{"id":13414,"date":"2016-03-22T01:00:37","date_gmt":"2016-03-22T06:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hcstx.org\/?p=13414"},"modified":"2016-03-22T01:00:37","modified_gmt":"2016-03-22T06:00:37","slug":"military-history-meet-the-a-10-warthog-of-ww2-the-german-hs-129","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/2016\/03\/22\/military-history-meet-the-a-10-warthog-of-ww2-the-german-hs-129\/","title":{"rendered":"Military History: Meet The A-10 Warthog of WW2, The German Hs-129"},"content":{"rendered":"

https:\/\/youtu.be\/FaBh-whYStI<\/a><\/h3>\n

Bad engines and poor management doomed the German ground-attacker<\/h3>\n

At first glance, you might think the Henschel Hs 129 was the perfect ground-attack airplane.<\/p>\n

Twin engines. A heavily-armored cockpit that protected the pilot from small-arms fire. The aircraft even eventually had the heaviest and most powerful forward-firing cannon ever fitted to a production military aircraft during World War II.<\/p>\n

The Hs 129 was supposed to be the Luftwaffe\u2019s ultimate aerial tank-killer, dealing death from above to Soviet T-34s<\/a> on the Russian front. In other words, it would be easy to see it as a World War II-forerunner of today\u2019s formidable A-10 Warthog<\/a>.<\/p>\n

There was just one problem: By all accounts, the Hs 129 was a questionable performer. In fact, the original Hs 129 A-1 series was so bad<\/em>that the Luftwaffe refused to accept any of the A-1s for service.<\/p>\n

The Hs 129 wasn\u2019t a Warthog. It was a turkey.<\/p>\n

Still, the aircraft occupies an interesting niche in aviation history. It\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Hs 129 was intended to be the A-10 Warthog of its time, but never came close to achieving that exalted status,\u201d John Little, assistant curator and research team leader at The Museum of Flight, Seattle<\/a>, told War Is Boring. \u201cThough slow, the A-10 is extremely maneuverable, pleasant to fly and does everything extremely well from plinking tanks to bringing its pilots home alive.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe 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,\u201d Little continued. \u201cUnfortunately 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. With that said, the Hs 129 was rugged and popular with its pilots \u2014 that\u2019s about all that it has in common with the A-10.\u201d<\/p>\n

By the late 1930s, German military planners decided the Luftwaffe needed a dedicated ground-attack aircraft. German pilots who flew ground-attack missions as members of the Kondor Legion during the Spanish Civil Warlearned<\/a> that low-level attacks could demoralize the Republicans with strafing runs, destroy installations with more accurate bombing, disrupt communications and pinpoint enemy artillery.<\/p>\n

There was nothing revolutionary about the idea of a dedicated attack aircraft \u2014 the first planes for that purpose were developed during World War I.<\/p>\n

But Hitler didn\u2019t want to fight a war like World War I. He wanted rapid movement that swept away Germany\u2019s adversaries. That strategy called for special aircraft that could support German ground forces.<\/p>\n

But design difficulties, intelligence failures and poor decision-making in the Luftwaffe high command plagued the manufacture and deployment of the Hs 129, Little said.<\/p>\n

The high command \u201cunderestimated the need for a dedicated ground-attack aircraft \u2014 and particularly a dedicated tank-killer \u2014 until it was far too late,\u201d he said. \u201cFor example, prior to Operation Barbarossa<\/a>, the German Abwehr<\/a><\/em> had estimated that the Soviets had only about 10,000 main battle tanks. The actual number was about 24,000. 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

What\u2019s more, the German government treated Henschel as an all-purpose manufacturer and often directed it to build aircraft for other firms.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\u201cHenschel spent much of the war \u2018tooling up\u2019 to produce other companies\u2019 aircraft, only to be ordered to switch to another aircraft before having actually produced any airplanes,\u201d Little said.<\/p>\n

The result was that Henschel made relatively few aircraft. 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\u2019s main fighter aircraft.<\/p>\n

By 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. When available in sufficient quantity and equipped with adequate armament, the Hs 129 proved to be fairly effective against Soviet tanks.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately for the Germans, there were never more than five squadrons of Hs 129s, and they often carried inadequate weapons.<\/p>\n

Then there were the design problems. The Hs 129 was slow, with a top speed of less than 200 miles per hour when fully loaded. The plane\u2019s three-inch-thick canopy glass impeded the pilot\u2019s view.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s more, the Hs 129\u2019s French Gn\u00f4me-Rh\u00f4ne 14M engines were hypersensitive to dust and sand.\u00a0 The engines would frequently seize during flight with no advance warning.<\/p>\n

Perhaps embracing the idea that flying a plane that doesn\u2019t kill them might make them stronger, most pilots of Hs 129 actually liked the aircraft for one significant reason \u2014 it was damn near indestructible. It could also haul could carry some very heavy R\u00fcsts\u00e4tze<\/em> \u2014 armament packages \u2014 for destroying armored vehicles.<\/p>\n

In fact, Rudolf-Heinz Ruffer, Luftwaffe ground-attack ace and recipient of the Knight\u2019s Cross of the Iron Cross, achieved most of his 80 tank kills while piloting an Hs 129. His record made Ruffer was one of history\u2019s most successful tank-killing pilots.<\/p>\n

But his love affair with the Hs 129 did not end well. In 1944, Soviet flak hit Ruffer\u2019s aircraft while he was flying a mission over Poland.<\/p>\n

He was killed instantly when his\u00a0Hs 129 exploded.<\/p>\n

Read the Original Article at War is Boring<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bad engines and poor management doomed the German ground-attacker At first glance, you might think the Henschel Hs 129 was the perfect ground-attack airplane. Twin engines. A heavily-armored cockpit that protected the pilot from small-arms fire. The aircraft even eventually had the heaviest and most powerful forward-firing cannon ever fitted to a production military aircraft…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[475,5064,4827,4418,1898,1899],"tags":[10462,763,10463,10464,3122],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13414"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13414"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13414\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}