A few options for the AFV Club M51A2 Dump Truck.
A few gun trucks.
Invader II
Looks like this one was “Sunshine Superman”, from the Donovan song, as updated by Lee Stewart below.
This would be interesting too, sort of a gun truck.
Since my move I can’t find anything, but somewhere I have a couple of pictures our gun/dump truck “Mafia Operated”. In one of the Hard Ride gun truck books some one built a model of it, but I was never able to contact the builder to see how he came to build it. It was originally “Peace Maker”, and is pictured in the Squadron book, Vietnam Gun Trucks, page 111. Here it is behind my truck “Wheat Straw”. I didn’t name it, by the way.
“Sunshine Superman”, from the Donovan song.
M51s during stateside training w/soldiers in OG107 fatigues.
Doing Engineer stuff.
1970s model in MERDC camo.
1980s model in NATO camo.
“Wheat Straw” looked good. Was the grill, light guards and other colored parts orange? It looks really interesting like that.
Actually the grill, rims and lugs were white. also the bumper guide rods,light guards and step edges. Anything to make them stand out. We wanted to stand out from the plain trucks. Some trucks actually made engineer castle pieces to top the guide rods. The APC gun truck Old Glory had them. Wayne
Good to know They look a different color/shade from the bumper numbers and width indicators. A nice way to set the truck apart.
Probably the old pic and the red dust that covered most everything. The bumper numbers and letters were newer as they changed over to the changes as the units shifted during the stand downs. This was 72 andthe units were being consolidated for pull out. The bumper should read ENGR GP 2 ER and 213. 2ER was region 2, the central highlands.
The box with my M51A2 is supposed to arrive soon, hopefully over the weekend. Can’t wait.
I did find a parts layout for the kit though. It looks like you get all the prior M54A2 sprues, minus the bed parts (sprues F, H x2, and white F (pioneer tools and rack)). You still get the mostly unused white I sprue which has the full-sized fuel tank, horizontal BII storage box, and empty tool rack. The full-length frame is still on the A sprue, which will have other parts left over as well. You also get the M sprue with soft tops for the cab and bed.
Full parts layout.
New R sprue for the dumper bed parts. It looks like it has some new frame cross members and other frame parts as well.
New S sprue with shortened frame, fuel tanks and other small parts.
It also has markings for four different vehicles.
It looks very good.
Looks like my bank account’s gonna take a hit! Have to build at least one regular and one as a guntruck. Wish I had taken more pictures back then, but didn’t realize I’d be building them 50 some years later! HA HA Hope Star comes out with some decal sets since there were a lot of them in use. Wayne
Just got home and the M51A2 kit was sitting on my porch. It does look really nice. 13 days from Taiwan to FL, not bad.
Not to mention the instructor wearing the M1 helmet liner with the TRADOC patch on the side. I have one like that for a 1SG from the QMC School in my helmet collection.
