COBI Goliath Set 2680

COBI's Goliath is a 1:28 model of the German tracked demolition vehicle built from 311 blocks, with two figures. The tracks run, the markings are printed onto the blocks rather than applied as stickers, and a plaque with the vehicle name and scale is included.

A bomb that drove itself, and the wire that undid it

The Goliath was not a vehicle carrying a weapon. It was the weapon: a tracked box a little over a meter and a half long, packed with 60 to 100 kg of explosive, driven into a bunker or under a tank and detonated. One use only.

The idea was not German. After the fall of France in 1940 a miniature tracked vehicle designed by Adolphe Kégresse was recovered from the Seine, and Borgward was asked to build something along the same lines.

Control was the weak point. An operator steered it by hand from cover through a cable that unwound from the back of the machine as it went — three strands, two for steering, one for the detonation, running out to around 650 meters. It moved at walking pace, its skin was thin enough for rifle fire, and the simplest defense was to find the cable and cut it. About 7,500 were built, and most did nothing at all.

In the COBI range

Set 2681 is the Kettenkrad, another small German vehicle at the same scale, and 2672 the Panzer III Ausf. H. Set 2679 is the American M18 Hellcat.

Specifications

Pieces: 311 · Figures: 2 · Scale: 1:28 · No stickers