COBI Panzer VIII Maus Set 3138

COBI's Panzer VIII Maus is a 1:35 model built from 1,353 blocks, 30.5 cm long, with working tracks, a rotating turret, an adjustable barrel and opening hatches. Two figures are included: a tank commander and a Volkssturm soldier.

It had to drive under rivers

The Maus weighed about 188 tonnes, and that number creates a problem nobody could design around: there was no bridge in Europe it could cross.

The answer was to go underneath. The Maus was built to be sealed and to ford rivers on the bottom, up to eight metres deep, breathing through a snorkel. Its own engine could not run submerged for long, so the plan was to work in pairs: one Maus stayed on the bank and fed electrical power down a cable to the one in the water, which drove across on its electric motors and then powered its partner over in turn.

That is the point at which a design stops being ambitious and starts being an argument against itself. Two 188-tonne vehicles and a cable, to cross one river.

Krupp built it under Ferdinand Porsche's supervision. Two hulls were completed and one received a turret. The Red Army captured the parts in 1945 and assembled one complete vehicle from both, which stands today in the tank museum at Kubinka outside Moscow. It is the heaviest armoured vehicle ever built.

Specifications

Pieces: 1,353 · Figures: 2 · Scale: 1:35
Model dimensions: 30.5 × 11 × 11 cm (12.0 × 4.3 × 4.3 in)