COBI KV-1 Set 2555

COBI's KV-1 is built from 656 blocks, 23 cm long, with working tracks, a rotating turret and opening engine compartments and hatches. Two figures are included — a tank crewman and a soldier — with a rifle, binoculars, a cape and headgear, along with a Soviet road sign reading Stalingrad, Volga River, and a printed nameplate.

One of these held up a division for a day

On 23 June 1941, the second day of the German invasion, a single KV parked itself on the only supply road behind the 6th Panzer Division near Raseiniai in Lithuania and stayed there.

A battery of 50 mm anti-tank guns was brought up and fired repeatedly at close range. The shells bounced. The tank destroyed the battery. Engineers tried to place demolition charges under it at night and failed. An 88 mm flak gun was towed into position and knocked out before it could fire more than a few rounds.

The tank was finally destroyed the following day, after a coordinated attack that used dive bombers as a distraction while an 88 was set up behind it. German accounts of the incident are unusually respectful, and several of them record that the crew were buried with military honours.

One tank, one road, roughly twenty-four hours, and the division's fuel and ammunition stopped moving for all of it.

Why it worked, and why it did not last

Armour up to 82 mm, which nothing in the German inventory except the 88 could penetrate in 1941, and 45 tonnes of weight to carry it. The gun was a 76 mm — the same weapon the T-34 had.

That is the problem. The KV weighed nearly twice as much as a T-34 and hit no harder. It was slow, unreliable, hard to steer, cramped and nearly blind, and once the Germans had guns that could hurt it the extra armour bought nothing that justified the cost. 4,786 were built, and production stopped in 1943.

In the COBI range

Set 2731 is the KV-2 at 1:48, and sets 2595, 2438, 3061 and 3088 are the T-34 that replaced it.

Specifications

Pieces: 656 · Figures: 2 with accessories · Road sign and nameplate included
Model dimensions: 23 × 10 cm (9.1 × 3.9 in)