Was a national guard trucker in early Iraq. Welder in my day job. Can confirm, welded much salvaged/stolen/acquired steel to trucks in my company.

This was early 2005. We arrived in Dec/Jan with standard non armored cabs. Went back down to Kuwait have new armor kits bolted on. Was a nice upgrade, but lacked gunner protection. TTPs of the day has nearly every truck in my platoon sporting a gun ring. I helped improvise some protection for gunners; was motivated because I was one of those gunners! We used several of our PLS as dedicated gun trucks, never had humvees or other platforms. Regular natty guard 88Ms, just figuring out how to convoy security. Even got tasked out as the escort detail for other units in the task force.

We also used “bareback” PLS guntrucks as auxiliary recovery vehicles. Using the hook arm as an improvised wrecker stinger to move damaged vehicles out of kill zones or for short distance maintenance efforts. We’d also run one of our gun trucks with a flat rack loaded with spare tires, tow bars, tools, air lines and all that jazz to either augment the wrecker or to be the maintenance asset at times when we were extra busy.

I thought I was pretty clever in using the armor steel covers left over from installing the gun rings. Where the gun ring supports bolt to the front of the cab, there were some rectangular plates with a single bend. I used those to weld directly to the ring to rotate with the gunner and protect the back.

So, does a home brewer Oshkosh with home brewed gunner protection being employed as unit organic convoy protection platforms AND improved recovery assets count as a Shitty Technical?