I’m new to the message boards here but not to modeling. My dad served in Vietnam and is very fond of a vehicle he worked on and drove, and has searched on and off for this kit and never found one. He said it was more or less a transport truck but on a halftrack chassis, he said they called it a “ammobearer”, don’t know the technical name. I also search and found nothing available. Does anyone know if there is a kit for this or is it something that will have to be made from a couple of different kits. Any help would be appreciated.
I believe what you’re looking for is referred to as a “Gun Truck”.
A couple of posts I found here…
More in progress photos of the Alabama Slammer
M-37 3//4 ton Gun Truck Otto
Brutus
Red Baron
IS the M35A2 still in service?
There was also an article in the April 2003 issue – Kitbashing a Vietnam gun truck.
In addition, two sites you should check out (if you haven’t already) are:
[:D] hi if you are talking about Guntrucksthere are afew kits one is called Nancy,its a M35a1 quad-.50 gun truck .you can get it from afv club.i hope this a help to you.[:D]
gdarwin[roy]
Sounds to me like he is referring to an M548 Ammo carrier. Here is one: 
and a website with data on it: http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/m548.htm
AFV Club used to have a model of it, I think it is out of production though, this is what it looked like:
It is an excellent kit and is frequently available on Ebay.
Good luck.
[:D] hi think are right about that ,Arty ,looks like a great kit.
gdarwin[roy] [:D]
Perhaps Arty is right. I read “transport truck” & Vietnam and jumped to the conclusion it was a Gun Truck. [:I]
If it is the M548, then it’s not a halftrack chassis, but a M113 chassis.
On the other hand, leftover half tracks were used for supply convoys in the earlier part of Vietnam. He could be thinking about a converted M3.
M.
I’m pretty sure it was something converted from a M3. He said it had a tarp cover and body like a transport truck but it had tracks at the rear instead of the dual axles. This is really driving me nuts, but thanks for the help so far guys. I’ll check out some of the links you supplied.
I think if you build this vehicle for your dad, you’d be doing him a great service. You’d be surprised how much Viet Nam soldiers like to have people build kits for them.
[2c]
G
What a toughie.
Here’s a couple more links.
ARMOR of the SOUTH VIETNAMESE ARMY, Part I
The surviving M3 half-tracks were progressively withdrawn from service. Some of them served as support vehicles, modified locally with cranes, or as wreck and barrier removal vehicles. Others ended their career in security platoons for convoy escort missions. For this last task, the ARVN ordnance depots had also modified various vehicles with varying degrees of success. For example, several trucks were armored and equipped with .30 and .50 calibre machine guns.
M3 Infantry Half-Track 1940–73 (Osprey Publishing)
I served in Nam and I think that he is talking about the M3 with the 2.5 truck bed mounted on it. You’ll have to do some kit bashing or scratch building to get it . Good Luck, and Tell your Dad Welcome home From me-----------Stephen Corzette
Thanks for all the help guys and I will tell him loneeagle48. Thats what I was afraid of was having to kit bash but oh well! Again thanks.
Searched on ebay and found an excellent referenced cd-rom for this vehicle:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=588&item=2254054865&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW
HeavyArty, thank’s you were right. I showed him the picture and that was indeed the one. It was just the way he explained it threw me off, so thanks again to everyone.