COBI Combat Training Set 2164

COBI's Combat Training is built from 140 blocks: a training ground with ruined buildings, obstacles, flags and sandbags, plus a quad bike. Two soldier figures are included with goggles, a night vision device, a torch and a sniper rifle. Part of the Small Army range.

What the night vision device in the box does

The small accessory clipped to one figure's head is a night vision goggle, and it works on a principle most people get wrong.

It does not see heat. Night vision of this type is an image intensifier: it collects the small amount of light that is always present — starlight, moonlight, distant towns reflecting off cloud — and amplifies it many thousands of times. That is why the image is green. The screen is phosphor, and the human eye distinguishes more shades of green than of any other colour, so a green display shows more detail than a grey one would.

Thermal imaging is a different technology that sees heat and works in total darkness. Image intensifiers need some light and fail completely without it, which is why troops using them carry infrared illuminators — invisible to the naked eye, bright as a torch through the goggles.

The capability changed how armies operate more than almost any other piece of late-twentieth-century equipment. An army that can see at night and an army that cannot are not fighting the same war.

Which range this is

Small Army is COBI's older and simpler line: no modelling scale, no specific equipment reproduced, built for play. The ruined building is the useful part — structures are rare in this range and give vehicles somewhere to be.

In the COBI range

Other Small Army sets include 2154, 2163, 2215, 2217, 2219, 2244, 2329, 2412 and 24092.

Specifications

Pieces: 140 · Figures: 2 with accessories · Series: Small Army · Ruins, obstacles and quad bike
Model dimensions: ruins 14.5 × 6.5 × 8.5 cm; quad 7.5 × 5 × 6 cm