for a single-seat aircraft to fulfil
the joint role of fighter and dive-
bomber. The winning design, in
the shape of the Hs123, made its
public debut in May the following
year, flown by Udet himself.
Although the chubby sesquiplane
appeared somewhat anachronistic,
when compared to other aircraft
designs then being proposed (not
least of all the monoplane dive-bomber designed by Junkers),
the RLM ordered the Henschel.
Intended purely as an interim
aircraft to bridge the capability gap
until the more advanced designs
were available for production,
in 1936 a small batch of pre-
production, Hs123A-0 standard
aircraft were produced for service
evaluation by the Luftwaffe.
These were soon joined by slightly
modified A-1 production-standard
examples. The type entered official
Luftwaffe service with StG 162 in
the autumn of 1936, though its
career as a dive-bomber seemed
destined to be short-lived with the
arrival the following year of the
first examples of the Junkers Ju87.
It was as part of the Condor
Legion, during the Spanish CivilWar (July 1936 to April 1939), that
the Henschel found its niche. A
handful of Hs123s was initially
deployed in-theatre as tactical
bombers, though, unsurprisingly,
their short range and small bomb
load proved to be insufficient for
the task. They were employed
instead in the ground support role,
where their ability to accurately
hit pinpoint targets in a dive-
bombing attack made them
perfect for army cooperation.
In Spain, however, they were
soon replaced by the faster and
more capable monoplane designs,
and with the arrival in theatreof three new Ju87s, the writing
finally appeared to be on the wall
for Henschel’s tubby sesquiplane.
But upon the outbreak of war in
Europe and the Wehrmacht’s march
into Poland, the 39 remaining
Hs123s continued in their role
of “flying artillery”, in support
of the advancing army. They
proved themselves once again
to be devastatingly effective,
especially when it was discovered
by the pilots flying them that, by
dropping the engine revolutions
during an attack, a howling and
rattling noise could be created that
terrified the enemy below, causing“THIS KIT IS AS NEAR TO
PERFECTION AS A MODEL CAN GET
STRAIGHT OUT OF THE BOX”
WWW.SAMPUBLICATIONS.COM • JANUARY 2018 • 23
1/48
022-27-FEAT-Hs123-0118.indd 23 08/12/2017 17:01