COBI Churchill I Set 3064

COBI's Churchill I is a 1:48 model built from 300 blocks, 14.5 cm long, with a movable gun, a rotating turret and working tracks. All markings are printed.

It had two guns, and one of them was in the wrong place

The Churchill I is the first production version, and it is easy to identify because of something no later Churchill has: a howitzer in the front of the hull.

The turret held a 2-pounder, a good anti-tank gun with one fatal gap — it fired no high-explosive shell at all. So a Churchill I could destroy a tank and do nothing whatever to an anti-tank gun, a bunker or a house full of infantry.

The fix was to put a 3-inch howitzer in the hull front, firing high explosive, aimed by the hull gunner. That gave the tank both kinds of shell, and it came straight out of First World War thinking: the Mark I and Mark V had carried guns in hull sponsons for exactly the same reason.

It did not work. A hull-mounted gun can only shoot roughly where the tank is pointing, the two gunners could not coordinate, and the arrangement cost internal space. From the Churchill III onwards the turret got a 6-pounder that fired both types of ammunition, and the hull howitzer was replaced by a machine gun.

It is a good illustration of how armies solve problems: first by adding something, then by realising the answer was a better gun in the turret all along.

This is a World of Tanks set

COBI produced this model and set 3061 under a Wargaming licence, which is why both are at 1:48 and why the subjects are vehicles familiar from the game rather than from museums.

In the COBI range

Set 2717 is the Churchill Mk. IV at this scale and 3046 the Mk. III at 1:35 from Company of Heroes 3.

Specifications

Pieces: 300 · Scale: 1:48 · World of Tanks licence
Model dimensions: 14.5 × 6 × 8 cm (5.7 × 2.4 × 3.1 in)