Iraq / Afghanistan conflicts Gun truck build

Replica .50's

Vintage iron said:

... Do you know a place to get .50 cal replicas for a fair price?

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The fellow who is building the fifties for The Widow Maker is Bismarck Guns and Artillery. The website is Bismarck Guns & Artillery. Their guns are steel, and he has propane versions as well as non-propane versions. Plus, he can do some fab work - mounts, etc.

While looking around for weapons for my gun truck, I looked at pretty much everybody. Bismarck was the best of all the ones I looked at. He has the most reasonable prices, and builds out of steel - not aluminum. So the guns, although hefty, last.

For my next ruck (after The Widow Maker), I plan to use him as well.

The Bismarck units look good but they are a little pricey. I can build one for that price. I have been presented with some more affordable units. Thanks for the info.

maddawg308 said:

Looks like there is some sort of mine roller attachment or IED sensing device attached to the truck in the front. Perhaps the hydraulic lines are to control it?

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You are correct Sir. The thing on the front IS a mine roller...designed to blow IEDs up under it instead of the truck. The thing on the back however, I am not exactly sure what that is. It very well might be some sort of hydro control pump/tank to lift the roller up and down, but who knows. When I was over there, I saw so many different get ups and weird whatcha-ma-call-its hanging off trucks it wasnt even funny. I always like the M1 Abrams with the mine plow out front...looked so evil lol. Reminded me of a cow-plow off a steam engine from **** lol.

73m819 said:

In post #10, in pic #1, what is on the BACK of the truck, it has hyd. lines running along the side of the bed to it

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a center roller


how about a big bumper?

Derrickl112 said:

a center roller


how about a big bumper?

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Now that I see the wheels in pic #2...I remember them clearly lol.Didnt they try this system on a HMMWV for a while? And I see that one has a Rhino system as well...that one always made me laugh. And as for that bumper...I could have used that on my M915 when I would play what I called " NFL linebacker" whilst running cars into ditches along MSR Tampa...

maddawg308 said:

One thing I have gleaned from studying armored trucks in Vietnam, and then Iraq, was that the Vietnam trucks seemed well-designed. They came as kits, and the guys who ran those trucks built them well. The recent Iraq trucks looked like they were assembled with whatever scrap metal they could find laying around, or cut off of other things. I'm not saying that the trucks weren't well-armored or didn't work well with their hodge-podge of steel plates, just saying that the Iraq-based trucks looked, well, homemade, while the Vietnam ones looked a bit more professional.

With that being said, maybe you should make your tribute truck to reflect that - have rusty plates of metal instead of nicely painted ones. Have weird cutouts in places that don't make sense showing the possibility of that armor plate being used previously somewhere else.

Here's one I always kinda liked - a M915 tractor converted to gun truck. First pic is the real thing in 2003, second is a model of same. Notice the design, very "field mod" look to it. It worked for its purpose, but it didn't win any beauty contests.

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I was hoping that Driver523 "Larry" would chime in on this but I can certinly shed some light on what was said above.

"Yes" their was a kit in Vietnam but this "Kit" was not designed to make a Gun Truck. A kit was developed to protect troops in trucks from small arms fire. That is ALL it was ever developed to do!! Ever since then, I believe ALL Military Trucks are developed with a Up armored kit.

Now in Vietnam, this kit was used as a BASIS to START a gun truck!! Not every gun truck built USED THIS KIT. I can tell you that for all these years spent looking at pics, each one of these trucks is different in its own way. It was all done by builder and crew preference. Some drivers wanted windshield armor, others did not. They used what they could find and they did it well as it was their ass in the gun box. Some had more guns, others had less, some had one style of gun mounts, others had pipe welded to steel, you talk about hap hazzard designs, Vietnam Gun Trucks were it. The difference here is PRIDE!! These guys were a crew and they ate, slept, fought, smoked and drank together!!!

Now I have not done Squat on any research on later Iraq Gun Trucks but if you look at the 815th and the Gun Truck Platoon. They had "THE KIT" Built STRICTLY TO BE A GUN TRUCK..............Information gathered from ACTUAL VIETNAM GUN TRUCK crews.

Some of the pics that you see in Iraq of rusty steel slapped into form a box, well different times but the same method was used 40 yrs ago. Why nobody painted them in iraq, I cant say as I have not done that reasearch. But to say that the Vietnam Gun Trucks had a advantage and looked more professional, I would not go out on a limb to say that. You got to look at the fact that it needed to be functional and last.
It was a very hard and expensive lesson they learned. The same RPG is used in both wars but todays Gun Trucks have had excellent survivability then the early trucks of Vietnam. The soldiers in Iraq got to finally benefit from that from their Lessons. What is truly sad is that we had to have a reminder in the beginning of the Iraq war, since no box got developed until the need rose once again but if we had not forgotten maybe Jessica Lynch would have her fellow soldiers with us today.

I just picked up a VIC system. I don't know much about these systems, but this is what i know. I purchased a main Box, two selector boxes, two loudspeakers, two headsets and a Antenna. Were these systems used in Iraq Gun Trucks like they were in Vietnam?

It seems that Derickl112 let one of my surprises out with his number #3 picture. I am planning to build a Bull bar like the one in the picture for the front of the Gun Truck. In Iraq Gun Trucks were used as Convoy escorts and it was common for insurgents to place obstacles in the road to stop convoys for ambush them. The Bull bar or Battering Ram help keep things moving.

Vintage iron said:

I just picked up a VIC system. I don't know much about these systems, but this is what i know. I purchased a main Box, two selector boxes, two loudspeakers, two headsets and a Antenna. Were these systems used in Iraq Gun Trucks like they were in Vietnam?

It seems that Derickl112 let one of my surprises out with his number #3 picture. I am planning to build a Bull bar like the one in the picture for the front of the Gun Truck. In Iraq Gun Trucks were used as Convoy escorts and it was common for insurgents to place obstacles in the road to stop convoys for ambush them. The Bull bar or Battering Ram help keep things moving.

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The GTs in Iraq usually had a VIC system...but I dont know if its the same as the ones they had in VN. Ours (M1114) had a master control box, and one for each passenger and then on just under the left side rear of the turret for the gunner. All the boxes were connected to the SINCGARs radios with selectors if you had multiple radios. The headsets were made by Bose and cost around 6 or 7 hundred bucks each. They had a switch box that clipped to the front of your shirt with a three way toggle that was used for "OFF" "VOX" and "TRNSMT" This way, any one in any position in the truck could transmit on any radio and have real time hands free commo with everyone in the truck. That was real handy when the gunner was tracking something and telling the driver where to go. The main box also had two input posts like on a field phone where you push it down and slip thewire into and let go. I think that was for if the vehicle was being used for ECP duty and they had field phones back to the TOC's or CP's...we figured out how to hook ipods and CD players up to these so we had music in our headphones as we rode in convoy lol...

Great info. Thanks! It is funny, I just ran into a guy today who worked on and built Gun trucks in Iraq. He told me the same thing! He is going to work with me on the build.

Vintage iron said:

Great info. Thanks! It is funny, I just ran into a guy today who worked on and built Gun trucks in Iraq. He told me the same thing! He is going to work with me on the build.

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If he tells you that they did not use ACAV mounts in Iraq, Let me know as I got a home for em.

vtdeucedriver said:

...Some of the pics that you see in Iraq of rusty steel slapped into form a box, well different times but the same method was used 40 yrs ago. Why nobody painted them in iraq, I cant say as I have not done that reasearch. But to say that the Vietnam Gun Trucks had a advantage and looked more professional, I would not go out on a limb to say that. You got to look at the fact that it needed to be functional and last....

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Alot of the "rusty" looking metal in Iraq actually wasnt rusty. some of it was but mosty the steel that was used for these first gen up armored was Hardox400 and had a brownish red coating on it...and the reason no one painted them....availability of paint mostly. Im sure they could have gotten some to cover the armor, but no one wanted to waste the unit level money on it...at least my unit didnt. Me personally, I bought a bunch of black spray paint and painted my armor black and used silver speed tape (muffler tape) along the bottom edges as sort of a chrome accent (see pic...its dirty but its along the bottom of the front fenders, and the armor, but you cant see it on the armor because theres some big ugly wanna be trucker in the way ) . No one ever told me I couldnt and no one ever told me to change it back so...once the actual factory up-armor kits made specific for vehicles started coming in, they were painted and had the thick bullet resistant glass and all that. In my M915, it was all original regular saftery glass, and it did not hold up well to IEDs...They did however tell us that we could NOT paint emblems, markings, or anything that was not a bumper number on our vehicles because they wanted everyone so the same the enemy wouldnt know who you were. Even though we proved that when they did know who you are, and if they are afraid of you, they dont mess with you.

maddawg308 said:

Looks like there is some sort of mine roller attachment or IED sensing device attached to the truck in the front. Perhaps the hydraulic lines are to control it?

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The hydraulic lines to the rear of the truck are for raising the rear SPARKS rollers for when you back the truck up. the roller system is a free turning system in the rear so you have to raise it to back up. The front system is hydraulic controlled also (side to side) so you can go around cars,barriers, ect. That is controled by the T.C. of the gun truck or as i like to call it the BOOM truck! I started off in the 900 seires "boom" truck and then we got the M-RAP "boom" truck. hope that helps!

That is good info Draco... Its been so long since I thought about the acronym names of all these crazy devices they came up with that I have forgotten most of them. SPARKS rings a bell lol....and by the way, if you ever happen to take a journey up the mountain in your MV, let me know, we can go for a cruise around town

SMOKEWAGON66 said:

That is good info Draco... Its been so long since I thought about the acronym names of all these crazy devices they came up with that I have forgotten most of them. SPARKS rings a bell lol....and by the way, if you ever happen to take a journey up the mountain in your MV, let me know, we can go for a cruise around town

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Glad it helps! But i got the M-1009 in the shop getting the rear main seal fixed. As soon as its out name the time and place. Just got the new lift on her and i have been itchen to get her off road!!!!!!!!!

Maddawg here's your VW---I don't think anyone really knows for sure but I also believe that the kits used in Nam started as armored troop carryers, When I started consulting for Livermore one of our first meetings were at Stewart Stevens headquarters in MI---three or four other manufacturers were there with their product which was all armored troop carryers, we had all our plans laid out on the table---unlike everyone else we held back no secrets---a month later at a meeting in Ca. everyone showed up again but this time no armored troop carryers---they were all now gun boxes, there was some armored troop carryers made out of some left over Striker armor and I will look for my pics of that----let me know what you are looking for and I'll see what I have---I do have a bunch of photos from the skunk works in Anaconda when they began putting our boxes together and removing the hillbilly armor

From the 6 pict down on the first page, the M931 has a M60 with what looks like a early edition Starlite Scope??? A little old, a little new.

Driver I would like to see those pictures. I will put the vic in my truck, I am just not sure if I want to give up my bench seat. Anyone have pictures of how they would be set up. Are there any special brackets?

Pre-armor?----early woodys, Here is at least two early gun trucks

VI...here's where I got my replicas and PB had their 50's on Proud American till brother Zout built the metal ones....these are inexpensive and weatherproof....

Quality Replica Firearms

Here's some pics from the skunkworks at Anaconda and stuff removed, ring mount in a Livermore box, and some shtufff