COBI Tiger II King Tiger (KTV2) Set 2686

COBI's Tiger II King Tiger (KTV2) is a 1:28 model built from 1,572 blocks, based on the tank preserved at The Tank Museum in Bovington — the oldest Tiger II still in existence. The turret turns, the gun elevates, the hatches open and the tracks run. Markings are printed onto the blocks rather than applied as stickers.

The turret Porsche never designed

The first fifty Tiger IIs carried a turret with a rounded front that almost every source, then and now, calls the Porsche turret. Porsche did not design it. Krupp did.

Two firms competed for the heavy tank contract, Porsche and Henschel, and Krupp built turrets for the Porsche version before the decision was made. Henschel's chassis won. The turrets already finished were not thrown away — they were bolted onto the first batch of production tanks, which is why the earliest King Tigers wear a turret designed for a vehicle that was never built. The name of the loser stuck to the part.

The shape had a real flaw. The curved front and the mantlet formed a pocket: a round striking low could be deflected downwards into the thin hull roof rather than bouncing away. From the fifty-first tank onward the turret got a flat face, and that is the version most people picture.

Which makes the early turret the rarer of the two, and the Bovington tank one of the few places left to see one.

In the COBI range

Set 2679 is the American M18 Hellcat, built to outrun exactly this. Set 2672 is the Panzer III Ausf. H and 2676 the StuG III Ausf. G, both at the same scale.

Specifications

Pieces: 1,572 · Scale: 1:28 · No stickers