COBI Battle of the Bulge 1944 Set 2065

COBI's Battle of the Bulge 1944 is a diorama set of 75 blocks with six figures from the Ardennes winter: a German MG 42 gunner in white winter camouflage over helmet and balaclava, a Panzergrenadier with an StG 44 and a stick grenade in splinter-pattern camouflage, a German rifleman with a Mauser 98K and a Panzerfaust, an American machine gunner in a winter overcoat with a Browning Automatic Rifle, a 101st Airborne paratrooper with a bazooka, an M1 carbine and the Screaming Eagle patch on his shoulder, and a US infantryman in an M1 helmet. Terrain pieces build the scene around them. All markings are printed, not stickers.

The checkpoint quiz

Both sides are in this box, which is fitting, because for a few weeks in the Ardennes nobody could be certain which was which.

Otto Skorzeny assembled a unit of English-speaking German soldiers in captured American uniforms and jeeps and sent them ahead of the offensive to turn signposts, cut telephone lines and misdirect traffic. Operation Greif achieved very little militarily. What it achieved was suspicion. Once word spread, American military police began stopping anyone they did not recognise and asking questions they believed only an American could answer — state capitals, baseball, film stars.

General Omar Bradley was stopped three times. Asked for the capital of Illinois he answered Springfield; the sentry was convinced it was Chicago and held him anyway. He was asked where the guard stands on a line of scrimmage, which he managed, and to name Betty Grable's husband, which he did not — and by his own account was waved through regardless. Montgomery was detained on his way to the front.

In the COBI range

Set 2064 is the Battle of Berlin, 2063 Monte Cassino and 2061 Stalingrad, each a six-figure scene from the same series. Set 2059 covers Iwo Jima and 2057 the Warsaw Uprising.

Specifications

Pieces: 75 · Figures: 6 · Age: 6+ · No stickers