COBI Willys MB Medical Set 2806

COBI's Willys MB Medical is a 1:12 model built from 1,131 blocks under original Jeep licence, 27 cm long. The steering wheel turns the front wheels, the wheels run on rubber tires, and the engine and interior are reproduced. It carries no weapons and wears a large red cross on the bonnet.

The ambulance that could reach the casualty

A wounded soldier's problem is rarely the last mile of the journey. It is the first one — getting from where he fell to somewhere a proper ambulance can reach.

The Jeep solved it because it could drive up a track, across a field or through a shelled village, and because a frame bolted over the body carried two or three stretchers. Medical units improvised these mounts from the start, and the Army eventually standardised them. A Jeep could get a man from a forward aid post to a field hospital in the time an ambulance would still have been looking for a road.

Removing the machine gun was not only a matter of weight. Under the Geneva Conventions a vehicle marked with a red cross is protected from attack, and that protection ends the moment it carries an offensive weapon. The bare mount on this version is the reason the red cross on the bonnet means anything at all.

In the COBI range

Set 2805 is the standard Willys MB and 2804 the version with a trailer. Other 1:12 vehicles are the Kübelwagen (2802, 2803) and the Tiger 114 (2807).

Specifications

Pieces: 1,131 · Scale: 1:12 · Official Jeep licence
Model dimensions: 27 × 13 cm (10.6 × 5.1 in)