COBI U-Boot VIIC U-96 Set 4857

COBI's U-Boot VIIC U-96 is a 1:300 model built from 162 blocks, 22.5 cm long, with the boat's conning-tower emblem reproduced. A display stand with a collector's plaque is included, and all markings are printed.

Das Boot

U-96 is the submarine from the book and the film. Lothar-Günther Buchheim sailed on her in 1941 as a war correspondent, and the novel he published thirty years later drew on that patrol. Wolfgang Petersen's 1981 adaptation is generally reckoned among the most accurate war films ever made — largely because it is not about a battle but about waiting, noise, fear and the inside of a steel tube.

The laughing sawfish on the conning tower was the emblem of the 9th U-boat Flotilla, and it is on the film's boat for the same reason it is on this model.

Nobody aboard was killed

U-96 made eleven war patrols and was then withdrawn to training duties in April 1943. Across her entire operational career not one member of her crew died — which, in a service that lost three men in four, is close to statistically improbable.

That is worth knowing alongside the film, because the boat that became the symbol of the U-boat war had an experience almost no other crew shared.

In the COBI range

Set 4858 is U-47 at this scale, and 4855 and 4856 the Polish boats Orzeł and Sęp. Set 4852 is a Type VIIB at the larger 1:144 scale.

Specifications

Pieces: 162 · Scale: 1:300 · Age: 7+ · Display stand and plaque included
Model dimensions: 22.5 × 4 × 7 cm (8.9 × 1.6 × 2.8 in)