"Babs" is the most sentimental and favorite of all the miniatures I've built. It carries my wife's nickname, and this was the very first model I completed after getting married in 1995. Goes to show that marriage does wonders for a man.

A complex and detailed project, the base model used here is the old Monogram M34 2 1/2-ton Cargo Truck. I scavenged it from the Revell M*A*S*H Medical Scene. I wound up converting and updating the M34 to M35 configuration - before I further converted the basic truck into an early Vietnam-era gun truck.

In the Squadron Signal publication Gun Truck, Timothy Kutta paints a pretty good picture of early deployment of these vehicles in Vietnam. It's well worth obtaining for your reference library and I doubt I could add little here more than inspiration to render some of these vehicles in miniature. Though he would not complete a sequel to this book covering the last years of the Vietnam War, I know of another in the works. Hopefully that effort will bear fruit and we all can have a detailed history of these marvelous road warriors from the late 60's and early 70's.

"Babs" represents a typical second-generation gun truck, complete with inner walls to increase the armor protection for the crew - which also served to hold stowage. Original slots and pintle locations for M60 machine guns have now been plated over when she was up-gunned with .50cals all around. I actually upgraded my miniature in fashion with the practice on some early gun trucks - and my miniature underwent a genesis as time went on and better information became available. I included the photos of my early gun truck here too, to show the evolution of this miniature. Below are two pictures of my original miniature in 1995 - prior to up-armor and up-gunning. I also like the take the photos in black & white - to view the pastel weathering effects better.

"Babs" in her final form. My images above are general views of scratchbuilt modifications from all sides and popular angles. The below three digital images were taken by Rodney Williams in 2001. Forgive the bit of dust that has accumulated on "Babs" since 1995. Though she's 'cased' dust manages to even get in there! Entropy is the law of the universe though. Rodney's views show the complicated clutter of the Fighting Compartment I retrofitted to the original "Babs" miniature.