COBI German Infantry Set 2060

COBI's German Infantry set contains 33 blocks making three figures: two Wehrmacht infantrymen and a mountain trooper, all carrying the Mauser Kar98k. The uniforms follow the M35 Feldbluse and M36 greatcoat, the helmet is the M35, and the mountain trooper wears the Bergmütze with its printed edelweiss. All markings are printed; the set contains no stickers.

An army that mostly walked

The popular picture of the Wehrmacht is tanks and half-tracks. The reality for the men in this set was different, and the rifle says so: the Kar98k is bolt-action, five rounds at a time, a design dating from the 1890s. It remained the standard infantry weapon for the whole war.

Mechanisation went to a minority of divisions. The rest marched, and their supplies moved by horse — the German army used somewhere around 2.75 million horses over the course of the war, more than it had used in the First World War. Infantry divisions on the Eastern Front covered their distances on foot, in the M36 greatcoat, at the pace of a horse-drawn column.

The edelweiss on the mountain cap marks the Gebirgsjäger, whose badge and cap came from the Austro-Hungarian mountain troops absorbed into the German army after 1938.

In the COBI range

Part of the Historical Collection WWII figure series. The same war from the other side: D-Day (2058A), Stalingrad (2061), Monte Cassino (2063) and Berlin (2064).

Specifications

Pieces: 33 · Figures: 3, two infantrymen and one mountain trooper