Dragon Wagon Part 2: A Visual History of the U.S. Army’s Heavy Tank Transporter 1955-1975
Ampersand’s latest book continues to expand on their Visual History format as this edition follows up on David Doyle’s “Dragon Wagon Part 1: A Visual History of the U.S. Army’s Heavy Tank Transporter 1941-1955”. Ampersand got their start in 1993 when Pat Stansell distributed a free issue of Military Miniatures in Review at the IPMS Nationals in Atlanta. Ampersand joined forces with HobbyLink Japan in 2008 and have continued to expand their military AFV publications ever since.
True to the Visual History Series name, the focus of this book in on the visual, detailing the development and service history of the U.S. Army’s Heavy Tank Transporters from 1955-1975. This is Ampersand’s is standard version of their Visual History format and it runs 120 pages packed with large, clear photographs. David Doyle starts with a one page introduction and then launches into the photographs, allowing the pictures (along with excellent captions) to tell the story. The first edition covered WW2 and Korea and the Pacific family of vehicles. This edition focuses on the Vietnam era 10-ton M123 series of tractors. Two additional chapters address the T15 tractor that led into the M123 series along with the unusual M746 tractor added as a bonus.
The cover photo is a color nice action shot of two M88 armored recovery vehicles loading a damaged M48A3 onto a trailer hooked to a 1968 production M123AIC tractor at Da Nang in 1971. I counted 196 well captioned photographs, 112 in color. Ampersand has provided a short preview at: https://daviddoylebooks.com/new-products-2/dragon-wagon-part-2-ys4ze
The Table of Contents includes the following:
- Introduction
- T15 [Page 11]
- XM123 [Page 17]
- M123 [Page 39]
- M123C [Page 41]
- M123AIC [Page 86]
- M123E2 [Page 96]
- XM746 [Page 102]
- M746 [Page 104]
This is a gorgeous soft-bound book and is well worth the money. David Doyle provides lots of detailed photographs with the majority are in color. The only 1/35 kit of the M123 that I’m aware of is the Tank Workshop! resin kit and it appears the Tank Workshop! Is up for sale. Maybe this book is a forecast of good things to come!
Highly recommended!
My thanks to The Ampersand Group, Inc. and IPMS/USA for the chance to review this great book.
Reviewer Bio
Frank Landrus
Frank retired from the Ophthalmic industry with over thirty-six years of Research and Development experience. Frank's first model kit was a 1959 Hawk 1/72 US Marines Vought AU-1 Corsair and has been building models for over sixty years. Frank's first encounter with IPMS was attending a North Central Texas ScaleFest show in 1984. Frank soon became more involved in Make-N-Take activities and became the IPMS Western Coordinator for Make-N-Takes [West of the Mississippi River]. Make-N-Takes quickly became a local model contest and airshow staple reaching a high of reaching over 1,300 children before the COVID shutdown. Frank has volunteered to assist in contest judging since 1985 and is currently the Nationals Head Figure Judge until he is dead or they find someone better.
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