Three years ago, I bought a model truck from the First World War, and put it on the shelf and forgot.
Then, after a while, I accidentally found a series of books called “Stalowe Szczury”,(Steel Rats) written by the Polish writer Michal Golkowski, there are several books in this cycle. The first two volumes tell the story of a penal company of German storm troopers, in alternate 1922 year , the third tells the story of a spy for the Russian Tsar in Königsberg 1917, and the fourth tells the story of a minor character in the first two books, a grenadier named Otto in 1918 before he got into the penal company . In the alternative 1918, the Army of the German Empire occupied Paris, but, unable to hold it, left it four days later, but on the last day of the retreat, Otto and his engineer company would be ordered to blow up the French national archive. And at the same time, a corrupt French general, taking advantage of his position, decides to appropriate a certain amount of state treasures, but as a result of a series of accidents, a truck with gold falls into the hands of a detachment of German soldiers.
I have not yet decided how I will do with the truck, but I will try to do something based on the book.
P.S Sorry for My english.
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Your English is better than good enough, some native English speakers amke worse mistakes so don’t worry about language issues.
Interesting idea for the build 
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Your English is good enough. Look forward to seeing the project progress.
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My Autocorrects and Google Translations are suspect. Your English is fine. 
Looks like a nice project.
FYI: In case you might be interested, there is a truck campaign beginning in March: ‘Convoy’
Cheers!
—mike
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Sounds to be an exciting diorama!
Go, go, go!
Just a brief note on the Liberty Truck Instructions:
And a photo you may not have seen:
University of Kentucky Archives
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Link to a build thread on the Liberty Truck now delegated to the Archives. Sadly only about 2/5ths of the photos made it through the archiving process even though they are all still available to the kitMaker site from my continuing account on Photobucket. ???
https://archive.armorama.com/forums/50451/index.htm
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Thanks everyone.
Here is a small update on the build.
I assembled the truck frame and wheel axles.
glued the front wheels, (a strange way of fastening).
Also thanks for the warning about the inaccuracies in the engine assembly instructions.
Photos of the truck and a link will be very helpful.
In the book itself, the brand of the truck is not mentioned, it is only said that it is used by the French army. But throughout the entire text of the book it is mentioned that this truck has a closed driver’s cab with doors and a windshield, as well as headlights and a tarpaulin awning on the cargo body,
the illustration in the book shows some kind of unidentified truck that absolutely does not match the description.
I read somewhere that Liberty trucks were supplied to the French Army, but I don’t know if they were repainted in French colors or not.
Also, I won’t be modifying the cabin much, although I may add headlights to the front mudguards.
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Much like the US Jeep, the Liberty Truck was , I believe, assembled by a number of manufactures.
The Series 1 (or Series A) trucks had electric lights mounted on the cowl. (High tech for the day) The later Series 2 (or Series B) trucks returned to the old fashioned gas lamps with the gas generator mounted on the front driver’s side cowl.
It is said that the American farmboy soldiers had no idea how to deal with the electric lights and generator so the US Army returned to the earlier style gas carriage lights in the second later B series.
Acetylene Gas Generator used on the Series B Liberty Trucks:
Electric Headlights being installed on a Series A Liberty Truck during construction at the Diamond T truck plant:
Series A trucks were built with the traditional wooden spoke wheels whereas the later Series B had “modern” cast metal wheels.
The French company Willème rebuilt Liberty trucks after the war.
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Let’s not forget - we now have one more accessory set to choose from for the Liberty Truck!
Just as Robin indicated, hundreds of these trucks were later converted to civilian use post-war.
Here a converted local coal delivery truck with enclosed cab:
Another Willème Conversion
I had considered using the resin wheel set offered for the Bussing-Nag and then building that cab and load bed out of individual Evergreen “boards”; ~ might just be kind of fun and interesting. As we all know the post-war civilian trucks in 1/35th already seem to be all the rage these days thanks mostly to MiniArt!
Shop Truck:
Note cast wheels
Van Body:
Note disk wheels
Photo provided by Michael Roques
Well, a considerable amount of time has passed since I last visited this site (more than a year). And last year I was too busy to do any modeling. But a while ago I start modeling, and yes, i missed it. I put the construction of this diorama aside for now. And I decided to take on smaller projects. But I still plan to return to this idea; diorama based on the plot from the book.
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Thanks. I again was a little busy, and progress was slow. For this truck, I have only made a set of six crates. One with open lid, so that the gold could be seen. Need to make another one, of different dimensions.
(Sorry for quality of photo)
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In addition, I began to think about the appearance of the characters in the diorama. And he even made a sketch of one of the main characters.
This is Lance Corporal Otto Filch.
Details of his appearance and equipment i collected from all the book.
He is a veteran soldier, in both senses of the word. In one of the dialogues, he mentions that he underwent training in 1914 in the German-occupied city of Mons in Belgium. His age is not known exactly, but in the book set in 1918, his comrades joke about him being an old man, but he appears in the book set in 1922, where he is also a very skilled fighter. Also received advanced training for Stormtroopers under Willy Rohr command. He skillfully handles grenades and explosives, uses a double-barreled shotgun as his main weapon (in 1922 he uses a pump-action shotgun), and a Mauser as additional weapon. Does not part with Sappenpanzer armor and Stirnpanzer plate on the helmet. Hung with pouches with extra grenades, and things for all occasions. A heavy smoker, he smokes like a chimney in almost every chapter (even during one of the attacks he uses a pipe to light the fuse on homemade grenades). He serves with the rank of lance corporal, although the nominal commander and the rest of the company often listen to him. The reason was that when he and the current company commander were at the same rank, only one of them could go for promotion, so they flipped a coin. Otto lost.
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