COBI Panzerkampfwagen E-100 Set 2572

COBI's Panzerkampfwagen E-100 is a 1:28 model built from 1,511 blocks, 37 cm long, with an interior built into both hull and turret, a removable engine under the service hatch, a rotating turret, a movable gun, opening crew hatches and working tracks. A tank crew figure with printing front and back is included, along with a nameplate.

A model of something that was never finished

The E-100 never fired a shot, never turned a track under its own power, and never had a turret. It is worth knowing that before you buy it, because it makes the thing more interesting rather than less.

It came from the Entwicklungsserie, a 1943 programme to replace Germany's improvised tank designs with a rationalised family sharing parts. The E-100 was the heavy end of it — around 140 tonnes, intended to carry a modified Maus turret. Hitler cancelled work on super-heavy tanks in 1944; Henschel carried on quietly with three men and got as far as a hull.

The British found that hull in 1945, shipped it home, tested it and scrapped it. What survives is a handful of photographs and some drawings. Everything else — the turret, the armament, the performance — is projection from paper.

Which is why the E-100 is far better known than it has any right to be: it exists almost entirely in video games and documentaries, where the gaps can be filled in.

Specifications

Pieces: 1,511 · Figures: 1 · Scale: 1:28
Model dimensions: 37 × 16.5 × 12.5 cm (14.6 × 6.5 × 4.9 in)