Small Scale Military Headquarters

good ole chap mei again. In their 'jungle adventure' line they make a truck that would be really good for a vietnam era russian truck. It's 13 1/2 inches long, 7 1/2 inches high. Since chap mei is based in china, it's probably copied from a chinese truck which is copied from a russian truck.

I think it would be dandy for a Ho Chi Minh trail truck..

Here's a picture of it in some playset. It also comes in smaller sets. Of course the hard part is finding the thing...as usual with chap mei.

http://www.constplay.com/constplay.com/ ... PM-23L.jpg

That truck looks like it has great potential for sure. Now like you said to find one.

while researching trucks used on the Ho Chi Minh trail, i came across this picture of trucks forming on the trail, in a wikipedia article on the PAVN.

The trucks didn't look very russian or chinese in design to me so i enlarged the picture. The second one from the back has 'flammable' written on the back of it.

I guess you can't always trust even wikipedia..


http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/e ... ks1972.jpg

The pic is obviously an American convoy of duece & a halfs fuel trucks.

Even if the VC or NVA had captured a single fuel truck. There is no way an entire convoy could be captured and no way the captured truck would be operated in broad daylight on a road with no cover.........

Despite what you see in the movies, when we moved into an area, all jungle and undergrowth would be cleared down to bare ground for 100 yards on either side of any road, to limit ambushes. Not that they didn't happen, just to add 100 yards to whatever weapons they threw at us.

Wikpedia will print what is submitted to them, no great source.

TTT

well, i was emailed several pictures of NVA trucks from a guy on missing lynx and after studying them, this chap mei truck has the right overall appearance of a vietnam era NVA truck. Virtually all the trucks were single axle, like the chap mei truck, which is good. The back of the cab should be more rounded and the front fenders should be larger, more rounded and 'bulbous' looking but overall it has the right look. Could cover up the less accurate spots with foilage, which was often applied to these trucks when on the trail.

So, again, it's a matter of finding the sucker..

Heya, y'all!

The truck looks to be based on eiter a GAZ-51 or the slightly later GAZ-63, or, more properly, the Chinese manufactured variants (NJ-130?).

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GAZ-51
and: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GAZ-63

Russ
Proud son of Rose and wes

yes i think you're right....more like the gaz 63 i think. Fenders are a bit off and cab too square but otherwise not bad. Seems to be a bit on the big side, for 1/18 but i can live with it. I think these would be great for a ho chi minh trail diorama.