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| Here you can see the molds for
the cab. Some are one piece molds, some are two piece. Jerry calls the
two piece molds 'squish molds'. He pours the plastic into the hollow mold,
then presses in the 'plug', some plastic squishes out then. |
Gun truck crews had great
esprit de corps and kept their trucks
in tip top shape and as clean as they could.
Most gun trucks were named after songs/groups/tv
shows of the time.
Hence 'Red Baron' and 'Snoopy' from the song
by the Royal Guardsmen 'Snoopy and the Red Baron'. Other Vietnam
gun trucks were named 'Paladin', 'Maverick', 'Sgt Pepper's', etc....
Jerry does through research before
beginning a model, interviewing crew members and getting photos from them,
or pictures from other gun truckers, since
most took
pictures of the other gun trucks. |
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| Jerry draws up a box plan and solicits
comments from crew members. |
Jim and Jerry discovered they could use the Italeri
M-925
five ton kit as a basis for the truck, using a shortened frame
and the bed/tires for the rest of the model. As each gun truck was unique,
the armor boxes had to be built for each model.
Eventually, Jerry came up with the goal to model all the gun trucks
of the 444. One is available as a commercial deuce kit-somewhat inaccurate,
it is the quad fifty 'Nancy'. It was gone when he got to the company, as
was the 5 ton quad 'The Bounty Hunter'.
He has made models of both. Red Baron was originally 'the
Saint' but Wayne Dobos repainted it as Red Baron in 1970, to go
with one of the other gun trucks of the 444 'Snoopy'.
See the other pages at the bottom of the home page
for pictures of building it. |
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The cast parts are in white, the
dark parts are from the kit.
Note the wire grill installed in the side
of the hood.
These were taken from 10 ton trucks to help
cool the engine. |
Jerry's model of Nancy. Note the shield he added behind
the gunner-the
kit does not have this, nor the picture that is on the back. He
used plastic
angle and sheet to construct it. The gun also sits on the trailer
that the
kit should have had. |
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Here are the armor boxes in their
first stages for Jerry's 444 GT
project. He did two Red Barons, one for Wayne,
and one for himself. The other two he is still working on are Frustration
and Little Respect. |
Here are the models after
painting. 8th group vehicles had yellow noses. |
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| Red Baron had a hole in the hood,
that it got when it was 'the Saint'. It was painted red to show it off. |
Jerry designed the graphics for
Red Baron, after careful perusal of all the pictures he could find.
Archer Transfers has since put them out for modelers to buy. |
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Here is a detail of the cab for
Red Baron, note the wire mesh
around the exhaust stack and the red details
on the turbo. |
The finished model, note the red
differentials, few gun trucks had a color there. Fuel tank had red
stripes also-just another detail crew members added to show their pride. |
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| Note the mud flaps that Wayne painted
with the Iron Cross. |
Top view of the armor box, showing
the details. Jerry made the Playboy and Stars and Stripes newspaper by
reducing them down from mock-ups he made. The machine guns came from other
kits. All the ammo boxes on the floor were cast by him from his molds.
The Miller Beer and Pepsi X cases were made using model
C ration case diagrams with the new graphics
on them.
Jerry made the open beer case with plastic
pieces and
cast it, then covered it with the printed
paper.
The red spot is the mini-gun from a helicopter
that
Red Baron had. They made the red shieldover
it-that was a
pain to model! |
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| Jerry was a convoy commander and
rode in an armor plated gun jeep with his radio. He has made models of
gun jeeps also. |
Jerry made this model like his gun jeep, except he did
not have the cobra graphic on his. He has since shared his pattern of the
armor with other modelers so they can do an accurate gun jeep. |
