Here's a question that I hope someone has an answer to: The tires on the Italeri CCKW's are smaller and narrower than the tires on the Tamiya GMC trucks. and the tires on the ICM Studebaker are roughly the diameter of the Tamiya tires but are more narrow like the Italeri.

Which is the closest to being correct? Could different width tires have been used by the military so all are correct????

The next time I am at the George S. Patton Museum I intend to measure the tires on his office truck to see how the various manufactire's tire scale out.

And the often seen Le Roi air compressor truck. This model conversion is available in resin from CMK.

Hi Michael

In case you need more pics of the Chevrolet "Model G7163 Telephone Body, With Earth Borer,K-44 truck", you'll find a few more here :

http://www.vintagemilitarytrucks.com/G7163_Chevrolet_4x4_Earth_Auger_Truck.htm

and there's a nice hi-res view on Wikipedia of the one at the Overloon Museum :

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/30/G-506_4x4_Chevrolet_G7163_Earth_Auger%2C_Polesetter_pic1.JPG

Here's a French army one :



H.P.

Sweet - Thanks Frenchy

Was the telephone "borer" truck on a special chassis? Perhaps with the rear axle set further to the rear of the frame?

The Earth Borer truck has a 145 in. wheelbase, like most of the G506 series trucks :

http://olive-drab.com/idphoto/id_photos_chevrolet_g506_g7163.php

HTH

H.P.

Given all that heavy gear at the back of the truck I was thinking it looked like the back axle was set closer to the rear?????

I was thinking I had read somewhere that the borers were built on a special chassis.

Anyone have any additional information on the three special 1 1/2 ton, 2 axle trucks built at the factory out of an assortment of both Chevy and GMC parts and sent to APG for testing? Did they have the standard wheelbase or something different? Any other differences?

http://www.wheelsofvictory.com/gmc%20cargo%204x4%201-1-2.html

Thanks for weighing in on this subject and for the additional info.

I know we have already covered Office and Shop Trucks to some degree but how about Gen. Patton's personal office truck now on display at the Gereral George S. Patton Museum at Ft. Knox, Kentucky?

My personal Photo - Patton Museum, Ft. Knox

I think it should also be said that any Deuce looks even better when pulling any sort of military trailer:

My personal Photo - 2004 Patton Museum Event, Ft. Knox, Kentucky

My personal Photo - 2004 Patton Museum Event, Ft. Knox, Kentucky

Another view of a radio shelter mounted on a CCKW with Gen Trailer:

Another found image; again another beautiful Air Corps flightline GMC fuel truck.

Someone please help me to identify this aircraft; Beaufighter???

Hi, All! YUP! I hear what all of you have been saying and I couldn't agree more. I've got EVERY single type of conversion kit for the TAMIYA Deuce-and-a-half, plus a bunch of hard cabs, both in resin and stolen TESTORS/ITALERI Water Tank Truck cabs. Also resorted to chopping and splicing to build the various 4x4 One-and-a-quarter ton versions. It's sad when we US and ALLIED vehicle enthusiasts have to make do with whatever we can lay our hands on. Just because the various model manufacturers and a good deal of modellers ARE VERY BIASED AGAINST US and ALLIED vehicles, a VERY RICH resource for new materiel remains untapped... Maybe if enough of us US and ALLIED fans got together in a massed and united front, and spoke up to the manufacturers, we'd get more stuff out of them! >:O Thankfully, HOBBY BOSS, RIICH and MIRROR MODELS are starting to give us some badly wanted stuff, but as we all know, they haven't even scratched the surface yet. I agree, TAMIYA could do any number of the GMC 6x6's and Chevrolet 4x4 versions of the Jimmy, but they just don't seem to take the leap, even though they already have a base kit to work from... HOBBY BOSS maybe, using their Deuce-and-a-half with the Bofors AA kit as a starting point? I'm actually quite surprised that they chose to do the AA version over the base truck. We could DEFINITELY use hard cab versions, instead of having to rely on robbing TESTORS/ITALERI hard cabs or those criminally expensive ($50.00!!!) aftermarket resin hard cab conversions. Resin cargo bed tarps also command ridiculous prices! HELLER's 6x6 Jimmy contains a tarp for the cargo bed, but it's a case of "Here we go again, robbing Peter to pay Paul..." It's a decent tarp, but there again, you either have to file down the TAMIYA stake body parts to make it fit, or use the entire HELLER cargo box... I've gone either way on that with satisfactory results, but my point is, how come TAMIYA won't release at least a "new" Deuce-and-a-half with a cargo bed tarp, or a hard cab version, or both? How hard could that be? TAMIYA's missing the boat...

Dennis THANK YOU! You really hit the nail on the head as to what I am trying to say with this thread.

That plus sharing with all the new armor modelers out there a little taste of the many fantastic projects they might have in store. If only certain manufactures would get off their duffs and use the tooling they already have gathering dust in their warehouses.

We do need to be thankful however for the GMC w/Bofors and for the Studebaker 2 1/2 ton! Also I hear there may be a White 6 ton, a Diamond T tractor and a Rogers Trailer in our futures!

HOORAY TO THAT!!! Let's hear it for HOBBY BOSS and MIRROR MODELS!!! I'm looking forward to ALL of their stuff, when it concerns US and ALLIED Vehicles!!! Can't wait for those Morris Commercials, either!

OK then, if we are talking British and Commonwealth vehicles then with the new Dorchester providing the engine, chassis and wheels there is also supposed to be a new AEC gun tractor just over the horizon!!!!

Hip, hip . . . .

THAT'S what I've been trying to get across in a few of my other posts! US AND ALLIED STUFF!!! US AND ALLIED STUFF!!! US AND ALLIED STUFF!!! WE WANT MORE OF IT!!! By the way, there were quite a few of the Studebaker US-6s used by the US NAVY during WWII- I'm planning to build my ICM US-6 painted in USN 5N Haze Gray... A little something out of the norm, wouldn't you say? PS- IT SURE IS GREAT TO CONVERSE WITH LIKE-MINDED MODELLERS!!!

OK, this may qualify as being off topic!

Let's hear it for the Studebakers - the flat fender trucks - even if they were almost entirely sent overseas to Russia, France and England.

They are STILL Deuce and a Halves!!!



(Some were even Rocket Trucks!)

Theoretically, yes, different tires on the various Jimmy kits are correct. Remember that ALL of the different tire manufacturers in the US were contracted to the Government to supply tires for the hundreds of thousands of vehicles that were being produced. This is still in practice today. Another point of interest- even in today's world of modern manufacturing, different tire manufacturers produce and advertise like-sized tires. Having been in the automobile business for about 25 years, I found that, just for example, a 225/65/17 tire from manufacturer "A" was NOT the same tread-width as the "same-size" tire from manufacturer "B" or "C"... Another bit of not so trivial trivia: over 800,000 GMC 6x6s, 500,000 Jeeps and nearly 40,000 Shermans were produced during WWII- we could NEVER do that today...

I LIKE IT ! ! !

PS- Don't worry about measuring the width of the tires on that Patton Museum Jimmy! The urgency of WWII created many idiosyncracies, a major proportion of which were, in fact, TIRES. You could find DIFFERENT SIZES OF TIRES on the same vehicle in many cases. Motor Pool Sergeants were more concerned with down-time, rather than the niceties of having a matched set of tires on any softskin during WWII- it wasn't a car show by any means!!!

Well, GEE... There were only 40,000 or so Shermans built during WWII- How many German tanks were built from 1935 to 1945? I say bring on any and all variants of the M4-series!!!