I’m new to this forum and I’ve been reading through a lot of the threads. Very interesting stuff!
I do have a question: Has there ever been anything brought up about “alternative armor?” What I mean by that is, has anyone ever talked about possible civilian uses for some types of armor?
I recently picked up a LAV-R Recovery Vehicle by Trumpeter and got to thinking why couldn’t a vehicle like this be used for civilian use, such as search and rescue? Obviously an M1 has very limited civilian uses (blasting bad drivers on the freeway is the only thing that comes to mind). But the military has several vehicles that could be modified for other stuff, like fighting forest fires.
I was just wondering. I hope I don’t offend any hardcore armor people.
On the History Channel’s show AxMen, they have a M4 Sherman hull used for a Yarder. A lot of DUKW’s were converted to civilian use. Also, around some military bases, you can find Iraqi Armor doing the job of holding down large concert platforms…
Mnay Police departments and Fire departments use converted M113s as SWAT vehicles and brush fire trucks. I have seen lots of 5-ton trucks converted for fire use as well. As stated above, the logging industry has quite a few ex-military heavy haulers in use too.
In the city just north of me, several years ago, there was a converted M3 or M5 chassis used for snow clearing by the railroad. My town highway department has at least one ex-military Dodge pickup in three tone European scheme.
Many types of A/C are used in forest fire suppression.
years ago i looked at a duce and a half with an ‘awful’ western crane. I wanted to add to my wreckers but the mil. stuff sometimes has 6 volt systems [older ones] or 24 volt systems ,so getting parts fast is very diff. Converting them is too costly.The turn signal controller on the duce is from another planet,the breathers for tranies,rears etc is not needed for non mil. use,some of the paint can be toxic when removing it,ignition systems are shielded and sealed.The list goes on and on.
Also stretch limosine Hummers were commonplace. If you consider the original HMMWV (not the H2 or H3), there are several of those kits in 1/35 scale that could be converted into one of these:
