- mike_Duplessis
I remember back when R.P. Hunnicutt was assembling his Armored Car book the Army had just dusted off an old Vietnam(?) era bolt-together gun truck armor kit for use in Haiti. I asked Hunnicutt if he was going to include add-on gun trucks to his AC book and he replied something along the line that the genre was simply too insignificant to warrant documenting. That was then - this is now. The topic of the evolution of add-on armored truck kits has become a very significant topic indeed!
An unfortunate (and uncharacteristic, I hope) assessment of an AFV type that merits more consideration and attention. To date, the best (if not the only) effort in print is James Lyles. "The Hard Ride", though there are a couple of good websites on the topic as well.
Guntrucks didn't originate with the "Central Office", so are easily ignored if one is organizationally focused. The improvised nature of their creation however, speaks to the need far more convincingly than what some committee or board in the 'States might have determined, had one been convened.
Maybe that's part of the problem...they didn't have any "sponsors" or senior officers advocating them then, and have no self-congratulatory monuments to self now to preserve and exhibit.