COBI Sd.Kfz. 184 Ferdinand Set 2583

COBI's Sd.Kfz. 184 Ferdinand is a 1:28 model built from 1,268 blocks, 28.5 cm long, with a removable brick engine, working tracks, a gun that moves in both axes, interior detail and opening hatches. A commander figure with binoculars and headphones is included, plus a printed nameplate. No stickers.

Ninety hulls with nothing to do

The Ferdinand exists because Ferdinand Porsche lost a competition and assumed he had won it.

Porsche and Henschel both tendered designs for the Tiger. Porsche was confident enough — and well enough connected — that he had around ninety hulls built before the decision was made. The contract went to Henschel, whose design worked; Porsche's used a petrol-electric drive that did not.

That left ninety expensive armoured hulls in a country short of steel. The answer was to bolt a fixed casemate on top and fit the 88 mm Pak 43, turning a rejected tank into a tank destroyer. They went to Kursk in July 1943, where the gun performed exactly as promised and the vehicle revealed the flaw everybody remembers: it had no machine gun at all. Soviet infantry worked out that they could walk up to it.

In the COBI range

Set 2582 is the Elefant — the same vehicle after the survivors of Kursk were rebuilt with a hull machine gun and a commander's cupola. COBI makes both.

Specifications

Pieces: 1,268 · Figures: 1 commander · Scale: 1:28
Model dimensions: 28.5 × 12.5 × 14 cm (11.2 × 4.9 × 5.5 in)