Hello!
I need help hunting down scale plans / blueprint for the interwar Vickers dragon. It towed the QF 18 pounder when the British army started to mechanise in the 1920s/1930s.
Here’s a photo, which I add for discussion purposes. I make no claim to ownership.
It would be great to get hold of a scale drawing as I plan to design in CAD to tow my 18 pounder!
Thanks in advance for any help.
Cheers
Matthew
Bloody hell Matthew! You don’t want much do you?!
As this is pretty obscure I should think your best bet is to contact the Royal Artillery Museum; I don’t think it’s functioning as a museum yet - being in a sort of limbo at Larkhill - but I should think their archive section would be able to help, or at least advise. Mind you, I suspect that if you do come up with something there’ll be a fee of some sort.
Just Google Royal Artillery Museum; there’s a contact/info piece amongst it all.
Good luck.
Brian
You want Tankette issues 51/3 and 19/5 - they have drawings of the various marks of Dragon. (That’s the magazine of MAFVA - if you’re a member I believe you can request scanned copies of back issues.)
Thanks so much for the guidance. I’ll try to track down those back issues.
Cheers
Matthew
Brian,
I reached out to the Royal Artillery Museum, and they got back to me with really useful information. I copy paste it below if anyone else needs dimensions of the various marks of Vickers Dragon.
"The only thing we have is a handbook titled, Handbook for the Marks I, II, III & IIIA Dragons Land Service 1927. This has some illustrations/photos showing front, rear and side views, as well as detail of particular areas.
"I have included the dimensions from the handbook, which shows variations between the Marks (please forgive my poor attempt at the fractions for the inches).
Dragon MkI Dragon MkII Dragon MkIII Dragon MkIIIA
Height with hood 10ft 5ft 11 3/4in 5ft 11 3/4in 6ft 3 3/8in
Without hood 7ft
Length 16ft 5 1/2in 16ft 1 3/4in 16ft 1 3/4in 15ft 9 1/2in
Width 9ft 1/2in 7ft 9in 7ft 9in 7ft 10 1/2in
Ground Clearance 1ft 1ft 3 3/4in 1ft 3 3/4in 1ft 3 3/4in
Width over tracks 8ft 5 3/4in 7ft 4in 7ft 4in 7ft 4in
Track shoe 13in x 6 1/4in 11in x 6 1/4in 11in x 6 1/4in 11in x 6 1/4 stamped"
I will post screenshots of my CAD designs next.
Cheers
Matthew
And here are the CAD screenshots of my latest designs.
Now time to crank up the 3D printer. 
Next project might be the later style Dragon…
Cheers
Matthew
Well Matthew, I’m delighted they came through for you, I really am.
I look very forward to seeing what comes of it all - in other words what your models will look like(!)
But I really am chuffed the Museum came up with the goods.
Brian
The website Landships II https://landships.activeboard.com/ might have some more information for you. They have a lot of drawings and discussions on everything WWI. I spend a lot of time there browsing their site as WWI is my favorite era.
