COBI Junkers Ju 87D-3 Stuka Set 5768

COBI's Junkers Ju 87 D-3 Stuka is a 1:35 model built from 556 blocks, 35 cm long with a 41.5 cm wingspan, in Eastern Front winter camouflage with underwing bombs. The propeller and ailerons move, the wheels turn on rubber tires, and the canopy opens for two Luftwaffe figures. No stickers.

The siren

Early Stukas carried a small propeller-driven siren on each undercarriage leg. In a dive it spun up and produced a rising scream — the Jericho-Trompäte, named after the trumpets that brought down the walls of Jericho.

It had no military function whatever. It was fitted because Ernst Udet wanted the aircraft to terrify people on the ground, and for a while it worked: refugee columns in Poland and France broke up under a noise before anything was dropped.

The sirens were removed during the war, for two reasons. They cost something like 20 to 25 km/h in drag, which mattered once the Stuka was being hunted rather than doing the hunting. And the effect wore off — troops who had heard it a dozen times knew that a screaming aircraft is an aircraft in a dive, and that a dive ends.

The Dora

The D-3 of 1942 was the Stuka rebuilt for a war it was no longer winning: heavier armour around the crew, a more powerful engine, and the ability to carry a much larger bomb load. It went to the Eastern Front, where this white winter scheme belongs, and to the Mediterranean.

By then the aircraft's fundamental problem was clear. A dive bomber must fly slowly and predictably down a straight line to be accurate, which is survivable only if nobody can intercept it.

In the COBI range

Set 5767 is the Ju 87 G-2, the anti-tank version with 37 mm cannon, at the same scale.

Specifications

Pieces: 556 · Figures: 2 · Scale: 1:35 · Age: 9+ · No stickers
Model dimensions: 35 × 41.5 × 11.5 cm (13.8 × 16.3 × 4.5 in), 16 cm high on the base