Tamiya 1/72 Henschel Hs 129B2

[Mitch K]

I bought this as a remedy for a few stalled builds, slow, heavy-going things and as general light relief. The intent was a near OOB build, and since it was Tamiya, I had high hopes.

 

The Henschel Hs129 was desinged from the ground up as a pure ground-attack/tank destroyer, using the fact that over the Russian Front the Luftwaffe was able to maintain air superiority to permit a relatively slow aircraft to swoop round and pick off tanks. Of course, Russian ground forces didn't simply sit there and get shot up: they would open up with anything to hand. Not just tank machine guns, but rifles, submachine guns and even pistols. One Luftwaffe pilot was of the opinion  that had they been able to get the nails out quickly enough, the Russian would have flung horseshoes at his aircraft! Therefore, the aircraft was heavily protected, with armour plate around the engines, radiators and especially the cockpit, foreshadowing the Fairchild A10 of the Cold War era.

 

The cockpit comes as five pieces, assembles easily and has a reasonable level of detail in the form of dials on the panel and a really nice control column. I built some side consoles out of plastic card and added these, since they're actually more visible than the instrument panel. "Visible" is a very relative term on the Hs 129, as the pilot was deeply buried inside an armour-plate capsule, with a thick bullet-proof windscreen and very limited glazing. In fact space in the cockpit was at such a premium that the engine instruments were installed on the sides of the cowlings, visible from the pilot's seat. Some switch boxes, levers and seat straps completed the cockpit, which fitted reasonably tidly into the fuselage.

 

 

 

The wings assemble easily, and fit to the fuselage with a bit of fettling and some filler. There's a bit of flash on the kit, and in a few places (e.g. the lower fuselage) some sinkage which needed a slick of filler.

 

 

The upper wing joint follows a panel line, but as it is, a 1/72 pilot could put his thumb in the panel line so some reduction with filler was needed.

 

 

At this point, things started to go awry. I'm not totally convinced about the outline of the nose in profile but in plan I think it looks wrong. The shape of the wingtips is off too. Now, either of these is fixable, the latter fairly easily, the nose with a fair bit of work, but there's worse to come.

 

When I opened the box, I though what dear little engines were used. Now, these engines are actually Gnome-Rhone 14N (edit: this is a typo. It should read 14M. The 14N was even bigger!) scavenged from captured French aircraft as well as made to German orders following the fall of France. Once this information clicked I got very uneasy. I built a Bloch MB152 last year, which used the G-R 14 engine and I'd done a bit of reading and research around the subject.

 

The diameter of the G-R 14N was 950mm. The kit engines scale out at 721mm. I thought that I might be able to remediate this if the cowlings were OK. Measurement revealed the kit cowlings scale out at 950mm, meaning there is actually no way the engine could have fitted. The actual diameter should be 1123mm, and on the kit the difference in diameter is about 2.4mm. This size error is carried forward (or backwards, to be strictly correct) to the undercarriage bays. These are too narrow by about 2mm. All of this produces a model which looks wrong. The Hs129 was a chunky, heavyset aircraft, whereas what the kit produces is too fine and elegant. The Hs129 should look like a buzzard, but this one will look like a red kite.

 

I'm not saying the kit is "unbuildable". In fact, from a building standpoint, it goes together well, has really nice recessed panel lines, a good level of detail and what look like a super set of decals. It just doesn't seem to be accurate!

 

I'm going to put this to one side and have a think what to do with it, and go back to a search for a quick build!

[charlie_c67]

Good luck finding a suitable Gnome-Rhône replacement. I've looked for one for my Amiot 143 and not come across anything suitable for sale over here

[Mitch K]

5 hours ago, charlie_c67 said:

Good luck finding a suitable Gnome-Rhône replacement. I've looked for one for my Amiot 143 and not come across anything suitable for sale over here

I know what you mean! But even if I could find a couple of engines, I'd still have to scratchbuild the cowlings, which I don't fancy at all!

[mike romeo]

Hi Mitch,

 

The Tamiya kit is actually the repopped Italeri one, which may explain the need for filler.

 

Can't speak for the nose shape (could you show a view in plan?) but re the engines, while I accept your proposition that the cowlings are undersize, remember that the G-R engines used in the 129 were smaller in diameter than those used by the 152, so if you're mentally comparing the diameter of the 129 cowlings with the 152, this may be exacerbating the impression of skinniness.

 

HTH?

 

Martin

[Mitch K]

46 minutes ago, mike romeo said:

Hi Mitch,

 

The Tamiya kit is actually the repopped Italeri one, which may explain the need for filler.

 

Can't speak for the nose shape (could you show a view in plan?) but re the engines, while I accept your proposition that the cowlings are undersize, remember that the G-R engines used in the 129 were smaller in diameter than those used by the 152, so if you're mentally comparing the diameter of the 129 cowlings with the 152, this may be exacerbating the impression of skinniness.

 

HTH?

 

Martin

Martin, that's spot on. The G-R 14N that was used in the MB 152 was even bigger, at 1150mm diameter. There's a typo in my first post above - the Hs129 used the 14M (a reduced-size (950mm diameter) later development of the 14N). The size of the kit engines doesn't actually match any G-R designed radial. The cowlings are also too short: not as dramatically, but such that if you tried to model the second bank of cylinders you'd come unstuck.

 

I'll try getting some nose photos. In plan form, the actual aircraft has a rounded, slightly bulbous appearance, whereas the kit nose is sharper, for want of a better explanation.