I've seen many pictures of various Vietnam guntrucks from the outside, but only one that shows the actual interior. I was wondering how the itneriors looked like, because I was planning to do a custom one of my own, but I'm not sure of how the armor plate was put together, what internal framework it had, if the floor also had armor plate, how machine gun pintles were attaches, what about stowage, how people could get in or out of the truck beds-were there any side or rear doors? Please help me in this matter; I was planning to do one using the AFV Club M35a1. Thank you.

Dave(animal) Where are you buddy. This one is your area.

The interiors of the gun box varies from truck to truck. The reason for this was that all the gun trucks were field built. There were no prescribed regs or "kits" available as there is today. We built our trucks from material at hand. For the first generation trucks we used sand bags sandwiched between plywood on the inside and steel boiler plate on the out side. The very first generation gun truck (called gun truck), had thin boiler plate bolted to the outside of the cargo bed. The floor of the cargo bed and the cab were lined with sand bags. As we gained more experience with what we needed for protection we replaced the sand bags with ammo cans. Either 5.56 or 7.62 mm, depending on what kind of weapons were used on the truck. When the sand bags got wet, the added weight would actually break the trucks chassis in half. So we had to come up with a better idea. the ammo cans solved this problem. The weapons were mounted on the Jeep pedestal mounts at first and later were used steel pipe bolted or welded to the side armor plate. the second generation trucks had double wall armor plating. Some had the outside armor on the outside of the cargo bed with the inner wall installed on the inside of the cargo bed just wide enough to store a spare tire and additional gear or ammo cans filled with sand. the front and back armor plate was usually single wall. We would install several pipe weapon mounts on the side armor to accommodate different weapons in different locations of the be. I became common practice to use ammo cans to line the floor of the cargo bed as added protection from land mines (ied's). We used the PRC 25's and 77 radios on the trucks. Not all trucks had both of these radios though. Some of the trucks were designated service trucks withe dual duties of convoy security and a rolling maintenance vehicle. The rear of these trucks carried extra tires for the 2 1/2 ton and five ton trucks. These trucks were crewed by mechanics/ truck drivers. In fact all our trucks were crewed by all volunteers. Some were cooks, clerks, truck drivers, Medic etc. We found that the best protection we could get was from the double wall armor. If the truck was hit by an RPG round in the side of the gun box it would penetrate the outer wall and explode between the outer and inner wall. The biggest and hardest area to armor up was the cab/drivers compartment. You have to remember our mission was to drive into the ambush site and became a blocking force while the rest of the convoy would get out of the kill zone as quickly as possible if they could. I have many photos of the actual trucks in my gallery as well as a lot of photos of models that I have built based on the actual trucks. I hope this will help you a little.

Yes it does!

My whole idea was this: I'd do a fictional gun truck as an example of what existed, equipped with several machine guns. The truck's name would be "CRUISIN' FOR A 'HO'" and depict Ho Chi Minh dressed as a female prostitute. Would this be a good idea?

It was ironically inspired by a "Pearls Before Swine" comic where the goat and zebra are reading a newspaper article about the fact that Ho Chi Minh's body was lost in a transportation mixup en route to its restoration. In the last panel, Rat and Pig are opening a box which turns out to have Ho Chi Minh's body in it, and Rat says that this is the last time he orders rice on eBay. The next strip has Pig tell Pigita about receiving Ho Chi Minh's body by mistake, and Pigita is confused, so Pig tells her that "Rat and I got a Ho." She beats him up and he complains, "You can't tell that girl anything." The next strip has Pig telling Rat the he played chess with Ho Chi Minh, who won eight straight games. Rat comments that Ho is dead, and Pig replies, "I wasn't trying very hard." In the last strip, Rat realizes he is stuck with Ho Chi Minh's body, so he takes it to the mall to exploit it. Ho Chi Minh's body is placed upon a chair wearing a Santa hat, and a little boy is sitting on Ho's lap. Rat, also wearing a Santa hat, says, "Go on, kid. Tell Ho Ho Ho Chi Minh what you want for next Christmas."

Dave,

A very nice and eloquent description. Damn dude!!! Here's a "love/hate" relationship. I'd love to have been there to see/feel/experience it, and at the same time, hated to be there to see/feel/experience it. Know what I mean THAT war had to have been a , period!

Your trucks are truly AMAZING!!! Awe inspiring........

Mike (++) (++)

On further question: how did people get in or out of the truck beds? Were there doors, or did they just jump over the sides? The latter seems unlikely because it would have been an awfully high jump, and the trucks depicted that I've seen, except for on example, had no ladders or handholds to facilitate climbing. Also, stocking the beds witt ammo, etc. would have been a headache without access doors.

A few of them had ladders, but most of the crews entered through the cab. Most ot the trucksd had an opening in the front to the cab so that the driver could get in the box in case the truck was disabled.

OK, one more question. In many closeup pictures of the armor plate used, the plates had those little hole pairs, presumably for mounting bolts for what they were originally intended to be installed on. Does this mean all the armor used on the gun trucks had such holes in them? If so, are there any aftermarket pieces of such armor available? I was going to scratchbuild the truck sides, but there's no way I can possibly drill those tiny holes in them in a properly spaced fashion.

No, not all had the boiler plate holes. The reason that you see a lot of photos of trucks palate with the drilled holes is because the metal came from the Navy and from an old stock pile in the Cam Rhan Bay area. The trucks down south (where I was stationed) did not have the pre-drilled holes at first. Later some did because trucks and crews were transfered all the time. So it will depend on the specific truck you intend to replicate. For example The Mafia and the Good, Bad and the Ugly had welded plates with no holes in them.

Here is a link to my gun truck photos here in my gallery
https://gallery.kitmaker.net/data/12306/1742Gbu1.jpg