1/48 Hasegawa
Henschel Hs 129 B-3 with 75 mm cannon.
The Henschel Hs 129,
often referred to by it's nickname, the Panzerknacker, (tank cracker),
was a World War II ground attack aircraft fielded by the Luftwaffe. Although
likely to be a good anti-tank weapon, the plane was produced in only small
numbers and deployed during a time when the Luftwaffe was unable to protect them
from attack.
Design
and Prototypes
The Hs 129 was designed around a
single large "bathtub" of steel sheeting that made up the entire nose
area of the plane, completely enclosing the pilot up to head level. Even the
canopy was steel, with only tiny windows on the side to see out of and two
angled blocks of glass for the windscreen. In order to improve the armour's
ability to stop bullets the sides were angled in forming a triangular fuselage,
resulting in almost no room to move at shoulder level. There was so little room
in the cockpit that the instrument panel ended up under the nose below the
windscreen where it was almost invisible, some of the engine instruments were
moved outside onto the engine nacelles, and the gun sight was mounted outside on
the nose.
In the end the plane came in 12%
overweight and the engines 8% underpowered, so it flew like a pig. The controls
proved to be almost inoperable as speed increased, and in testing one plane flew
into the ground from a short dive because the stick forces were too high for the
pilot to pull out. The Fw design proved to be no better, both planes were
underpowered with their Argus 410 engines, and very difficult to fly. In the end
the only real deciding factor was that the Henschel was smaller and cheaper. The
Focke-Wulf was put on low priority as a backup, and testing continued with the
Hs 129A-0.
A series of improvements resulted
in the Hs 129A-1 series, armed with two 20mm MG 151/20's and
two 7.92mm MG17's, along with the ability to carry four 50kg bombs under the
midline. But even before the A-1's were delivered the plane was redesigned with
the Gnôme-Rhône 14M radial engine, which were captured in some number when
France fell. This engine supplied 700hp (for takeoff) compared to the Argus at
465hp. The A-1 planes were converted into Hs 129B-0's for
testing (although some claim that some A's were sold to Romania)
and the pilots were reportedly much happier. Their main complaint was the view
from the canopy, so a single larger windscreen and a new canopy with much better
vision were added, resulting in the production model Hs 129B-1.
B-1's started rolling off the
lines in December 1941, but they were delivered at a trickle. In preparation for
the new plane, I./Sch.G 1 had been formed up in January with 109's and Hs 123's,
and they were delivered B-0's and every B-1 that was completed. Still, it wasn't
until April that 12 B-1's were delivered and its 4th staffeln was ready for
action. They moved to the eastern front in the middle of May, and in June they
received a new weapon, the 30mm MK 101 cannon with armour-piercing ammo in a
midline pod.
By May of 1942 only 50 of the
planes had been delivered when they started to deliver the new Hs 129B-2
model side-by-side with the B-1. The only difference between the two were
changes to the fuel system – a host of other minor changes could be found
almost at random on either model. As time went on these changes were accumulated
into the B-2 production line until you could finally tell them apart at a
glance, the main differences being the removal of the mast for the radio
antenna, the addition of a direction-finding radio antenna loop, and shorter
exhaust stacks on the engines.
In the field the differences
seemed to be more pronounced. The R-kits were renumbered and some were dropped,
and in general the B-2 planes received the upgraded cannon pack using a MK 103
instead of the earlier MK 101. These guns both fired the same ammunition, but
the 103 did so about almost twice the rate.
be to standardize on the
larger 37mm gun, itself adapted from an anti-tank gun that had recently been
abandoned by the army. For some reason the Luftwaffe decided to skip over this
gun (although it served perfectly well on the Ju 87), and install a 75mm gun
from the Panzer IV. A huge hydraulic system was used to damp the recoil of the
gun, and an auto-loader system with twelve rounds was fitted in the large empty
space behind the cockpit. The resulting system was able to knock out any tank in
the world, but the weight slowed the already poor performance of the plane to
barely flyable in this new Hs 129B-3 version.
B-3's only started arriving in
June 1944, and only 25 were delivered by the time the lines were shut down in
September. A small number were also converted from older B-2 models. In the
field they proved deadly weapons, but with only 25 of them they had no effect on
the war effort.
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Free Documentation License.
The Kit:
This is one of the nicest Hasegawa kits I have built. Construction is very
simple with only minor filling and sanding. I only used liquid paper to
fill seem lines and a polishing stick for filing. As you can see from the
photos of the completed kit before painting, there is hardly any filling.
The
cockpit is simplified but looks nice when painted and weathered. I like
hand painting the instrument panel instead of using the decals, once the gauges
are painted I apply gloss coat (Pascoes Long Life) to the faces to make them
appear as if they are covered with glass. The entire interior is RLM 66
dark grey and highlighted using oils mixed to light grey. With the oil
paints dry brushed and not completely dry I do a wash using Citadel
Inks. These inks can be diluted with water and mixed with acrylics
to get different tones. I like using this technique on the panel lines as
well. Once the cockpit was painted and detailed I glued it in place and
mated the fuselage halves together. With steady hands and CA glue a
perfect fit was made and this reduced the amount of sanding and filling that I
would need to do. The wings were glued together in the same fashion and
the leading edges were polished. I added the flaps and built the
engine nacelles but did not glue the engines in place until the painting process
was done. The nose was glued on as well as the resin 75 mm cannon
pod. This is a nice addition to the kit and comes with a a brass turned
barrel and white metal tip, a very nicely detailed piece of work. I
continued to build the remaining parts until all the main steps were
finished. All that remained now was painting the aircraft, landing gears,
gear doors, wheels, props, engines and exhaust and gluing everything
together.
Painting
the Kit: I used
Gunze Acrylics for the splinter camouflage which cals for RLM
70/71/76. I started by preshading all panel lines and painting the
masked canopy with RLM 66. Once the preshading was down, I painted the
undersurface with RLM 76 Light Blue and allowed it to dry. Being careful
not to pick the kit up too much I painted the RLM 70 Green over the upper
surface being careful not to over spray the RLM 76, this was easy since the
fuselage is angled. I did not need to mask this since I wanted a soft edge
appearance on the lower fuselage. Scale Effect was next. I
lightened the RLM 70 with a small amount of RLM 76 and used this mix to fade the
panels and raised areas of RLM 70. I allowed the RLM 70 to dry for around
8 hours before I started the masking of the hard edge splinter camouflage
pattern. Once the pattern was masked, I applied the RLM 71
Black Green in the same method as the RLM 70. With the kit now painted, I
left it to dry and painted the remaining parts. Wing tips, nose, fuselage
band RLM 04. Landing gear, insides of wheel wells, RLM 02.
Engine plugs were painted and detailed and glued in to the nacelles. I
painted the props and spinners RLM 71 and inserted them into the engine
plugs. Wheels were painted flat black, and then dry brushed with light
grey. The rims were glossed with Pascoes Long Life. The final
construction was done and the entire kit was glossed using Johnson's Shine Magic
and allowed to dry for 2 hours. (this product is no longer sold in
Australia, but I have a bottle which has lasted me nearly 4 years
now.)
Decals:
The decals are the kit decals which with the help of a very glossy surface
and Micro Set and Micro Sol turned out better then I expected. I seldom
use the kit decals out of the Hasegawa kits because they tend to be thick with
excess sive carrier film and tend to silver. I was able to overcome all of
these qualities this time. Once the decals were on I left them to dry over
night and then I sealed them in with another coat of Shine Magic. I am not
sure if it was necessary but I did not want to risk the silvering.
Weathering was kept to a minimum, I only used a bit of silver pencil along the
port side wing walk area and around the nacelles and prop blades. And
airbrushed exhaust streaks on the wings. And accentuated the panel lines with a
thinned Citadel Brown and Black ink mix. My last step in the
finishing was applying the matte coat which was a combination of Shine Magic
mixed with Tamiya Flat Base in a 7:1 ratio. The flat Base is very
concentrated and should be carefully used or you will end up with a white
powdery finish with white speckles every where.
Final
Details: The final details included pealing off the Tamiya
masking tape off the canopy, adding the pitot tube, gluing on the 75 mm gun, and
adding the wire aerial made from invisible thread with insulators made from
Krystal Clear, painted white and painting the navigation lights with Tamiya
Clear Red and Clear Blue.
Anthony
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