COBI IS-3 Berlin Victory Parade 1945 - Limited Edition Set 2589

COBI's IS-3 Berlin Victory Parade 1945 Limited Edition is a 1:28 set built from 1,274 blocks. The tank is 35.5 cm long with working tracks, a rotating turret, an elevating barrel, a removable turret over a modelled interior and a brick V-11 engine that displays separately on its own stand. The set also includes a brick reviewing stand with printed national flags, four flagpoles, and four figures of the commanders who attended. A laser-engraved plate carries the set name, the scale and an individual edition number, matched by a paper certificate signed by hand by COBI's chief executive.

Why nobody remembers this parade

On 7 September 1945 the four Allied powers held a victory parade in Berlin. Marshal Zhukov for the Soviet Union, General Patton for the United States, General Robertson for Britain and General Kœnig for France stood on the same platform and watched fifty-two IS-3 tanks drive past.

It is barely mentioned in any history of the war, and there are reasons.

It happened in September, five months after the fighting in Europe ended and a month after Japan surrendered — the moment for celebration had passed, and every country had already held its own. Stalin did not attend and sent Zhukov, which downgraded it. And the alliance on that platform was already coming apart: within two years the same four powers would be in open confrontation over Berlin itself, and within four the city would be under blockade.

What the parade was actually for was the tanks. The IS-3 had not been seen before, and driving fifty-two of them past the Western commanders was the point of the exercise. It worked — British and American heavy tank programmes were restarted because of what those men saw that afternoon.

A parade celebrating an alliance, staged to intimidate half of it.

On the figures

COBI notes in its own material that including the four officers is not a political statement but a way of placing the tank in its historical setting. That seems worth repeating: the set documents a specific event, and the men on the platform were the people who were there.

In the COBI range

Set 2590 is the standard IS-3 with 1,170 pieces, no figures and no certificate.

Specifications

Pieces: 1,274 · Figures: 4 · Scale: 1:28 · Reviewing stand, four flags, removable engine · Numbered plate and signed certificate
Model dimensions: 35.5 × 13 cm (14.0 × 5.1 in)