1:144 5.5cm Zwilling Flak Löwe

This is an original design item, i. e. no such tank ever existed.

This tank is fully painted in 3 Color disruptive camouflaged scheme, weathered and no assembling required. Turret can be 360 degree transverse and gun can be elevated from -5 degrees to 70 degrees.

In 1941, Krupp started the development of a new heavy tank to succeed the Tiger II (King Tiger). In July 1942, an order to stop the development of the Löwe was issued in favour for the development of Stupid Heavy Tank 188 ton Maus by Porsche. The Löwe never reached prototype stage and became another Paper Panzer.

It is common for German military to include mobile Flak units within armour units to provide close to mid range anti air support. Frequently chassis from the armour unit were used as Flak chassis so as to simply maintenance and lower production cost. If the Löwe project was allowed to go ahead, it would be reasonable to assume some chassis will be used as mobile Flak vehicles.

At that time it was thought that 2cm or 3.7cm Flak guns will not be adequate to fight off armoured attack aircrafts so heavier 5.5 cm guns are considered as in the case of Flak Panthers. Even heavier guns like 8.8 cam or above were also considered but such guns will limit the transverse speed for the turret required for close to mid range AA purpose and were more suitable for assigning to Flak batteries against long range high altitude bombers.

This CGD 1:144 Wehrmacht '46 German 5.5cm Zwilling Flak Löwe is based on chassis of Löwe drawing no. W 1663 of 23 April 1942, mounting twin 5.5cm guns. An extended turret is used to house a built-in range finder. Standard components form the Löwe tank is used with addition of 2 loader's hatch and two fume extraction fans on the turret. The commander's external MG42 for air defense is cancelled. Instead a MG42 is mount inside the gun mantlet on top of the twin 5.5cm guns for firing tracer bullets and for anti personnel support. The hull is identical to the Löwe together with the radio operator's MG42.