Got an intersting condundrum.
I am starting work on the casting master for the Renault FT for Kallistra. As usual, I have been looking through multiple websites, to find a general concencus and the dimensions, from which I apply to a suitable technical drawing to start work.
Nearly every source I have found so far lists the FT as being about 5m (16.ft) long (with the tail)/4.1m (13.5 ft), 1.74m (5 ft 9 inch) wide and a pretty consistent 2.14m (7ft) tall.
Now, here's the odd part.
Every single technical drawing I've looked at, when they match all the other dimensions, does not match that height. At 144th scale, 5m equates to 34.7mm, and 1.74m to 12.1mm. The height, from the base of the tracks to the top of the dome, should be (if it were indeed 2.14m) 14.9mm.
Consistently, the measurements from track to dome is more like 16.1 to 16.4 – a good 10% difference.
Now, with these things there is always some margin for error, but this is quite a large error, and a consistent one.
By co-incidence, I lucked out on finding this image, which encapsulates the problem. This drawing gives the dimensions from where they are supposed to be measured from, and has been annotated. Despite this being for apparently, some sort of LEGO competition or something, the annotated measurements are pretty damn close to the measurements for the vehicle at 144th. Note the height, labelled in the drawing as supposedly 2140mm – and the annotation of 16.9.
linkWhen the rest of the measurements are consistent with each other at scale, that 2140 mm dimension(which should be 14.9mm) is very definitely more like sixteen.
Every technical drawing and illustration I've checked has close to that set of proportions.
So, this leaves me with something of a quandry. Either every single technical drawing of the FT is wrong (which seems a bit unlikely) or the oft-quoted height of 2.14 m is wrong.
I have had a look at what photos I can of the real tank, and roughly measured the length to height and approiximated them to the scale. I have found (not unsurprisingly) something of a range, from about fifteen and a half to eighteen millimetres, based on a 5m (34.7mm) length at… But nothing that matches up with the 2.14 (7ft) figure.
(By eye, the photos look about the proportions of the technical drawings, which leads me to beleive the quoted figure is more likely to be the error; and that is going to be my working assumption, at least for the moment.)
Can anyone attempt to explain the disparity? Or perhaps locate me a source which gives a different height figure? Can the dome perhaops be set at different heights – or maybe the height figure was measured to the top of the turret, rather than the dome?
Any input would be of interest.