COBI
COBI U-Boot U-52 (Type VIIB) Set 4852
COBI's U-Boot U-52 (Type VIIB) is a 1:144 model built from 474 blocks, 46 cm long, with working propellers, a display stand and a plaque carrying the name and scale.
Three out of four did not come back
The U-boat arm had the highest loss rate of any branch of any service in the war. Around 40,000 men served in it; roughly 30,000 were killed. No army, navy or air force formation of comparable size came close.
The Type VII was the boat most of them died in, and not because it was bad β it was the most-produced submarine in history, over 700 built, and in 1940 and 1941 it was winning. What changed was everything hunting it: radar small enough to fit in an aircraft, high-frequency direction finding that located a boat the moment it transmitted, escort carriers closing the mid-Atlantic air gap, and broken codes. By 1943 the same boat doing the same job was a death sentence.
What a Type VIIB was
An improvement on the VIIA: extra fuel for longer patrols, better handling, and a torpedo layout that allowed fourteen torpedoes rather than eleven. An 8.8 cm deck gun let the crew finish off a damaged ship without spending one.
U-52 was commissioned in February 1939, made eight patrols under KapitΓ€nleutnant Wolfgang Barten and sank thirteen Allied ships. She ended the war as a training boat and was scuttled at Danzig in 1945.
In the COBI range
Set 4858 is U-47, a Type VIIB at 1:300, and 4857 is U-96 at the same smaller scale.
Specifications
Pieces: 474 Β· Scale: 1:144 Β· Age: 9+ Β· Display stand and plaque included
Model dimensions: 46 Γ 4 Γ 11 cm (18.1 Γ 1.6 Γ 4.3 in), 13.5 cm high on the base
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