Small Scale Military Headquarters

I was had luch with a lady who just came back from Iraq (civilian, working with disfigured kids) she had alot of pictures of her trips around Iraq, usually with a military convoy and she had taken a picture of a gun truck leading a convoy. The truck looked to be a 5 ton and in the bed of the truck was a square armored box with an open turret. The turret spun around fast, (electrical?). One .50 cal was visable but the picture looked like there was a short barreled weapon (granade launcher?) next to the machine gun. Turret was big enough for one man and had boxlike armor added to the top of the turret to provide side and rear protection for the gunner. The truck cab was not armored and had no side armor (like we used in VN). It looked like this box was dropped into the bed. This picture was taken less than one week ago, the lady just came back last Thursday. I asked her to look for these trucks and photograph them for me but she is not scheduled for another trip for awhile. She won't part with the picture.

Anybody know anything about gun trucks currently in use???

TTT

I deployed to Iraq last year with my National Guard Combat Engineer unit. We have no armored vehicles. We deployed with canvas top humvees. Toward the end of our deployment we were issued balistic doors and balistic glass for our windshields. In the mean time though we were only limited by our imaginations and our ability to aquire materials. Being an engineer battiolion helped since we had skilled welders and tools with us. At first we tried simple things like mounting weapons over the cab of our dump trucks as in:

As time went by though we developed ideas that were a little more complex. We built gun boxes for our humvees. I am not one of the welders and didnt help make them but I did ride around in one quite often. Being made of only steel, no real armor, they did not offer much protection but did provide confidence and a stable weapons mount.
The mounted weapon did not spin 360 degrees as does a ring mounted weapon, but is limited to the radius of its directional mount. The weapon could however be easily lifted off the mount for freedom of direction, or to be fixed to the side or rear facing mounts. The gunner would be seated on a wooden box we had made and bolted to the humvee. That box was used both as a seat and a place to lock valuables (such as helmets and body armor which, when not in use inside safe areas, were subject to theft by fellow soldiers). On the side and back of many of these gun boxes the welders also made steel baskets which were used to carry gear, water, MREs, spare tires, ect.
These gun boxes were very popular and we were asked many times by other units in theater for blueprints or even help making them, which we provided as often as possible.
Here are some photos:




















Happy to answer any questions.

I also found these photos among my files. I remember when I took these shots wishing these vehicles would be made at 1:18 scale. Im not even sure who these guys are. And for the record these photos were taken in Kuwait, near the Iraq/Kuwait border, but within a safe area.

don -

Those are some awesome photos that really bring the Iraq conflict home in a certain way. They show the average soldiers going about their duties and trying to survive in a hostile environment, something the major media fails to show. Thanks for posting them!

Wow don, very nice photos, its nice that people like you cared enough about the vehicles, weapons and such around you to take photos and document it.

-mike-

Don, nice pictures. I'm going to try and hunt down the lady with the pictures, if she can produce the photo for me (what I saw was part of a proof sheet, she hadn't gotten the photos printed), I'll post the picture. I guess what I was looking at was "homebuilt". That would explain the lack of armor protection around the cab. I couldn't figure that out. If I was attacking a truck with an armored gun, I would try to take out the truck driver first and then worry about the gunner. That would take "stones", but I'm sure some of the bad guys have the "stones" to do it.

Again, thanks Don, for your pictures and your service.

TTT

TTT

Neat pictures.Neccesity is definately the mother of invention.

Mark