COBI Blitz 3,6-36S Set 2259

COBI's Opel Blitz 3,6-36S is a 1:35 model built from 242 blocks, 18 cm long, with rotating wheels, opening doors and drop sides on the cargo bed. A mechanic figure with printed boots and a grease-marked face is included, along with a brick carrying the set name. All markings are pad-printed.

The German army was not motorised

This is the part that surprises people. The Wehrmacht of 1939 to 1945 moved mainly by horse — around 2.75 million horses served, and a standard infantry division had several thousand of them and a few hundred motor vehicles. The fully mechanised formations were a minority, concentrated where they would be seen.

What motor transport there was came from a chaotic collection of types. Germany entered the war with well over a thousand different vehicle models in service, many of them requisitioned civilian designs from a dozen makers, each with its own parts. A workshop could not stock spares for that.

The Schell programme of 1938 tried to force standardisation down to a manageable number of types, and it largely failed — but the Opel Blitz was the one clear success. Around 130,000 were built, it went everywhere, and it is the closest thing the German army had to a standard truck.

By 1944 Opel's Brandenburg plant had been bombed, and Daimler-Benz was ordered to build the Blitz under licence — a competitor manufacturing a rival's design, because the design mattered more than the badge.

In the COBI range

Set 2258 is the Blitz with a Nebelwerfer rocket launcher, and 2272 the Sd.Kfz 10 field kitchen — the same unglamorous logistics that armies actually run on.

Specifications

Pieces: 242 · Figures: 1 mechanic · Scale: 1:35
Model dimensions: 18 × 6.5 cm (7.1 × 2.6 in)