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Henschel Hs 123, Airfix, 1/72 scale


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The Henschel Hs 123 was a biplane dive-bomber of the mid to late 1930's, which saw active service with the Legion Condor in Spain, with the Chinese Nationalist Air Force and with the Luftwaffe during the early part of the war, serving in the Blitzkrieg in the West then in the Balkans and Russia.

 

The Hs 123 appeared anachronistic, but provided some semblance of air superiority was maintained, it was highly effective. Enormously tough, it was capable of very accurate bombing, and could be operated from open fields close to the front, giving fast turnaround and response. Apparently, the standard test for whether a field was suitable as a landing site was to drive a car over it at about 30 mph: if the car survived intact, a Henschel was good to go!

 

Such was the capability and effectiveness of the Hs 123 that as late as 1944 there were calls to put it back into production. This came to nothing as the jigs had been dismantled some years earlier, but it is an interesting tribute to the design.

 

Airfix's offering is old and rough, but dimensionally accurate (based on the plans I have, at least!), so here we go.

 

Airfix offer a bulkhead (which is useful) and a seat (which isn't) in the cockpit. I added a forward bulkhead/instrument panel and a scratchbuilt seat. Note the Hs 123 didn't have a cockpit floor: the rudder pedals are way forward and invisible and the control stick attaches to the control mechanism at the bottom of the fuselage. The sides have consoles and controls, and the whole lot is painted in RLM 02.

 

34109983894_40df17a727_k_d.jpg

 

Here, the details are painted in and dark ink washed to give some depth. The blue item is the oxygen bottle, the red thing the fire extinguisher.

 

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The seat and IP are made up from 10 thou plastic card.

 

34820969301_a23ec4922b_k_d.jpg

 

Completed IP:

 

34610255130_abd44066bf_k_d.jpg

 

The seat straps are foil from a coffee jar.

 

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This is the upper surface of the lower wing. As you can see, the rib detail on the fabric-covered section is just a bit overdone! It's less like fabric over ribs, and more like when you nail battens on a roof over the top of the felt. This will be dealt with...

 

34187136393_3b97540186_k_d.jpg

 

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This is a nice kit Mitch; I made it some 14 years ago. 

 

If I remember correctly, it's a bit tricky to get the cowl top  flush with the fuselage sides and built in cabane struts *after* the fuselage is buttoned up. I think I did it flush with one side, left it to set, then put it together and all was ok; my first attempt didn't work out.

 

Lovely work on the I/p, cockpit wall detail and seat :thumbsup2: .

 

Have you decided on a scheme for it yet? It really has a great choice of schemes :).

 

Looking forward to your build,

Best regards

TonyT

Edited by TonyTiger66
Remembered build sequence
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Tony, sadly, I put the cowling on last night, before I read this. I don't think the fit is exactly to the latest Eduard/Tamigawa standard...

 

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I'm going to follow this. I built one of these when it was first released. I've always loved it.

 

Martin

 

Edited by RidgeRunner
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3 hours ago, RidgeRunner said:

I've always loved it.

 

So much so I've just bid on one. I'll go for a natural metal/silver EdA machine. Fingers crossed. ;)

 

Martin

 

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On ‎03‎/‎06‎/‎2017 at 8:26 AM, RidgeRunner said:

I also bought a Fly 1/72 kit. Has anyone here had any experience of that?

 

It arrived, and looks good! :). My first two-winger for about 45 years!

 

Martin

 

Edited by RidgeRunner
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  • 2 weeks later...

Something that's fairly obvious on the real aircraft is a triangular support structure in the front of the cowling. A kit of this age is not going to have this as part of the moulded structure, so it's a scratch job with stretched sprue.

34581457383_9296d63529_k_d.jpg

 

In the mean time, everything else got some primer. This revealed (as usual!) some bits where more filling, sanding or just plain attention to detail was needed.

 

35351622786_6c236c65df_k_d.jpg

 

 

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Getting the yellow right took the usual large number of efforts!

 

35261480041_5169a2c6c9_k_d.jpg

 

In contrast, the rest of the paintwork was easy. These are all Tamiya acrylic mixes, with a coat of Klear on top.

 

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The decals were cobbled up from the spares box, and are for an aircraft of 8/SchG, operating on the Eastern Front.

 

34547800164_58abd153e4_k_d.jpg

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The engine drops into the cowling and locates reasonably securely. This is the kit engine, sprayed black, drybrushed metallic then given two coats of wargamers' shading dip to provide depth and colour. The exhausts are kit parts, and for the age, very finely moulded. I've drilled out the ends, but otherwise these are just going to get paint.

 

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The kit bombs (the white ones) bear only the most cursory resemblance to SC50's, so I scrounged some up from the spares. I think these came from an Airfix Bf-109, and can do with having the fins thinned down a bit, but are a much better shape.

 

34547865784_b731d455b4_k_d.jpg

 

 

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Lovely work Mitch. It looks great, very nice paintwork :).

 

I have the Fly models kit but haven't done anything more than clip the parts off of the sprues yet. I think it will be hard to beat this Airfix kit. For It's year it's a beauty. The master modeller deserves a pat on the back.

 

For anyone interested, Steelwork models do detailing and conversion sets for these (to e.g. prototype versions), and do a nice set of wheels and decals. The guy that makes them is a pleasure to deal with :).

 

https://shop.strato.de/epages/61299018.sf/de_DE/?ObjectPath=/Shops/61299018/Products/SW7206

 

https://shop.strato.de/epages/61299018.sf/de_DE/?ObjectPath=/Shops/61299018/Products/SD7209

 

Best regards

TonyT

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Tony,

 

There are two fairly significant (and related) issues with the Airfix kit. The ribbing effect on the wings, rudder and tailplanes his very exaggerated. It looks less like fabric stretched over ribs, and more like where you nail wooden battens down on top of roofing felt! This can be sanded back (brutally). Related is the fact that the upper surface of the wings from about the mid-chord forward is actually sheet metal, not fabric. The Airfix kit doesn't show this. I got around the issue by filling the "fabric" effect with car body filler, sanding it smooth then putting suitable panel lines in place.

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That's good to know Mitch.

I don't know too much about them in detail.

 

Inspired by your build I had a search for reference books today and found a Britmodelller review of this one:

 

https://sklep.kagero.pl/henschel-hs-123.html

 

It looks good. 

 

Good solution with the car body filler :thumbsup2: .

 

I'll get Mrs. T to get the Fly model out (I'm bedbound at the mo for health reasons) and I'll let you know what the wing, and other surfaces fabric and metal areas are like.

 

Nice work on the bombs. You're making a very nice model out of this vintage Airfix :).

 

Best regards

TonyT

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This brings back nostalgic memories as it was the first model I ever painted. Nice to see the kit getting the Mitch treatment.

 

Martian

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1 hour ago, TonyTiger66 said:

Fly model out (I'm bedbound at the mo for health reasons) and I'll let you know what the wing, and other surfaces fabric and metal areas are like.

 

 

Great! I'll share my experiences once I get building it :). My recent Airfix purchase has now arrived so maybe it'll be a parallel build.

 

Martin

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10 minutes ago, RidgeRunner said:

 

Great! I'll share my experiences once I get building it :). My recent Airfix purchase has now arrived so maybe it'll be a parallel build.

 

Martin

Looking forward to it!

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Here's the exhausts, after the final effort at a burned/discoloured metal effect.

 

35402301091_98788f926c_k_d.jpg

 

And the prop. Note that this isn't the kit propellor - that's gone the way of the wind, never to be seen again, despite how carefully I thought I stored it! This is a slightly modified spare from an Avia B534, that looks as near as I can get based on plans and photos.

 

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The cockpit edges have been done, the headrest painted to represent a leather cushion, and gun barrels added from steel tube.

 

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The main wing struts fit well and attached at a nice, consistent angle. I tidied up the paint when all the messing about was done.

 

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And with the top wing on (and the prop, and the bombs, and the aerial mast...). It all aligns without (too much) difficulty, using CA glue. What it would have been like trying to do this with Britfix poly cement I don't even want to think about! The windscreen is in the background. This, and the aerial wire itself are the final bits that need adding.

 

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Here's the underside with the bombs, plus things like the struts and footsteps in place.

 

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What this needs now is a bit of dirt and grot. Remember how a landing site was selected? Find a big enough field, then drive across it in a car at 30 mph. If you and the car survive, you can fly an Hs 123 off it. Evidently, such fields would have been both dusty and muddy at different times, and Hs 123's operated close to the front line, flying repeated missions in response to calls for air support for ground forces. Between sorties, the ground crew would have refueled and rearmed the aircraft as quickly as they could, perhaps topping off the engine with pre-warmed oil, while the pilot would have taken a quick leak, swigged down some coffee and been briefed as to his next sortie. Hence, dust, dirt and mess would have been commonly observed (except perhaps on the bombs themselves!) until the aircraft got a clean at the end of a hectic day. Time to get the oil paints out...

 

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1 hour ago, junglierating said:

That is nice and unusual....where did you read about the luftwaffe wanting new builds in 1944.sounds like a interesting read.

Wonder if they still have bucaneer jigs lol:idea:

Wolfram Von Richthofen apparently asked. The jigs/tools had all been dismantled in 1940 or so. By this time, the Luftwaffe had combed any and all the Hs. 123's they could from training schools, maintenance depots and even apparently scrapyards to keep the numbers up.

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