COBI Abrams M1A2 Set 3106

COBI's Abrams M1A2 is a 1:72 model built from 174 blocks, 14 cm long, with a turret that rotates. All markings and details are printed.

Getting it there is the hard part

An M1A2 weighs over 60 tonnes, and that number decides more about how America uses the tank than anything about its gun or armour.

It is too heavy for a great many road bridges, so routes have to be planned. It cannot be flown except in the very largest transport aircraft, and only one or two at a time. Moving an armoured brigade across an ocean means ships, and ships take weeks.

The answer was to stop moving them. The United States keeps sets of Abrams pre-positioned in warehouses and in specially fitted ships — in Europe, in Kuwait, in South Korea, afloat at Diego Garcia — so that the crews can be flown to the equipment rather than the equipment shipped to the crews. Deployment becomes an airline ticket and a warehouse key.

That arrangement is why American armour can appear somewhere in days rather than months, and it exists entirely because the tank is too heavy to move any other way.

In the COBI range

Part of the 1:72 mini series — compact enough for a desk or a bookshelf, and a useful source of small parts if you build your own designs. Set 2632 is the M1A2 at 1:35 and 2633 the Polish SEPv3.

Specifications

Pieces: 174 · Scale: 1:72
Model dimensions: 14 × 5 cm (5.5 × 2.0 in)