COBI T-72M1R (PL/UA) Set 2624

COBI's T-72M1R is a 1:35 model built from 724 blocks, 27.5 cm long, with moving wheels and tracks, a rotating turret, a movable gun and an opening turret hatch. Two crew figures are included, Polish and Ukrainian, along with brick flags for both countries and a printed nameplate. A new part was made for the T-72's distinctive road wheels.

Three men, not four

Look inside a Western tank of the same era and you find four crew: commander, gunner, driver and a loader who lifts every shell into the breech by hand. The T-72 has three. An autoloader in the turret floor does the loading, which is how a tank this heavily armed fits into 41 tonnes and a hull low enough to be hard to hit.

The cost is where the ammunition sits. The autoloader carousel lies in the fighting compartment beneath the turret, with the shells and their propellant charges arranged around it. A penetrating hit that reaches the carousel sets off the charges together, and the pressure lifts the turret clear of the hull. The effect is unmistakable in photographs from Ukraine, and it is a design consequence rather than bad luck.

The M1R in this set is a Polish modernisation — new radios, thermal sights, updated fire control on an old hull. Poland transferred a large part of its T-72 fleet to Ukraine early in the war, which is why the set includes both sets of markings.

In the COBI range

Set 2625 is the same tank in East German and Soviet markings.

Specifications

Pieces: 724 · Figures: 2 · Scale: 1:35 · Also included: two brick flags
Model dimensions: 27.5 × 11.5 × 11 cm (10.8 × 4.5 × 4.3 in)