Does any branch of the military still use the deuce and a half trucks?

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jessek@reddit

I've seen similar sized trucks used in convoys, but I have no idea what models they were.

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Glittering_Rush_1451@reddit

My reserve unit on Fort Carson still had a few in use 10 years ago, but they finally got replaced while we were deployed

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GeneralBlumpkin@reddit

I've driven the armored lmtvs and mtvs but haven't seen a deuce and a half being used. Only the m1070 which is a beast!

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Electrical-Title-698@reddit

You maybe saw an LMTV or MTV. They're very common, but those are cabovers though so the engine is underneath the cab, they don't have a "nose" like the M35.

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MTB_Mike_@reddit

7 Ton are the standard ones now, some old 5 tons still being used too. NG and Army reserve still have these ones but they aren't really used.

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davidm2232@reddit

I hope not. Have you ever driven one? They are junk in every way. Hard to steer, hard to stop, hard to work on. They don't make good power. They suck to drive on the road and are even worse overland.

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Were you an 88M or 91B? 88M, in IL NG so I drove one a lot. I was used to no power steering because Dad had an old IH grain truck that had no power steering, and the air assisted hydraulic brakes were better than straight hydraulic brakes of the time (‘60s and ‘70s). We had a late ‘70s IH Loadstar 1800 garbage truck that had hydraulic brakes and with a load on you always hoped no one pulled out in front of you.

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davidm2232@reddit

I'm not sure. I believe it was a mid 70s model. It was bobbed and had a trailer frame for a bed. Looked awesome. Sounded awesome. But terrible to drive. Excellent lawn ornament but thats about it. It was also in rough shape which didn't help. I rebuilt the brake booster but it was never right. Plus when they bobbed it, the put in a rear pinion brake. It went through a set of pads in 100 miles.

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4Q69freak@reddit

So you drove a modified one not in stock form? A stock deuce doesn’t drive any worse than an early ‘60s commercial straight truck. The biggest problem is that the heaters suck especially with a canvas roof and the weird shift pattern with 3rd and 4th being next to each other. I had a Mustang with a 4 speed and after AT or a long weekend I would get in my car and miss 3rd and go from 2nd to 4th from muscle memory.

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davidm2232@reddit

It was modified to be a bit better on the trails. It was really not.

doesn’t drive any worse than an early ‘60s commercial straight truck

Exactly. And how many people choose to drive those to the grocery store these days? I'd much rather drive a Jeep and leave the Deuce for a lawn ornament.

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4Q69freak@reddit

You said you hoped the military didn’t still use them because the drive horribly and are hard to work on. They were never meant to be chopped up and driven as a grocery getter. They were built to haul troops and supplies on poorly built roads.

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davidm2232@reddit

Which a modern commercial truck is much better at. True air brakes and power steering are the standard at least since the 90s. The military went to newer models decades ago.

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pizzaanarchy@reddit

NG probably, and there are about 10 acres of them at Ft Hood, but I think that 90 years is fine for a design life and probably none are on active duty.

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sharpshooter999@reddit

There's a few that have made their way into civilian use, a few farmers in our area have them. They convert them into water trucks to haul water out to their cow pastures. Our volunteer fire department has one, mainly as a back up tanker to the newer Freightliner they have, but it actually works great for grass fires as they have a railing around the tank where 4 guys can stand and use water hoses while driving through said pastures.

That said, the biggest complaint is the lack of a turbo charger, they're pretty low on horsepower compared to newer diesel trucks

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Teknicsrx7@reddit

There's a few that have made their way into civilian use

A few? They’re pretty popular with the off-road crowd. See lots of bobbed deuces and stuff by me. Lots of people also will pick them up to pull their axles for their other rigs. There’s lots of deuces in civilian hands

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sharpshooter999@reddit

Oh im sure lol, I'm just talking in my area. I do know of a guy the next county over who got them for off-roading. He sunk one trying to cross a river and then sunk his 2nd trying to pull it out

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Teknicsrx7@reddit

Yea they’re awesome trucks, as long as you don’t need to drive them far or fast lol, was very close to grabbing one a few years back

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4Q69freak@reddit

There is a trick to tearing the governor up. I had an old Army mechanic in the Guard tell me how to do it. He said that he had done it to my truck and that was the reason it would run 65mph. And don’t know your definition of far but I’ve driven one from Bloomington, IL to Camp Grayling, MI. I drove a Hummer back, I’d have rather been in the deuce.

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Teknicsrx7@reddit

Oh you can drive it far, it’s just not exactly a great roadtrip car

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4Q69freak@reddit

Yeah it’s a military vehicle, it’s not meant for comfort. A Cadillac is going to ride much better but don’t come with a .50 ring. It also depends on which style of driver’s seat is in it, th is ones without a suspension under the driver’s seat license ere a kidney beater, those with a suspension weren’t too bad. I’ve driven commercial trucks that rode just as bad.

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Teknicsrx7@reddit

Yeah it’s a military vehicle, it’s not meant for comfort.

Yea they’re awesome trucks, as long as you don’t need to drive them far or fast

That’s why I said what I said

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habilisatthis@reddit

Potato farmers here put crop specific containers on the back and run them hard at harvest time.

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koolaideprived@reddit

You can buy them at auction for fairly cheap, but most people want to swap engines and upgrade lots of stuff, so they end up fairly spendy.

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4Q69freak@reddit

The Vietnam era trucks did have turbos it was a 478 cu in Detroit multi fuel. We still had them in the Guard in the ‘90s. We had to wear hearing protection because of the turbo whistle. My truck was a 1967 model that whistled really bad but was faster than some of the newer deuces.

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sharpshooter999@reddit

Yeah I got no idea how old these are. The VFD one i thought was a Vietnam era one but it certainly could've been built prior and just used. I know we've had it out to our farm (dad and brother are on the fire department) to add extra steps for the older guys and to torch out a bottom lip around the door frames for easier access, also for the older guys lol. They didn't make them for 60+ year olds to be bailing in and out of them

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pizzaanarchy@reddit

At the time, they used gearing instead of making a system with extreme tolerances, i.e. a farm boy needed to be able to take it apart and fix it with 4 wrenches, some screwdrivers and a Hammer in a muddy trench under fire.

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Kali-of-Amino@reddit

I've heard that they're still used in the militaries of our Scandenavian NATO allies.

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Salvage_Gaming99@reddit

Deuce and a half have been out of service for a long while. The 5 ton was used till the mid 2000s, and now it JLTVs, 7 tons, 10 tons, and HETs

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4Q69freak@reddit

We were still using deuces in ‘98 in IL NG when I got out. Mine was a 1967 model. I was born in ‘70.

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02K30C1@reddit

Some of the reserve or national guard units might. They’re usually the slowest to replace older equipment.

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PAXICHEN@reddit

They get the hand me downs.

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GeneralBlumpkin@reddit

And when we were done with them we'd give them to the USMC lol

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4Q69freak@reddit

I was going to say ask the Marine reserves they are usually the last to get “new” equipment. It goes Active Army, Army Guard, Army Reserve, Active Marines, Marine Reserve. The Air Force and Air Guard fall in there somewhere but both are probably before the Marine Reserv.

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Batgirl_III@reddit

Laughs in Coast Guard

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4Q69freak@reddit

Yeah but the Coast Guard isn’t DOD. When did you get rid of 1911s and go to Berettas? We got them in the Guard around ‘92. Had a friend in Marine Reserves and they switched over around ‘95or ‘96.

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Batgirl_III@reddit

The Coast Guard was DOT when I enlisted in ‘99, we became DHS a few years later.

Smallarms are one of the few areas where Congress didn’t make us catch the Navy’s hand me downs… at least, not in those heady days when DHS was being stood up and Congress was willing to throw buckets of money at anything and everything that they could tell the voters was “counter terrorism.”

The Beretta M92 was the standard issue sidearm when I enlisted and what I was trained on in basic. I hated that ungangly, unergonomic brick of a weapon. Luckily, we switched to the Sig Sauer P229 DAK in ‘06. Carried one daily for most of my career after I jumped over to CGIS. Still carry one on the regular after retirement.

I know Sig Sauer has a bad reputation these days after the whole P320 fiasco, but I’ve never had an issue with my P229.

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4Q69freak@reddit

See you got Sig’s probably before Army Guardsmen did. And WAYYY before Marine Reserves. And yeah the Berettas sucked. The only problem with the 1911s were that they were completely worn out. A friend was in a Guard MP unit and said that he never used his assigned pistol to qualify with because it was so inaccurate. He said during the first Gulf War he never cleaned it but would shake the dust out of it (he was a M60 gunner and also had a M16A2). One of our medics had one that the slide was so loose on that you could rock it from side to side like an eighth of an inch. Most of our .45s were from the early ‘50s.

So were all of our M2s except the best one was a 1944 Delco (as in GM division ACDelco). That old WW2 relic hardly ever misfired or jammed when the ones not hastily made during wartime would double feed and you were constantly clearing jams.

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arturiusboomaeus@reddit

Florida Army Reserve and National Guard units used them through the end of the 90s. Think the last time I saw one in active use was right after 9/11 around Cape Kennedy and Patrick Air Force Base.

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zoppaTheDim@reddit

National Guard

I know I passed a line of twenty of them on a highway within the last ten years.

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koolaideprived@reddit

A quick search found this place that sells refurbished and customized versions, and i also found several sites selling as-is.

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Realistic_Complex539@reddit

I highly doubt it, the oldest vehicle i have ever seen in active duty was an old 5 ton expando van from the 70s. It was towed around everywhere because they needed it as a command shelter.

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Batgirl_III@reddit

Surely you mean oldest land vehicle.

I’ve ridden in a C-130 Hercules older than my father… and I was a Coast Guardsman. So I never had much call to be around B-52’s or CH-47’s.

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Realistic_Complex539@reddit

Being that I'm a land dweller, work on land vehicles, and only get in an air vehicle to go do operations on different land, yes I mean land vehicle

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Batgirl_III@reddit

As a retired Coastie, I have a superstitious dread and respectful fear of the metal sky-birds. They operate Up There^tm and the gods did not intend for Man to go Up There^tm . They are strange and alien.

The ones that have been painted the sacred red-orange are okay. But, only just.

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Batgirl_III@reddit

There might be some kicking around in rear echelon National Guard armories… and I’m sure that there’s probably a massive parking lot of them mothballed and rotting away in the desert southwest someplace.

But they were replaced by the FMTV series of vehicles starting in the mid to late Nineties. I enlisted in the Coast Guard in 2000, a branch infamous for using everybody else’s hand me downs, and I never saw an M35 in use.

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Blue387@reddit

I wonder if State Guard forces (not National Guard) use these

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MyUsername2459@reddit

I don't think so.

When I got out of the National Guard a decade ago, I had never actually seen one in use.

They'd all been replaced by the LMTV ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_of_Medium_Tactical_Vehicles )

The wiki article says they entered service in 1996, so over the last 30 years or so they've certainly replaced any older trucks.

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