Also available with Soft cover (27025)
Designed by the Knuckey Truck Company with series production by the Pacific Car and Foundry Company, the “40-ton Tank Transporter Truck Trailer M25†– dubbed the “Dragon Wagon†by enthusiasts – was the largest wheeled vehicle fielded by the U.S. Army during World War II. The M25 consisted of the M26 tractor and M15 trailer. Designed to recover disabled tanks and other heavy armored vehicles from forward areas, the M26 featured a large and heavily armored cab to protect the crew. Field use, however, indicated that typically this vehicle was not used in recovery operations during the heat of battle, so the later-production M26A1 eschewed the armored cab in favor of reduced weight and increased reliability. As U.S. tanks evolved and became larger and heavier, an upgraded version of the trailer, the M15A1, was introduced to accommodate them. During the 1950s the M15A1 was further modified to the M15A2 standard, which featured a 24-volt lighting system. As such, these veteran trailers saw service thorough the Vietnam War and into the 1970s. The M26 and M26A1 remained in the U.S. Army inventory well beyond the end of WWII – even being employed by NASA to move the Saturn V rockets that launched man to the moon in the 1960s. This Walk Around examines the armored and soft-skin versions of this massive vehicle, and its trailers, through hundreds of color photos and some of the finest restored examples in existence. The reader is visually taken over, under, and through these vehicles from front bumper to loading ramp. Illustrated with over 230 photographs. 80 pages.
Soft Cover in perfect binding ISBN: 978-0-89747-645-4
Hard Cover ISBN: 978-0-89747-646-1
