Quote:
Originally Posted by kiltedguard
Let's not ignore the down side of slapping several thousand pounds of steel onto a chassis that wasn't meant to carry it....1) Mechanical Breakdowns increase as stress is placed on the suspension and drive train. 2) You are putting more pounds per square inch on the same wheeled footprint. This has the effect of hampering cross country movement and increase the chances of getting stuck in softer terrain.
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From what I've been able to find out there, that would seem to be the reason (as others have pointed out here) why they went from 2.5 ton class trucks (M35 series) to 5 ton class trucks in Vietnam. I'd assume the same would happen abroad in T2K.
I am still very much of the opinion that most gun truck type vehicles possesed at the community/county and perhaps even state level in the US (away from the war zones of the Southwest) would be 6x4 or 6x6 dump trucks...those frames are meant for carrying a ton (no pun intended) of weight, and I doubt much additional plating would be need to be added to the side walls of steel dump bodies anyway. I've seen some trucks used by professional demolition companies here and the bodies seem heaviier to account for dealing with reinforced concrete scrap.
I would also think trucks used for construction work with high flotation tires (wider, not monster truck tires) would be attractive as well.
Particularly inventive and/or handy communities may even get into converting cement mixer trucks to gun trucks. After all, in T2K, do you really need a fleet of dozens of cement trucks? There are ready-mmix plants in the area here that have fleets in the order of dozens of vehicles.
Any thoughts whether you would see the tracked cargo carriers converted here or abroad into ersatz armored vehicles?
My $0.05-
-Dave