"Good sources for drawings/plans of military vehicles?" Topic

Where do sculptors go for plans of military vehicles? I see the odd plan in Ospreys or other publications. Is it generally necessary to hunt around or do people have other sources?

It is generally necessary to hunt around :-)

There are a number of good books available with plans in.
George Bradford has published a series of books of plans.
You will have to scale them down using a photocopier though.

Join MAVFA too, their magazine Tankette carries plans.

Hubert Cance has quite a few available, but Mick Bell's drawings seem to no longer be available. George Bradford's can be found here: link Finally, John Church has an excellent range of plans, mainly in 1/76 scale. No website, but an SAE and a couple of stamps should get you his list: John Church, Honeywood, Middle Road, Tiptoe (Nr. Lymington), SO41 6FX. UK.

Dom.

Lots of red army here o5m6.de/RussianTrucks.html

Various here link

See, like I said, it's necessary to hunt round for them (or look to others on here who have already hunted round for them) :-)

Also be aware that if you find two sets of plans, they may not match (scale or detail). Same goes for 3, or 4…

Compare plans to photos as well, as you can often pick-up or correct details that are omitted from or in error on the plans.

Another source is to go to museums and actually collect data from vehicles.

And lastly, you can also scale off of photos. If you can find straight on side/front/rear views, you can generate scales in the hoizontal and vertical that can work resonably well. Usually best to have two or more pics of any one face of a vehicle to compare calculated results, as scaling from photos can be tricky.

There's a book, "Model Design & Blueprinting Handbook", that goes into a lot of detail on how to build up plans, including analyzing photographs of the original.

I tend to use a good set of plans, plus a quality 1/35th or 1/72nd kit when I build a vehicle master. Photos are another good reference source. There are a lot of good books out there that feature scale plans, plus photo reference material.

Also be cautious that the vehicles in museums may not be actual production versions, but may have modifications. Photos need to be treated with caution, as many are misidentified or of prototypes, field modifications or such like. Same goes for plans. ;-)

Bit of a mine-field really.

Most of my plans are the old Bellona Military Prints series! MAFVA is well worth joining, as mentioned above.

Do a Google for "3 view" or "3 view plans" or "3d blueprints". There are a couple really good sites out there, but I haven't swapped my bookmarks over from Firefox to Opera yet.

The old 'Airfix Plastic Modelling' magazines. They even included tips on how to scratchbuild the vehicles.

"Trucks of the Red Army" o5m6 is very good, but he rendered the cabs of the Studebakers slightly off, so its better to back up 3-view drawings with good photos.

George Bradford of AFVNews has three-view drawings available link

And, he has six books of WW2 drawings link

Wyatt

Thanks very much for the links. I'll buy the books off Abe books and send off for the drawings I need from George Bradford. At only $2 USD each they should keep me off the streets for a while.