Ampersand's Dragon Wagon Pt. II
BY: |
David Doyle |
PUBLISHER |
Ampersand |
REVIEW BY: |
|
NOTES: | 120 pages, hardcover, landscape, ISBN 978-1-944367-00-8 |
One of
the major 'problems' that face armies, and has since WWI, is how to move AFVs
and other large equipment. Tanks in particular, are not designed to travel long
distances so there has to be a way to transport them. In addition, when they
break down, they cannot be easily moved for long distances to where they can be
repaired. This is a situation that particularly plagued the German Army during
WWII as they had few resources for transporting broken down vehicles and often
had to abandon them on the battlefield.
The answer was, of course, a heavy truck and trailer that were capable of moving these behemoths. At first, standard trucks and trailers could be used, but as tanks and other AFVs got heavier and heavier, larger prime movers and more robust trailers had to be designed and built. In the US Army, these have all been given the name 'Dragon Wagon'.
This next edition of Ampersand's Visual
History series is the second volume on these vehicles and covers the years 1955
to 1975. For sure, the vehicles here were in service for longer than that, but
in terms of development, those are good dates. This covers two vehicles, the
M123 and the M746. The M1213 was
built
in multiple variants, the M123, C, A1C, and E2. The main differences in these
variations are the engines and the winches. There were a variety of trailers
that could be used and those are also covered in this volume. The M746 was
developed to carry the heavier tanks and featured not only eight wheels in the
tractor, but the four front ones were steerable.
Thanks to the propensity for the US Army to photograph everything, we have some truly superb period photos of these vehicles, including period walk-around images and a number of great color photos from Vietnam, where they were used extensively. This series also makes use of extant vehicles either restored to operating conditions or in museums. This provides additional images to add to the mix. Some volumes have a lot of these, but this one has fewer than the norm with a lot more period photos
As usual, this is mostly a photo book so a lot of information is provided in the photo captions. It makes for a very interesting volume about vehicles that I have never really considered all that much. It is a book that I enjoyed reading (and I read every page), and I think that you will as well. Consider picking this one up next time you see it or order it direct.
August 2016
Review copy courtesy Ampersand Publishing. Get yours today at this link.
If you would like your product reviewed fairly and fairly quickly, please contact the editor or see other details in the Note to Contributors.