COBI Panzer III Ausf.L Set 3090

COBI's Panzer III Ausf. L is a 1:72 model built from 82 blocks, 7.5 cm long, with rolling wheels and a turret that rotates. German markings, service flaps, engine vents and hatches are all printed onto the blocks.

The extra plate standing off the front

The Ausf. L of 1942 carried something earlier Panzer IIIs did not: a second armour plate bolted in front of the gun mantlet and the hull nose, with a gap behind it.

The gap is the point. A shell that strikes the outer plate begins to deform or break up before it reaches the main armour, and an armour-piercing cap can be stripped off entirely, leaving the core to hit the real plate blunt. Twenty millimetres of spaced plate could do the work of considerably more solid steel.

It was a stopgap, and everybody knew it. The Panzer III's turret ring was too small for a bigger gun, so the only way to keep it in the fight was to make it harder to kill. Spaced armour is still in use today, for exactly the same reason.

In the COBI range

Part of the 1:72 mini series. The 1:48 Panzer III Ausf. J is set 2712 and the large 1:28 version is set 2289.

Specifications

Pieces: 82 · Scale: 1:72
Model dimensions: 7.5 × 4 × 3.5 cm (3.0 × 1.6 × 1.4 in)