I've not had a lot of experience with using chains on ice but a number of times I've used them on our LR Discovery when I've had no alternative and found they were better than not using them. Most of my winter ice/snow mileage is in the Alps (we have a flat in a ski resort) so it's up or down hills. You really need chains on all four wheels under those conditions - you'll either swap ends (downhill with chains on the front only) or have no steering (chains only on the rear).

Chains come in all sorts of different designs but whether there's much difference or not I've no idea as we've stuck with the diamond back square link type with "e-z fit" hoop style back. If you've got "knobbly" style tyres on the truck I can imagine though that these would be a pain to fit correctly. If you don't know much about chain types have a look at this link:

http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/image..._2011-2012.pdf

Chains are (essentially) horrendous to drive with. Even fitted correctly they clatter and bang around and on some vehicles they wouldn't have to loosen off much to take out hydraulic lines / dent wings etc. You're not supposed to do more than 30 mph on them (easy to see why once you use them) or drive on tarmac with them. In practice though you often find patches of snow alternating with bare road and nobody takes them off. Otherwise any trip would take forever.

Using them on tarmac / concrete road wears them out really quickly though and a flailing broken end is really not something you want. If you're using them over any distance (as you may be) you'll need to work out some method of fixing wear points / broken links. I've welded mine (they came with spare links) but I only use them for short periods. How you'd maintain them on your own over hundreds or thousands of remote miles, much of it in the dark I've no idea.