January-February - Air Defense Artillery

Wanna
Buy
"If I could pick up a couple of six-by-sixes,I could set
myself up in the hauling business in Chicago." .
"With a little fleet of jeeps, I could start a little citydelivery
service in Philadelphia."
"I'm gonna get me one of them closed-body maintenance
trucks, paint a sign reading 'Mr. Fixit' on it, and just travel
around the West Virginia hills fixin' washing machines,
vacuum cleaners-anything the lady's got that needs fixin'."
Today, many a GI dreaming of independence and a cosy
livelihood wanders mentally through the rich waste of machinery
left high and dry by the tides of war-generating
units, metal-working tools, trucks, tractors and trailers glitter
in the sun as far as the mind's eye can see.
Most GI dreams center about the Army's excess motor
transport, where the surpluses are greatest and the opportunities
seem the ripest. But the answer to how practical
are the drea;ms depends on how well adapted to commercial
use military trucks are.
How economically can a jeep be operated? Does the tandem
axle make the 2:y],-ton6x6 too expensive for commercial
operation? What can you do with a Diamond T Wrecker?
Find the answers and win a fortune.
Basically, it makes plenty of sense to consider military
trucks in a commercial light. Army trucks and civilian trucks
are sisters under the tin; practically every Army truck is
an adaptation of a commercial model, if not in whole then
at least in component parts. You never saw a jeep before
the "emergency," but the jeep engine, axles, gear boxes and
controls are all thoroughly civilian. We have few if any
military freaks.
The only thing left to consider is whether the details of
military design hang too big a handicap on the Army truck
in the keen competition of commercial life. But even so,
in many cases such handicaps may be turned into advantages
by clever operators who can think of novel ways of
converting military features to profitable use.
For instance, the jeep has been damned as too expensive
to operate for the load it will carry; it is geared down too
far, they claim. But the jeep is cute, it has won the hearts
of the country-and therein lies an advertising value. Paint
it red, put the name of your meat market on it in big white
letters and every time you deliver two pounds of chops to
Mrs. Clancy the whole neighborhood will be reminded
that you are in the flesh and fowl business. The advertising
value more than offsets the slightly higher cost of operation.
Accentuating the positive of jeep design, the small size
of the vehicle makes it easy to maneuver in heavy city
traffic, and easy to park. Time being money in business life,
the jeep can thus also be a profit-saver. With the jeep, as
with practically every other Army truck, city and highway
work demands one major alteration; removal of the live
front axle. Where there's any kind of road at all, there's
no use for added traction provided by front-wheel drive.
Simply operating in rear-wheel drive alone and forgetting
*From Firepower, by permission.
a
By Tec/3 Bernard L Miller
Truck?*
the front-wheel drive is not enough; power is wasted just
by turning the ring gear and pinion, differential and propeller
shaft, not to mention maintenance and lubrication
that have to be expended on the rotating but useless appendage.
On the other hand, in all off-the-road operations, front.
wheel drive is an asset. Surveyors, geologists searching for
oil and mineral deposits, and timber prospectors would find
front-wheel drive invaluable.
The Army's %-ton truck, such as the weapons carrier or
command car, steps into a fast class in commercial lifeit
must compete with the :y],-tonpickup in small deliveries I
and light hauling. And the %-ton has some very serious disadvantages
for ordinary commercial work-the body styles
for one. The command car has a truck engine and chassis,
and a touring-car body. There seems little to do with this
combination except remove the body and put on something
more suited to hauling. The weapons carrier has a "soft"
(tarp and bows) body that might be all right for hauling
such things as garden produce, but your driver would never
forgive you if you presented him with the soft top to work
in. Especially if he's wearing a little gold button in his lapel.
The carryall might do as a panel-delivery, but it still steers,
like a truck.
In a nutshell, the %-ton' is just too much truck for the
work it can do in civilian life. Its 230-cubic-inch engine
is a fuel eater compared to the 216-cubic-inch engine of the
usual :y],-ton;engineered for a rougher existence, its replacement
parts are heavier and much more expensive than the
:y],-ton's.A replacement engine would cost you $316.99 compared
to about $159 for the :y],-ton,a replacement steering
gear is $17.25 compared to $11.25 for the :y],-ton.
On all ex-Army trucks, this same high-cost-of-replacements
stares you in the face. It's something to think of
when the man with the hammer asks for your bid.
Using the 1:y],-tonweapons carrier for general hauling
has all the disadvantages of the %-ton and one of its own;
the tandem rear axle-it has just that many more tires to
wear out. There is, of course, the faint possibility that you
are in the business of hauling heavy-things-in-small-packages
like metal ingots, sheet steel, or bricks, and in this case
the extra brawn in the two rear axles will give you service.
But like all Army trucks featuring extraordinary tractive
ability, the ~-ton and the 1:y],-tonseem best suited for the
farm and the tall timber. In this connection, a northwestern
truck distributor pointed out one special advantage of the
I:y],-tonthat comes, strangely enough, from its low silhouette.
"That low silhouette would be fine for work in or.
chards under the low trees, especially in combination with
the load-carrying ability which you need in harvesting
fruit."
The 2h-ton 6x6 has been called by many GI's "the bestengineered
military truck in the \\'orId," and one middlewestern
commercial hauler expressed the opinion that it
would be a good truck for local heavy hauling.