Cargo Bed/Fighting Compartment: I would remove all the .50cal ammo boxes from the cargo bed floor and happily return them to my spare parts boxes. Likewise with the pedestal for the Maxim Turret. This would be replaced entirely by the carriage of the towed M55 Quad AA Weapon. Artillery units would insert a steel box into the cargo bed of either the Deuce and 5-ton, in which the M55 Quad would be mounted. It extended beyond the rear edge of the cargo box, the tailgate was lowered to accommodate it.

Notable in this view is the M55 Quad Turret blocks any clear indication that the Loading Winch, common to AA Trucks, was mounted on "Nancy". It also appears that in front of the left Loader crewman that 40mm ammo cans are likely stowed against the front wall of the cargo box. What is unclear is the area in front of this crewman - though "Nancy" does not appear to be equipped with a radio set in other photos (as evidenced by no antenna appearing in photographs) a possible mount could exist in the front left corner of the cargo bed. I didn't add this feature as it is not clear what appears there in this photo.

I decided to make my steel box 13 feet long in scale - as this would fit the cargo bed and not overhang the rear edge of the lowered tailgate as it appears in the photo above. I don't give "real" measurements here because I use an Armor Research Company 1:35 scale ruler exclusively for scratchbuilding. These have disappeared and I hope they will come back some day - as this is my favorite modeling tool. It's more important that the X-Acto #11 blade to me. My trusty 1:35 scale ruler has been with me for maybe 8 to 10 years now. I don't bother with conversions into millimeters and such.

Two views of the rear quadrant of the model gun truck. The rear view mirrors are .010" mirrored styrene - I love being able to see my reflection in them! The steel box inside the cargo bed extends beyond the interior dimensions, in which the tailgate was mounted in the open position - and there is slack in the chains. Modification to the AFV Club M35A2 cargo bed rear panel comes in removing the molded in reflector detail. The blackout markers were mounted under the rear edge of the cargo bed floor - just behind the rear panel. Reflectors were placed outboard, and the markers placed inboard. These clusters were not mounted on flying extensions from the frame rails as in the A2 variant.

If you don't want to go the lengths I did, this picture is for you. Kirin's #28522 Quad Gun Truck Conversion proved an inspiration for me when I built "Nancy" the first time around. Designed by Chris "Panzer" Mrosko - the only one who I'd say has as much passion for the gun truck model as I do - this was a nice study. The original conversion kit still sits in my detail parts box - as I'd use none of it for my conversion of the AFV Club kit. Now, since it's so hard to find - I'd say it's a collectors item. Don't make the mistake of critiquing the M35A2 truck as a mount for the weapon - as it is a model built up to display the conversion.

The graphics for "Nancy" were done on my iMac DV in Abobe PhotoDeluxe. I made drawings of the full-size armor templates and then hand-drew the logos. I scanned this into Adobe PhotoDeluxe and colored and cleaned up the image. I printed them out full-sized using my Epson Color Stylus 740 onto Micro-Mark's White decal paper for inkjet printers, #82277. I followed their instructions to the letter and sealed the printed image with their #82276 Last Step decal fixative spray.

I got this done on the first shot - it was simple to do. As I mentioned, I based by graphics on the 1986 photos of "Nancy" and not the color drawing nor AFV Club's renderings. For the original miniature I hand-painted the logo and flower on the armor plating. This method beats the Hell out of that effort! When dry, the images would be trimmed and applied like a normal water slide decal. If my printer could only print white I'd be in Nirvana.

Even though these decals come out incredibly thin, I still felt it necessary to layer over them with coats of Future Floor Finish to get them to "blend" into the overall finish to appear as if the logos had been painted on. This is a simple trick I learned while finishing aircraft models it seems like ages ago.