COBI Panzer 38(t) / (ČKD) LT vz.38 Set 2666

COBI's Panzer 38(t) / LT vz. 38 is a 1:28 model built from 690 blocks, 17.5 cm long, buildable with either Slovak or German markings. The turret rotates and lifts off, the gun elevates, the hatches open, the rear hatch comes away to remove the engine, and the tracks run. A figure of a German general in greatcoat, peaked cap and monocle is included, plus a printed plaque.

A Czech tank that outlived its own tank

ČKD in Prague designed this vehicle for the Czechoslovak army in 1935. Czechoslovakia never got to use it: the country was occupied in March 1939, the factory and its production were taken over, and the tanks entered German service as the Panzerkampfwagen 38(t) — the t standing for tschechisch.

It was better than most of what Germany had. Reliable, well armoured for its weight, with a 3.7 cm gun that worked, it equipped entire panzer divisions in Poland in 1939 and France in 1940, and a quarter of the tanks that invaded the Soviet Union in 1941 were Czech.

By 1942 it was obsolete as a tank, and here the interesting part begins. The chassis was too good to stop building, so it kept being built for something else: the Marder tank destroyer, the Grille self-propelled gun, the Flakpanzer, and above all the Hetzer. Production ran until the end of the war, and afterwards Czechoslovakia carried on building Hetzers and sold them to Switzerland, where they served into the 1970s — thirty-five years after a tank designed in Prague had been taken away from the people who designed it.

In the COBI range

Set 2670 is the Hetzer "Chwat", built on this chassis and captured in the Warsaw Uprising. Set 2665 is the Grille Ausf. M, also on this chassis.

Specifications

Pieces: 690 · Figures: 1 · Scale: 1:28 · Age: 9+ · Two marking options
Model dimensions: 17.5 × 8 × 9 cm (6.9 × 3.1 × 3.5 in)