy a local garage
So, for me, "No" flak gun behind an Einheits cab of an Opel Blitz
Regards,
Pascal

Just because there are no pics of an "official" version, doesn't mean that one couldn't exist - there were always one-off field conversions. The Blitz chassis could easily take a single 2 cm Flak. You could make a mini dio with some workmen-type figures fitting the gun in a field service situation.

What about this one ? I'm not 100% sure the pictured truck is a Blitz...But it looks like one



Full size

Could this be a late series one, built just before those fitted with the Einheits cab ? The running board is missing and a simple step replaces it...

H.P.