In late 1967, a US Army supply convoy drove straight into a Viet Cong kill zone. In ten minutes, 30 trucks were burning, seven drivers dead and 17 wounded. The VC had mapped every route the convoys used and knew how to turn supply columns into a turkey shoot.
Without any armor or firepower worth mentioning, the drivers were practically sitting ducks every time they left the gate.
Something had to change. But official Army channels could take months, and the men in those convoys didn't have that kind of time. So they simply built their own gun trucks in the motor pool. At first, they bolted sandbags and wooden planks onto the back of 2.5-ton trucks. They soaked up monsoon rain, snapped axles, and turned the trucks into overloaded coffins.
On paper, the only weapon allowed was the M60 machine gun. The guys driving through the kill zones had a different opinion. They strolled over to the Air Force, talked them out of .50 cals, and yanked miniguns off Hueys. One crew mounted their minigun without its electric motor and hand-cranked it through firefights like a Civil War Gatling gun.
They proved themselves a few months later at Ambush Alley. Charging straight into the kill zone, the gun trucks lit up the treeline. The Americans lost four gun trucks and six cargo trucks, but the VC got smoked, left 41 dead and pulled back.
From then on, convoys ran one gun truck per ten cargo trucks.
Three weeks into the invasion of Iraq, the 3rd Infantry Division led Coalition Forces in the decisive push to seize Baghdad, marking a turning point in the conflict.
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