Heinkel He 60 armament

[JWM]

Hi,

I found a strange mistake - all sources which I have found says, that Heinkel He 60 had two (late variants) or even one MG (early variants):

https://germanwarmachine.com/weapons-technology/aircraft/heinkel-he-60

http://www.navypedia.org/arms/germany/ger_air_he60.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinkel_He_60

http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/weapons_heinkel_he_60.html

Since one was the observer/gunner defence gun in nose there should be only one. But photos which I have found in Net - if the up side of engine is visible - they all show that there were two MGs in nose:

I have to share with this "discovery"

Cheers

J-W

[John Aero]

Good observation is the basis of research.

[TonyTiger66]

Thank you for sharing this J-W. The Heinkel HE-60 is, to me, an attractive aircraft. It is sadly very hard to find injection moulded kits of it. At least when I find one I now know how the guns really are.

Best regards

Tony

[JWM]

Tony - the Azur kit is sometime available on secod hand market, so one day you will get it. Please note, that left gun is moved aft compare to right side one. Cheers

Jerzy-Wojtek

P.S.

I am finishing build mine one from SCW, soon in RFI, I hope

[Bobk]

This might help you out

http://www.network54.com/Forum/394728/thread/1180254540

[KRK4m]

Bobk - the drawings look very convincing, but in my opinion they depict the SCW-used He 60E or her Luftwaffe-stablemate He 60D. As far as I know the original He 60C had only one fixed MG 17 on the port side of upper engine cowling. See the attached photo

http://www.k-k-r.de/images/ebay/DSCK0062a.JPG

Cheers

Michael

[JWM]

Bobk - many thank for this drowings, unfortunately I've seen it too late to introduce modifications...But I am sur it will be helpful for others modellers

Thank you for sharing and regards

J-W

[Bobk]

SSOOOooooo looking into this a little more the most "reliable" source that I have is the "The Luftwaffe Profile Series No. 7" by Gerhard Lang and I think it brings a little light to the subject. What he says is that there where 5 different series A, B, C. D and E the first three, A, B and C didn't have any armament other than the possible observers ring mount. He starts his description of the D series by saying " The He 60D was essentially similar to the C-version, but it incorporated a fixed, forward-firing MG 17 machine-gun,,," He is demonstrably wrong about the number of machine guns but I think he goes some way in explaining the forward firing machine gun conundrum.

Edited July 27, 2016 by Bobk

[JWM]

What I am sure now after studying photos - the D and E variants have two MG fairing front, both on the top of engine (a bit shifted one to another - the left side was a bit more aft) earlier variants had one or none, so likely C or C and B had one and A none - for example. In fact I was interesting only in E variant - since I was doing a model of it:

http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235004647-heinkel-he-60-legion-condor-azur-172/

Cheers

J-W