I love gun trucks!!! With that comment... I continue.
In Nam, the first group to implement gun trucks did so with salvage. The companies had only so many machineguns, either M2 or M60, and most of them were allocated to perimeter defense at the base camp... hence the group I'm familiar with (my NCOIC at Eustis was one of the gun truckers) hauled between An Khe and CRB IIRC. The salvage they hauled back to depot, weapons etc, were 'picked over' by the haulers and weapons rebuilt for them by their unit armorers.. totally off the books... The mini's show were slavaged off downed gunships along the highway on a return trip.. and possession was not questions tooooooooo much. LOTS of the firepower came from a/c salvage. BTW, MOST of the gun trucks were five tonners, as they found dueces were too light for the loads they carried when up-armored.
As Dragon said, the AGL were a rare item over all. Even with the PBRs they were a rare sight in '69 from my observation (and failing memory).
One thing that made the gun trucks real effective was when an ADA quad fifty battery was attached to them. The gunners were ADA, the rest of the truck crew from the owing company.
Note that the guns usually traveled in the middle of the convoy so they could respond better to the front or back of the convoy as needed. Just some ramblin memories on the subject.
I'm glad to see the higher ups FINALLY learned a lesson and have mission built gun trucks now.. though GI ingenuiety is still at work... when the highers allow it...
FB
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