COBI Leopard 2A4 Set 2618

COBI's Leopard 2A4 is built from 864 blocks, 30.5 cm long, made with the Deutsches Panzermuseum Munster and reproducing the museum's own vehicle, registration Y-678 620. The turret and barrel move, the wheels and tracks work, the hatches open, and the engine is visible through the service flap. A figure of a long-serving museum employee is included.

Germany sold its army, and everyone bought a Leopard

The Leopard 2 is operated by around eighteen countries, which is more than any other Western main battle tank, and the reason is not marketing. It is the end of the Cold War.

West Germany had built its army to fight on its own soil and held around 2,125 Leopard 2s. After 1990 that threat disappeared, reunification brought enormous costs, and the Bundeswehr was cut hard — down to a few hundred tanks over the following two decades.

What happened to the rest is why the A4 in particular is everywhere. Hundreds of low-mileage, well-maintained tanks came onto the market at once, at prices no new vehicle could approach. Finland, Austria, Poland, Chile, Singapore, Indonesia, Canada, Portugal, Greece, Turkey and others bought them secondhand, and several then paid for upgrades that cost more than the tanks had.

A country wanting a modern tank in 1995 could buy a new one for a great deal of money, or buy a German A4 and a rebuild for less. Most chose the second, and that is how one design ended up in armies on four continents.

The figure

As with several COBI sets made with museums, the figure is not a soldier but a member of the museum staff — in this case one of the Deutsches Panzermuseum's most deserving employees. The museum in Munster keeps a very large collection running, and the people who do that work rarely appear anywhere.

In the COBI range

Set 3105 is the Leopard 1 at 1:72. Sets 2632 and 2633 are the Abrams, 2621 the Merkava and 2627 the Challenger 2.

Specifications

Pieces: 864 · Figures: 1 museum employee · Licensed by the Deutsches Panzermuseum Munster
Model dimensions: 30.5 × 12 × 12 cm (12.0 × 4.7 × 4.7 in)