COBI T-34 Medium Tank Set 2438

COBI's T-34 Medium Tank is built from 400 blocks with individual track links rather than rubber bands, a rotating turret, a movable gun and Red Army markings. Two figures are included. All markings are printed; no stickers.

The real tank had a problem with its track pins, and the fix was a hammer

Individual links are what COBI advertises here, so it is worth knowing how the original's links were actually held together.

A tank track is a loop of steel plates joined by pins. Those pins work loose — constantly, under load, in dirt — and most designs retain them with circlips, nuts or welded collars, all of which take time to make and time to service.

The T-34 used none of that. Its pins were plain, retained by nothing at all, and free to migrate outward as the track turned.

Instead there is a hardened steel wedge bolted to the hull rear, near the drive sprocket. As the track rotates, any pin that has worked its way out strikes that wedge and is knocked back in. Every revolution, automatically, for as long as the tank moves.

It is crude, it cost almost nothing to manufacture, it required no maintenance, and it worked. Half a dozen small decisions of that kind are why 57,000 T-34s exist and around 1,350 Tigers do.

In the COBI range

Set 2595 is the T-34/76 at 1:28 with a removable engine and a choice of Soviet or Polish markings. Sets 3061 and 3088 are smaller T-34s, and 2716 and 3092 the later T-34-85.

Specifications

Pieces: 400 · Figures: 2 · Individual working track links · No stickers