Operation Cobra was an offensive launched by the United States First Army during the campaign in Normandy after the D-Day landings. The purpose was to break the German lines and push out of Normandy, giving new momentum to the campaign to liberate France and conclude the war in the west. In this it was entirely successful, allowing the Allies to escape the difficult country of the bocage and conduct a war of movement, pushing the Germans back all the time.

This set consists of figures, vehicles and buildings. For the figures, Italeri included the following:

• 2 sprues from the set of Italeri American Infantry
• 2 sprues from the set of Italeri German Paratroops (Tropical Uniform)

• 1 of Italeri Sherman M4A3 76 mm (part of 7521)
• 1 of Italeri M3 Half Track (part of 7509)
• 1 of Italeri Pz. Kpfw V Panther Ausf.G (7504)
• 1 of Italeri Sd.kfz. 251/1 (7009)

Finally we have the buildings. This time it is a terrace house and shop.

Both sets of figures are very good, with any problems mainly limited to a small number of the poses, so nice to see them here. Although the Germans are labelled as 'tropical', simply by using different paint colours they can easily stand in for northern Europe paratroops, and indeed in our review of the set we pointed out that there was very little tropical about them, which is just as well in this case. The vehicles and tanks are all appropriate too, which leaves us with the two buildings shown below.

Compared to some of the laser-cut MDF buildings Italeri were to offer us in their battlesets, these are quite modest. Nevertheless with internal floors and shutters at the windows, these make a nice platform for your troops to battle in and around, and as far as we can tell they look fairly typical of the place and time.

The box offers us views of a ready-made diorama which is really nicely done. As usual there are many elements here that are not to be found in the box, and in this instance even include a painted backdrop!

While you do not get a large number of figures in this set, and the buildings are fairly mundane compare to some other battlesets, you do get more armour here, and a pretty good impression of the war in northern France is the result. If not the most visually striking of the range, this is still an appealing package.