Scale aviation modeller international

them to abandon their positions

before a bomb was dropped.

By the beginning of Operation

Barbarossa – the invasion of

Russia in June 1941 – only 22

Hs123s remained in service with

II.(schl)/LG2, but they had lost

none of their effectiveness. Their

ability to operate from rough,

unprepared airstrips, and absorb

copious amounts of punishment

made them ideal attack aircraft to

support the armies now advancing

across the great open steppes.

As winter tightened its grip on

the country, so too did the pilots

in their open cockpits suffer,

but this did not stop them from

supporting the troops during the

battle for Moscow. By January

1942, the remaining Henschels

were used to form the nucleus of a

new, dedicated army support wing,

Schlachtgeschwader 1 (SchlG 1).

They went on to support

operations in the Crimea, the

Second Battle of Kharkov, and

the attack on Stalingrad. The

subsequently high attrition rates

meant that additional airframes

were desperately sought from

amongst training and support

units, and spares were salvaged

from dumps. No greater tribute

could have been paid to the

effectiveness of the Henschel

than the request by Generaloberst

Wolfram von Richthofen,

(Commander-in-Chief of Luftflotte

4 and brother to the legendary WWI

ace, Manfred), in January 1943, to

reinstate production of the Hs123.

Unfortunately, Henschel had

long since dismantled all the jigs

and tools necessary for production.

The end finally came in the spring

of 1944, when 7/SG1 exchanged

its remaining Henschels for

Ju87s, the type that was to have

originally replaced it back in 1937.

“THE HS123 KIT COMES

PACKAGED IN A STURDY AND

COLOURFULLY ILLUSTRATED

TOP-OPENING BOX, AND EXUDES

QUALITY FROM THE OUTSET”

24 • JANUARY 2018 • SCALE AVIATION MODELLER INTERNATIONAL

022-27-FEAT-Hs123-0118.indd 24 08/12/2017 17:01