I am slowly building up some US forces and I really like building trucks. Especially these super cool US GMC trucks. I cannot help myself as far as trucks and armoured cars go. These guys come from Heller (Airfix) and Hasegawa. The Heller kit has finer detail and is more delicate. It comes with an excellent gun ring on the roof, and its dimensions are longer and thinner than the Hasegawa kits. The Japanese kits are very solid and chunky and very quick to build. You can get them super cheap direct from Japan. They do have weird metal axels which need super gluing otherwise the wheels rotate. I added windshields with plastic and also added some thin chains on the front fender as i had seen photos of this somewhere. My drivers are all AB Figures as usual. They are such cool trucks. I have an IBG Diamond Cargo Truck just arrived in tbe post which I am now itching to make!
Colonel Mustard 
Very nice, Will! 🙂 I like the one with the MG! I think I used to have two of the Hasegawa trucks years ago but donated them to someone when I downsized my armies when I got married!
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Yes the Heller model is better for sure!!
I hope you didnt donate too much!
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Looking back from where I am now, I’d have kept more stuff, but if someone’s been able to get enjoyment out of it then that’s what matters really!
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I remember getting a chance to fire a 50 cal in that exact set up on that model of truck back in the ’80’s. It was funny at the time how the military had all manner of stuff spanning from WW2 up to brand new things just coming out of the factories.
I was standing around, out in the mud on the range during some live fire exercises, waiting for a break in things to get some needed signatures on some paperwork from a company commander (if I remember correctly) in some battalion I’d never heard of in the division I was in. (I was attached to the division legal office.)
While I was watching I heard a voice above me say, “Hey, you want to take a turn at this? You, the girl with the folder, wake up!”
I did want to take a turn as it happened, though at the time the largest thing I had ever shot in the military was an M16 and the associated M203 grenade launcher that happened to come on the one I was issued. I hadn’t a clue but they had me up and going in about a minute. I remember it shaking the truck so hard that if felt like it was going to rattle the tires off. They got a bit of a laugh too because I hadn’t anticipated that and the recoil had me rattling around myself in the ring for a bit until I realized and braced myself. It was a lot of fun, especially because I got to perforate some old rusty looking remains of an ancient half track that looked like it was from the second Peloponnesian War or something.
It was awfully nice of those infantry guys to share their world with me for a little bit. I kind of wish I could have bought them all a beer but I never saw any of them again.
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I’m impressed, Ann! 🙂 Brilliant!
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Great story Ann. How long were you in the military? I have only ever fired a British SMG called a Sterling i think it was and Lee Enfield Rifles – if you want recoil they had plenty!
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I was active duty in the Army for 3 years. After that, I moved over to the Air National Guard.
There was a wing in the town I was living in at the time while I was going to college.
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That’s great Ann! thanks for sharing! the biggest I got to fire was a Bren !
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That’s pretty neat, Pat. I’ve always liked the way those things looked and seeing them in movies. I always wondered if the placement of the magazine inhibited with sighting it at all? I kind of wondered why the manufacturers put it where they did. The main thing I could think of is being on the top would make it less likely to get dirt, mud and such into the workings.
Did you get to do that in the military?
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Not quite the military ,I was a cadet at my school for about four years.
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Great looking trucks. Can never have too many of them.
Cheers,
Pete.
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Great Post Will ! Got a few of us older folk excited!
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You have to get a life Pat!!!
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😅😅😅!
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Nice trucks! Like Ann, I loved any chance to fire the old “M2 Sniper Rifle” as we called the .50 cal. I never fired it from a truck mount, only from the tripod. I do remember learning how to set head space and timing on it, and the warning that if it was done incorrectly the gun could misfire – catastrophically. What an enduring design that has stood the test of time.
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