F-111s and F-117As were the only strike aircraft to maintain high sortie rates against major targets, as other tactical aircraft were impeded by bad weather or the ceaseless hunt for Scuds. The engines would frequently seize during flight with no advance warning.After ten days of battle much of Saddam’s vast war machine remained intact, including half of the strategic targets, virtually all the mobile Scud launchers and all but 25 of his 800 battle tanks. What’s more, the Hs 129’s French Gnôme-Rhône 14M engines were hypersensitive to dust and sand. The plane’s three-inch-thick canopy glass impeded the pilot’s view. The Hs 129 was slow, with a top speed of less than 200 miles per hour when fully loaded. Unfortunately for the Germans, there were never more than five squadrons of Hs 129s, and they often carried inadequate weapons. When available in sufficient quantity and equipped with adequate armament, the Hs 129 proved to be fairly effective against Soviet tanks. Counting the three Hs 129 design prototypes and the eight Hs 129 production prototypes, only 870 Hs 129s appear to have been built, compared to more than 33,000 Messerschmitt Bf 109s and 20,000 Focke-Wulf Fw 190s, the Luftwaffe’s main fighter aircraft.īy the time that the Hs 129 entered service in quantity, the German army was on the defensive and the most urgent mission was destroying Soviet armor.
The result was that Henschel made relatively few aircraft. “Henschel spent much of the war ‘tooling up’ to produce other companies’ aircraft, only to be ordered to switch to another aircraft before having actually produced any airplanes,” Little said. What’s more, the German government treated Henschel as an all-purpose manufacturer and often directed it to build aircraft for other firms.
By the time the Germans realized that they needed a dedicated tank-busting aircraft such as the Hs 129, the die had already been cast.” “For example, prior to Operation Barbarossa, the German Abwehr had estimated that the Soviets had only about 10,000 main battle tanks. The high command “underestimated the need for a dedicated ground-attack aircraft - and particularly a dedicated tank-killer - until it was far too late,” he said. That strategy called for special aircraft that could support German ground forces.īut design difficulties, intelligence failures and poor decision-making in the Luftwaffe high command plagued the manufacture and deployment of the Hs 129, Little said. He wanted rapid movement that swept away Germany’s adversaries. There was nothing revolutionary about the idea of a dedicated attack aircraft - the first planes for that purpose were developed during World War I.īut Hitler didn’t want to fight a war like World War I. German pilots who flew ground-attack missions as members of the Kondor Legion during the Spanish Civil War learned that low-level attacks could demoralize the Republicans with strafing runs, destroy installations with more accurate bombing, disrupt communications and pinpoint enemy artillery. With that said, the Hs 129 was rugged and popular with its pilots - that’s about all that it has in common with the A-10.”īy the late 1930s, German military planners decided the Luftwaffe needed a dedicated ground-attack aircraft. “Unfortunately for the Luftwaffe, the need for the Hs 129 was so great that it had to enter service even though it was far from combat-ready. “The Hs 129 was a dog of an airplane that should have been completely redesigned to incorporate more powerful engines, more reliable engines, lower stick forces, better maneuverability and better visibility,” Little continued. “Though slow, the A-10 is extremely maneuverable, pleasant to fly and does everything extremely well from plinking tanks to bringing its pilots home alive.” “The Hs 129 was intended to be the A-10 Warthog of its time, but never came close to achieving that exalted status,” John Little, assistant curator and research team leader at The Museum of Flight, Seattle, told War Is Boring. It’s an aeronautical also-ran that reminds us that despite their reputation for Teutonic technical superiority that included producing jet fighters and ballistic missiles, the Nazis could screw up, too. Still, the aircraft occupies an interesting niche in aviation history.
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