James-I like it very much overall!
As far as the US Stateside gun trucks, beyond the obvious HMMWV variants and odd M151 series vehicle, I would think you would see the following:
M35 Series 2.5 tom
M54 Series 5 ton
M939 Series 5 ton
You MAY see some of the older GMC M211 series 2.5 ton vehicles, but even in collectin circles those aren't very common and were phased out for the M35 series soon after introduction.
For heavy stuff, I would think the purpose built bank armored cars would be snapped up by whatever group was in the area, federal, state, or criminal.
Here in the states 10 wheel 6x4 dump trucks with steel bodies are cmmonplace...every town of any size has at least one excavating/earthmoving firm with one or more, plus county and state highway installations. I would think the most direct conversion of civillian vehicles would start here. I would think you could add a platform or steps inside the bed to stand on at the firing positions, possibly more armor to the bed walls, and an improvised armored cab. I could see body and machine shops cutting away most of the cab and reconstructing an armored one from sheet steel.
In my area there are places the distribute raw steel in various grades, sizes , and sheet thicknesses. I would think that would be a good place to start.
And I can't emphasize the on-site repair trucks I see to service construction sites as both captive and free lance operations...ever one I see has a crane, air tools, and welder on board, and I would imagine that there is a plasma cutter there too. All of this is self contained and while not as sweet as the US military's mobile workshop trucks, they will be invaluable to building and maintaining a county or state detachment of gun trucks.
I would think here in the states in areas away from the Mexican invasion, communities would band together to maintain a fleet (no matter how small) of gun truck vehicles for use with a reaction force, probably using state, county, or local SWAT personnel and verterans. Here in the Chicago area there are county SWAT and municipal SWAT detachments (depending on the size of the town...Chicago itself obviously having its own SWAT force), so local militias would probably start from there.
I could very much see gun truck units being used to guard whatever relief supplies areas might be receiving and the production from local harvests.
That alone could be a good start for a small scale local adventure campaign. Large but few gun trucks guarding a grain convoy to an elevetor/shipping point from a wheeled gang of some size.
In the States you will find a noticeable quantity of obsolete military vehicles that had been preserved by collectors. I know we've discussed the whole old tank thing, but there are a number of half tracks and armored vehicles from 1940-1970 in my area. You will probably see a motley fleey of ex-civillian gun trucks and a M2/M3 Half Track or two or three here and there. There is a fair amount of 1950's WP stuff here and there, BTR-152's, BTR-40's, and BRDM-1's, along with an amount of Saracens, Ferrets, Saxons, and Humber Pigs.
WW2 stuff will be the most common, but cold war stuff will exist here and there...for flavor if you will!
Thank again for the work, as always, a great job!
Dave
|