Trying to find Blue prints, factory construction workshop drawings with measurement details what ever the correct term is, of the Cruiser A13 MkIV, Covenanter and Crusader tank. Did try Bovington but they are very limited and not much help. Would Kew public records office or Duxford be a good place. Someone must have them but who. I was thinking of trying to contact P.M.Knight who wrote the latest series of tank books to see if he ever came across such drawings. Cant be that hard to find them, unless they were trashed when they stopped production.
Because of the nature of the treated paper used blue prints become brittle over time and also fade if exposed to light so it is possible that these have not survived.
could give them a call Archives - The British Commercial Vehicle Museum not sure if they would have exact details but worth a go https://www.the-blueprints.com/blue...2/view/a15_crusader_mkiii_cruiser_tank_mk_vi/
As far as I'm aware, all the manufacturers were ordered to destroy all their drawings and technical files at the end of the war. The only blueprint I have ever come across, by accident, is for a Neptune, of all things. Generally the drawings that have survived are by the DTD, such as the armour schemes, for example as below:
I have been searching and asking about, still loads of places to look. Is there a directive that states that all drawings were to be destroyed in notes. I have been thinking about this and wondered that AFVs used by other Allied countries during the war and post war times when they were sold on would need more than an instruction manual if they had to repair such vehicles or make parts or improvements, although you could buy surplus parts, technical drawings would be a big help to any base workshop understanding the vehicle in question, just wondered why drawings were destroyed after the war when the enemy was defeated and no longer have to be held as a secret document but i can understand why most things including drawing were thrown in the skip after the war as it was classed by most as just junk and clutter. I was reading that someone found all the technical blueprints for the Mosquito bomber 20,000 technical drawings on micro film at a disused factory about to be pulled down, so may be some hope.
In the late 1980s it was discovered that many of the blueprints for the reactors of Britain's first generation nuclear subs were no longer readable - rather important when it came to decommissioning. Fortunately Hewlett Packard had developed a scanning system that allowed them to be recovered (the system had first been used to recover Confederate Army pay records!).
