Their crews were not warriors in the classical sense. "They were seventeen and eighteen (years old)..." states a photo caption...they look it.

These war machines were not sleek jets, massive aircraft carriers or imposing main battle tanks, they were converted general cargo trucks.

They did not make dramatic breakthroughs or deep strikes into enemy territory...they guarded truck convoys, always awaiting the inevitable ambush.

Their slab side armour wore bold combat artwork reminiscent of WWII bombers, but names contemporary with their time. "Eve Of Destruction," "Easy Rider," "Snoopy," "Iron Butterfly," "Big Bad John," "Canned Heat," "Godzilla," "True Grit"....

They were the Gun Trucks of the Vietnam war.

Author Timothy Kutta boldly presents tribute to a scarcely-known part of the Vietnam War, the vital, absolutely necessary supply convoys and their escorts in Squadron / Signal's Gun Trucks, part of the publisher's "Vietnam Studies Group." Just kids, many of us think, when 18 year-old "boys" come to mind. The author remembers and honours these youthful warriors of days gone by.

Not quite twenty-one years separated World War I's end in November, 1918 and the beginning of WW II in September, 1939.

But can you believe, it's been forty years since the Vietnam War began being a daily part of our lives, back in '65?

Frontline soldiers, mighty armoured vehicles and helicopters share one commonality, hunger. They all need constant support and maintenance, from food to ammunition to fuel...

...and the logistics support troops are the ones who make the difference, here, because battles can only be won if the man in the foxhole has food in his stomach and rounds in his rifle. Helos can only fly missions if they have fuel and rockets.

During WWII, the Red Ball Express earned everlasting immortality, bringing vital supplies from beach head to frontline. In Vietnam, it was the convoy, making its way perilously through country where the enemy roamed freely, setting up ambushes at sometimes known, seemingly inevitable, sometimes multiple points along the line of march.

Author Kutta honours and presents the convoy soldiers and their escorts, the armoured Gun Trucks in a concise, informative 64 page volume. Standard  2 1/2 and 5-ton trucks had slab armour welded unto the cabs and backs. Multiple machine guns from simple pintle mount M60s to electric-drive Quad .50s and Gatling-type Miniguns salvaged form wrecked helicopters armed them. In convoys, about one truck in ten was supposed to be a gun truck, guarding the refuelers and lumbering tractor-semitrailers schlepping those vital supplies.

Artist Don Greer, surely the most prolific military painter of our time, did the excellent front and back covers, depicting Black Widow in action and Snoopy, pulling out of base camp.

A gob of colour photos spice up the inside. Folks, these photos are just incredible, aerial shots of the isolated, winding road, Trucks holed by machine guns, hit by RPGs, mines...and many images of the young men who were there. Take your time to really understand who these once-young guys were and what they did...while the headlines...and now, the kit subjects and decal sheets...gave and give us the more "glamorous" parts of that grim, now distant-past, war.

Several kits exist of "6-Bys," US Army cargo trucks. At least a few good articles address deal with the gun truck conversions, which being largely slab-armour and bristling MG mounts, makes for a dramatic, but realtively easy conversion. You can do a fast build in 72nd, or lavish some real attention on a 1/35. 

Gun Trucks left a lump in my throat and feelings of gratitude and sadness towards the once-youthful convoy soldiers.Vietnam was 40 years ago...they were just little kids...from flunking geometry and your girlfriend jilting you to VC and NVA mines and ambushes with heavy auto and incoming rockets and seeing your friends in pieces...in four months. What a "life-transition." Blessings and honour to them all.

And lest we forget, a new generation is running convoys through dangerous country, daily, in Iraq.

Highest possible recommendation.

Review copy, $12.95 US, courtesy of the reviewer's chequebook.

Reviewed by James Hood.

For Scott Van Aken's Modeling Madness review of James Hood's novel,
 Adventure--Into The Neverland, go to:  http://users3.ev1.net/~bjmonkeyandcj/James_Hood.htm

March 2005

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