Does anybody know of anywhere on the net i could find plans, drawings, or blueprints for the trailer of the dragon wagon, tank transporter is m25 but i want the drawings or some kind of drawings showing actual dimensions and various straight on views of the trailer from all possible angles such as engineers drawings. The trailer is the m15. Thank you for any help.
Here are a few pages but not so many on the trailer.
http://www.ferreamole.it/images/Dragon/m25_dw_01.htm
Are you trying to detail the Tamiya kit?
I have the kit for the front end, the back end is not in the one i got for $10 from a dealer who was going out of business. I was thinking of scratch building somekind of trailer, i have seen the article from the one guy, don’t remember who it is, that did a scratch build of the whole thing. It’s great but he used a book for the reference and i was thinking of just having some plans if any are available. I was in the military and understand about the drawings and suich and have seen many on the web for other things. I was wondering if there were any for this trailer that i could use to scratch build the trailer.
You could always order the trailer parts from Tamiya. Would be much easier than scratch-building it.They sell sprues and parts to their kits. Here is their contact info:
http://www.tamiyausa.com/contact/index.php
All you need to do is call them and give them the kit # and part#s, sprue , etc. that you want. Here is link to a site with scans of the instruction sheets. Check pages 11, and 12 on the Assembly Guide and it shows the parts sprue layouts for the trailer. Sprues J, M, N, R, and pretty much everything on page 12 are for the trailer. You will also need 8 of the tires. Trailer assembly is on pages 7, 8, and 9 of the Assembly Guide links.
Good luck.
Have to go Heavyarty’s suggestion. I have the whole kit, and you would be hard pressed to scratch a trailer to the same degree of finesse as the tractor. The Tractor was often used on it’s own, and recovery of a broken down Sherman would be a nice dio that is not often seen. Plenty of pics on the net of the M25 towing Shermies.
Jeff:
I would recommend that you place a posting on this site with the title: WTB: Tamiya M15 trailer from Dragon Wagon kit
http://www.network54.com/Forum/47214
Don’t spend too much. The entire kit goes for about $70 nowadays by sellers. You’d probably luck out as someone may have built the Pacific cab but doesn’t want to finish the trailer. Much easier than to try to scratch build one, for sure. You’re time is valuable.
Yu could also post over at Armorama on the Searching For, Buy, Trade, Sell Forum that you are looking for the trailer as well. Between Armorama and Missing-Lynx (above), you should be able to find one out there. If not, I would get the parts form Tamiya. It would be a bi$%* to totally scratch one. It was a pain to convert the Tamiya trailer into an M15A1, check mine out at my Showcase II below.
Armorama forum: http://www.armorama.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=SquawkBox&file=index&req=viewforum&forum_id=3&page=1
Hi jeffchele,
As far as I know, there aren’t any scale plans out on the internet for the transporter or the trailer. There are a couple of reference books for it out there, “Military Machine #4: M25 Tank Transpoter Dragon Wagon” by John Voller…here’s a review…
http://ampsnz.hobbyvista.com/reviews/Books/Misc/dw.htm
…and “Dragon Wagon: A Visual History of the U.S. Army’s Heavy Tank Transporter 1941-1955” by David Doyle and Pat Stansell…
http://ipmslondon.tripod.com/armourreviews/id29.html
http://armorama.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=Reviews&file=index&req=showcontent&id=400
Both books are out of print, and a bit hard to find, especially the first one, but they do show up on eBay every now and then. However, I don’t believe either has any scale plans.
I bet the article you saw about was this one where Robert Waltman scratch-builds a 1/16 scale Dragon Wagon using the Tamiya kit as one (of many) reference guides. Oh man, how long would that thing be? WOW!..
http://www.kitparade.com/features00/dragonwagonrw_1.htm
So, what is out there? Ericadeane mentioned the info on the Italian “ferreamole” site. Be sure to click on “Successiva” at the bottom of the page since there’s 4 pages of great photos like this one…
I those pics all came from the manual on the transporter, manual number TM 9-767…
There is also the manual TM 9-1767E on the M15 Semi-Trailer. Reprints of the technical manuals are avaliable, but staggeringly expensive…
http://www.boyceequipment.com/1533_2milmanuals.html
However, Mike Powell compiles technical manuals and photos and puts them on CD. Here’s a review of his information along with a list of what he has available. There’s lots of links to invividual reviews, and his email address…
http://www.perthmilitarymodelling.com/reviews/books/easy1/easy1tm.htm
It doesn’t list the Dragon Wagon, but I know he has one, because I just bought one from him on eBay for $25. Here’s how he describes what’s on the CD…
“On compact disc are TM 9-767 on the M25 Tractor-Trailer combination (532 pages with 758 scans, TM 9-1767E on the M15 Semi-Trailer (51 pages with 68 scans), 54 scans of illustrations from SNL G-160 the parts catalog, 106 museum photos and 11 period photos of the Dragon Wagon.”
Okay, here are two good pages for ya…
http://www.chars-francais.net/kithobbyist/dragwag1.htm
http://www.chars-francais.net/kithobbyist/dragwag2.htm
From the same site, here’s some more good stuff. The text is in French, but check out the pictures at the bottom…
http://www.chars-francais.net/archives/m25.htm
Tanxheaven has some even better photos. Over 50 of them are devoted to just the trailer…
http://tanxheaven.com/m15a1/m15a1.htm
Just for a taste, here are a couple more awsome builds…
http://www.guntruck.com/M25DragonWagon.html
http://www.missing-lynx.com/articles/usa/amtdw/amtdw.htm
…and a nice one without the trailer…hey, it would save lots of room…
http://ww2modelmaker.com/modelpages/CBm26.htm
Best of luck and have some fun with it. Take care.
I am new in the forums and wanna say hi to everyone.
I want help on reference to convert the Tamiya M15 to the M15A1 to be used with a Tank Workshop M123 kit.
Also the M123 used to pull other trailers as well, the M162 and M172A1. Does anyone know if there’s a kit for either of them?
Hi Yiannich,
There might be a conversion kit out there or coming soon from Real Models. I don’t have too much information but I did get some hits with Google using…
M15A1 trailer conversion
First off, I got a hit on Sprue Brothers site. It links to this page…
http://spruebrothers.zoovy.com/category/aftermarketdecals.conversionsets/
…but it isn’t there. To me, that indicates it’s either not released yet or it was there and is out of stock. Here’s the tantalizing tidbit in the Google search summary…
“1:35 Real Model M15A1 Trailer Conversion Set #35081 Item #35081 is a resin conversion set for the Tamiya…”
Sprue Brothers is a great place, so you might drop them a line and find out what’s what on the kit. At least now you’ll have a manufacturer and kit number.
I also found it on Roll, another good shop. They use frames on their site, so I can’t give you a direct link, but go to their main page and do a “catalog search” on M15A1 and you should get it. Their price is $51…
http://www.rollmodels.net/
The reason I think it’s a new kit and not an old out of production one is because I never found any reviews, pictures or references to it by someone who used it. Plus I found this German site with it listed as NEW…
http://www.moduni.de/advanced_search_result.php/keywords/m15a1/sort/2a
It’s also on another German site…another frames user. Here’s the main site…
http://aeromodel.de/
Here’s the frame with the kit…
http://aeromodel.de/Panzershop.htm
They also have a Dragon Wagon engine super detail set, Tamiya - RMA-35 031 in case anyone passing though would be interested in such a kit.
I did find a resin kit for the M15A1 trailer by the French company DES. Mission models lists it for $145…
http://www.missionmodels.com/pages/des.htm
RJProducts has it too…
http://www.rjproducts.com/Catalogs/DES_Models/DES_Models.html
There weren’t any kits for an M162 or M172A1 that I could find.
If you want to go the scratch building route, HeavyArty is your guy. Check out this message. About half-way down, he talks about the trailers and has a pic of the scratch conversion he did. Oh, and hey, look what’s towing it! Great work…
http://www.finescale.com/fsm/community/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=36012
Okay, still with me? Some references. The book I mentioned in the above message, Dragon Wagon, A Visual History…. I ended up buying a copy. There’s 4 pages, mostly big photos, of the M15A1. It mentions some of the modifications, which I’ll summarize…
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The storage boxes were ditched and I-beams were added along the sides to make the bed wider.
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There were open ovals in the I-beams which lightened them and allowed open storage.
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Stakes, their pockets and tie-down rings were added along the i-beams.
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Large hinged covers were added over the rear tires.
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A spare tire carrier was added along the left front side.
FYI, the same book has 4 pages about the Mack M123 at the very end. There’s 5 huge clear B&W photos and 7 little ones. The little ones look like they’re from the original manual.
I also mentioned the Easy 1 reference CD. It arrived and I found the trailer it has photos of, is an M15A1. There are around 40 detailed shots of a museum trailer.
Here are some great pictures of the M15A1 on TanxHeaven…
http://tanxheaven.com/m15a1/m15a1.htm
They have pics of an M123C there too…
Thanks very much colo_artist.
I found also the Real Models conversion kit but i prefer to go for scratch building. It’s my first real scratch building (i am only 19) and it looks easy, just the 4 tire covers and the storage boxes removed.
The resources you mentioned i found them before but i was wondering if there are some engineering plans or something with measurements etc. It looks like nothing out there.
Also i contacted HeavyArty and gave me lots of info, thanks Gino.
At the moment i am finishing the M26 and the trailer is the one i will convert. As i was painting this morning, the air hose of my airbrush broke by accident and the weathering process stopped until i have a new one 
Looks like a good reason to start the conversion.
Hi Yiannich,
I’ve not seen any scaled plans or measurements for the Dragon Wagon or trailers on the net, in the two books I mentioned or the information on the CD. However, the book Dragon Wagon: A Visual History has some excelent pictures showing the sideveiw of an M15A1. Since you have the M15, using the photo for measurements should get you very close. They show up on eBay often. I almost forgot to mention it also has 3 photos of an M162 trailer.
I also have some dimensions on the M172A1 for ya…
http://www.tpub.com/content/constructionmisc/TM-55-5811-188-14/css/TM-55-5811-188-14_30.htm
http://community.webshots.com/album/278033894CrvhHg
Take care.