COBI Sd.Kfz. 234/3 Stummel Set 2288

COBI's Sd.Kfz. 234/3 Stummel is a 1:35 model built from 438 blocks, 18 cm long, with movable wheels and gun. Two figures are included — an armoured car crewman and a German soldier, both printed front and back — along with a printed nameplate. No stickers.

An engine built for a desert it never saw

The 234 family ran on a Tatra 103, a V12 air-cooled diesel, and the choice was made for North Africa. Air cooling meant no radiator to puncture, no water to boil away at forty degrees and none to freeze at night, and diesel meant fuel that would not flash in the heat.

By the time the vehicles were in production the Afrika Korps had surrendered. The 234s spent their service on the Eastern Front and in north-west Europe, where the air-cooled diesel turned out to be an advantage for a different reason: it started in cold that stopped petrol engines.

This is the 234/3, the fire-support version. The turret is gone, replaced by an open superstructure carrying a short 7.5 cm gun with fifty rounds — the same stump of a barrel that gave the half-tracked Sd.Kfz. 251/9 the same nickname. Around 88 were built.

In the COBI range

Set 2287 is the 234/2 Puma, the same eight-wheeled chassis with a fully armoured turret and a 50 mm gun. Set 2283 is COBI's other Stummel, the half-tracked 251/9.

Specifications

Pieces: 438 · Figures: 2 · Scale: 1:35 · Model length: 18 cm (7.1 in)