Description
The Großkampfwagen or “K-Wagen” (short for G.K.-Wagen) was a German super-heavy tank, two prototypes of which were almost completed by the end of World War I.
The hull of the K-Wagen consisted of six modules that could be transported separately by rail: the control room, the fighting room, the engine room, the transmission room and the two sponsons. The commander could give orders to the crew by means of electric lights: fire control was comparable to that of a destroyer, the Germans seeing the vehicle as a veritable “landship”. The drivers would have had to steer the vehicle blindly, directed by the commander.
The K-Wagen was to be armed with four 77 mm fortress guns and seven MG08 machine guns and had a crew of 27: a commander, two drivers, a signaler, an artillery officer, 12 artillery men, eight machine gunners and two mechanics. At the beginning of the project the incorporation of flamethrowers was considered but later rejected.
The K-Wagen never became operational as under the conditions of the Armistice Germany was forbidden to possess tanks. One of the tanks, “Ribe” was complete at the end of the war, but it never left the factory and was scrapped under the watchful eyes of the Military Inter-Allied Commission of Control.
Set consists of 15 fine metal 1:600th/3mm scale miniatures.
Producer: ‘Oddział Ósmy’ sc Marcin Kaźmierczak i Tomasz Kołuda, ul. Piotrkowska 107, 90-425 Łódź, Poland
