• Scale: 1/35.
• Ages: 12+.
• Great Wall Hobby P/N: L3523.

• Imported from USA.

The 12.8cm gun was designed as a dual purpose antitank/artillery gun with prototypes built by Rheinmetall with the carriage having six wheels, one on the rear axle and two on the front axles. The other was by Krupp with the carriage having four wheels on the front and back axles.Only the prototypes were built and none were used in action although approximatelty 50 barrels were produced and fitted to available French and Russian carriages.Fitting with the dual purpose design, the gun would have had different designations depending on the service role, with field artillery units the designation would have been 12.8cm K44 L/55 while if used in with anti-tank units 12.8cm PaK44 L/55.The long L/55 monobloc barrel tube was fitted with a large perforated muzzle brake with the Rheinmetall and Krupp muzzle brakes differing in size and the number of perforations (Krupp with more). The manually operated breechblock was the horizontal sliding type with two recoil cylinders mounted inside the gun cradle and the two equilibrators mounted either side of the gun cradle.The gun had a cruciform platform with folding side outriggers which was permanently mounted on a gun carriage fitted with torsion bar suspension which was jacked up in the firing mode. This allowed a full 360° traverse with the elevating and traversing hand wheels fitted to both sides of the carriage, and a seat for the gunner on the left.The Krupp gun was fitted with a single gun shield, while the Rheinmetall gun had a spaced armour gun shield with both being angular in appearance with the sides swept back towards the rear and an additional detachable dolly was fitted of the cruciform platform for towing.With a weight of 11 tons the gun was considered too heavy for a towed weapon and was never put into production although a modified version of the 12.8cm gun without muzzle brake was used in the huge JagdTiger.