Kora Models 1/72 K-Wagen
On the Real Thing
In June 1917, before the first A7V:s were even
completed, the German War Ministry ordered the construction of a new colossal
super-tank, the biggest tank ever designed: the K-Wagen! (K standing
for Kolossal, meaning... colossal.) The K-Wagen was thought as a enormous moving fortress bristling with guns and MG:s, to be used in break-through situations. The weight was some
150 tons, and it would be powered only by two small 200 HP motors! (Later on these two tiny motors were switched for two 650 HP motors.) The enormous weight of the vehicle of course made it impossible to move any longer
distances, so it was to be transported by rail in four parts of some 30 tons
each, only to be put together behind the front line, at the point were it was to be
employed. The K-Wagen was also supposed to have a trench crossing capacity of some 4 meters, and no less than four 77mm
cannons. The design was done by Vollmer.
Almost from the very beginning of the project sceptical voices was heard. The sheer size of the vehicle made it difficult to
produce, as no standard components or techniques could be employed. So it was decided that the tank was to be built by companies with experience from building bridges (!) and the tracks came from power shovel
construction. Soon it was also discovered that the tank was too
heavy, so the length was reduced to 13 meters, which at least cut the weight with some 30 tons. The original order was for ten
vehicles. The weight was some 120 tons! It has been called
"completely nonsensical", but two prototypes were actually under construction when the war ended - one was nearly
finished. People doubting the whole idea were silenced by being
told that von Hindenburg himself wished it to be built...
The Kit
Kora Models K-Wagen is the only existing kit of this novel vehicle, and comes in a illustrated box. There are many parts in the kit: the body alone consists of nine parts. To this is added return rollers, tracks, cannon barbettes etc. The kit comes both with decals and a set Photo-Etched details. The PE set is mainly used to supply surface detail, and consists of grilles, vents etc. In the kit you also find a very good set of plans, outlining both assembly and markings. I am, however, somewhat sceptical to the last one: to my knowledge the Germans did not use Dark Grey (a.k.a. WW2 "Panzergrau") on AFV:s 1914-18; the standard uniform colour instead appears to have been a greenish Feldgrau. The crosses supplied are also problematic; at this late stage of the war the Germans instead used straight not curved Balkencreutz.
The kit is cleanly cast, but there are moulding plugs on almost all of the parts, some of them quite prominent, so brace yourself for a lot of sawing and sanding. (The tracks are especially tricky to free from all that excess resin.) One problem is that some of this excess resin sits right over the alignment lines, where you are supposed to glue them together with other parts. This makes the sanding a tricky business: if you take too much off, you are in trouble. You just can't whip this thing together; instead a lot of dry-testing, sanding and dry-testing is required. The running gear, tracks and bottom plate is espevcially tricky to get right, so beware. The surface detail is sparse but adequate. (Much of it is provided by Photo-etched parts, not always an ideal solution.) The rivets are a little bit too big and little too widely spaced for of this scale. (I guess that the master builder have used photos of the mock-up, which is the only ones we have of a completed vehicle, and I strongly suspect that the rivets we see there are not scale representations but simply the real thing, used by the contemporary German model maker to hold it together.)The only really big accuracy problem in the kit is the front, and I guess that this error as well comes from the Master maker working from photos of the mock-up. In the kit the front is just a big, rounded piece of armour, with no openings, while in "reality" this was the position of the driver and co-driver: i.e., there should be some visions-slots there AND an additional MG. (See this contemporary sketch of the interior arrangements of the K-Wagen. Note that the small cupola on the top was only for the commanding officer and an artillery officer.) Anything else? Well, some will probably want to replace the cannons supplied, as these have no taper, and mostly look like big pipes. All this griping aside: this kit is OK, and I think it will make up into a very impressive vehicle. (See the gallery for the built kit. For another view of a completed K-Wagen, done by a Cech Modeler, click here.)
It can be bought from Panzershop in the Czech republic.
