COBI Battleship Tirpitz Set 4853

COBI's Tirpitz at 1:700 is built from 593 blocks, 35.5 cm long, with moving propellers and armament, a display base and a collector's plate. All markings are printed; the set contains no stickers.

Named after the man who started the race

Alfred von Tirpitz was not a ship designer. He was the admiral who, from 1897, persuaded Germany to build a battle fleet capable of challenging the Royal Navy.

His reasoning was that Britain could not risk a fight that would cost it naval supremacy even in victory, so a large enough German fleet would buy political leverage without ever having to be used. What it actually bought was a naval arms race, a British alliance with France and Russia, and a substantial contribution to the atmosphere in which the First World War began. The fleet he built spent that war in harbour and was scuttled at Scapa Flow in 1919.

Forty years later Germany named its largest battleship after him, and that ship also spent its war in harbour and was also sunk without fighting a fleet action. The name turned out to be more appropriate than anyone intended.

In the COBI range

Set 4839 is the Tirpitz at 1:300, 87 cm long and 2,810 pieces — the same ship at two and a half times the size. Set 4854 is her sister Bismarck at this 1:700 scale, so the two stand correctly together.

Specifications

Pieces: 593 · Scale: 1:700 · Age: 8+ · No stickers · Display base and plate included
Model dimensions: 35.5 × 5.5 × 11 cm (14.0 × 2.2 × 4.3 in), 8.5 cm high without the base