AFV Club is continuing their M54 series trucks with an M51A2 Dumptruck Guntruck. It looks really nice and is a great extension of their M54 line. It is showing up on eBay now, so it should be available soon.
Parts layout. Looks like a couple new sprues with bed armor, windshield armor, side mirrors, open exhaust pipe, weapons, and a few other pieces.
Markings.
Incredible news!! We had this truck, renamed âMafia Operatedâ, in my unit at Nha Trang. Be nice if it came with those decals too. Wayne
Do you have any pics or can you describe the artwork of âMafia Operatedâ? I canât find anything on it. If you could, it could probably be reproduced.
I canât find the one good picture I had of it, but in Lyleâs book Gun Trucks Have guns will travel, on page 72 there is a picture of a model William Atwell made of it. Wayne
Nice. That doesnât look too hard to do.
Hello!
Iâd love to built it as âInvader IIâ, I feel like that since Iâve seen that picture in Lylesâ bookâŚ
@namengr - I could help you with the decals when the time comesâŚ
I wonder whatâs the availability will look like in the times of trade warâŚ
I have to try and find my pics of my dump truck to get an idea of the bumper numbers. Ok, so as far as I could find it would be, facing the truck, ENG GP on the left and 2ER 308 on the right. Same on the rear. Also looks like it says we kill by contract on the back panel. Wayne
Since Star Decals has done a lot of gun truck sets, maybe they will do one for the dump trucks. I count 10 listed in the book. Wayne
Noticed from mine and other pics that the armament changed on different versions. Wayne
Looking at the picture of the model and my picture on the 5 ton dump gun truck topic, and my memories the Mafia version has/had 2 50s and a single 60 plus a twin 60 setup. They had also moved the antenna mount to the cab and carried a spare on the headache rack. Wayne
I think, since the 2 trucks were there when I got there, they probably took the guns off of the Judge to upgun the Mafia Operated. The other truck I was around was the APC truck, Peace Train, which I processed out with Rich âRedâ Miller.
They all sound very interesting. Do you have any more pics of them?
Unfortunately I only had 2 pictures of the Mafia Operated and canât find the one. The other is on the dump gun trucks topic and doesnât show much. All of them are in the James Lyles guntruck books. The pictures donât show a lot of detail tho. Wayne
Where did you find that? Wayne
Some page in the internet, really canât remember, sorry.
There are major problems with this kit. I finished the chassis last night and went to fit the dump body and noticed that the frame rails are too long. Further investigation shows that the instructions included in the kit are for the M54 Cargo truck version which uses the longer frame rails on sprue A even though shorter rails are included in the kit on sprue S. The extra length appears to be behind the axles but the fuel tank and battery box locations are also wrong as they are too far forward. Iâm still investigating for other conflicts but this build is all but over for now. Iâve been able to shorten the chassis by removing the overhang at the rear but not sure I can remove the fuel tanks and battery boxes without destroying the frame rails. I will be looking to contact AFV Club later this morning, they will need to revise the instructions. They need to use the instructions for the dump truck chassis not the cargo truck.
Welcome aboard Warren.
Interesting find, hope you can recover the build.
Iâm not sure at this point, I wish I had found this before I mounted the tanks and batt boxes. I have shortened the frame in the rear based on the shorter rails incleded in the kit (which should be the ones used). I downloaded the instructions for the M51 dump truck and I think once I relocate the tanks (if Iâm able) the other stuff should be ok. Iâm having trouble finding a way to contact AFV Club, the only contact info I can find is a snail mail address. Anyone have an e-mail for them???
