A Cold Henschel
over Rumania:
Building Hasegawa's 1/48 Henschel Hs129

By Will Riepl

History

The Hs 129 started its career in Rumanian service with a strike flown in the early hours of August 15, 1943. Bombs were dropped on the town of Kotovka, causing some damage. The Russians were quick to retaliate, attacking the Hs 129 field at Kramatorskaya with Il-2s, destroying one Henschel and damaging two others. With these opening moves, the life of the Henschel Hs 129 in Rumanian service quickly fell into a standard pattern for close support aircraft. Anti-aircraft defenses were the worst enemy of the Hs 129, and the first Rumanian loss was from AA fire on August 19, 1943. A tribute to the durability of the airframe, though, this Henschel, although severely crippled and the pilot wounded, managed to make it back to the airfield, but crashed upon landing, killing the pilot, Petre Sârbu.

The fighting on the Russian front was intense and the Hs 129 was called upon frequently to aid troops on the ground. The squadron was in very close proximity to the front, only ten minutes flying time away. This allowed the Hs 129 pilots plenty of time on target, as well as being able to run many missions in a day. This wasn't necessarily a good thing, though, as the higher sortie count also meant that much more time under the guns of the AA defenses, and the loss rate was quite high. The Hs 129 pilots looked out for one another, though. Often times when one of their planes would go down behind enemy lines or at the front, another one would land and stuff the surviving pilot into the cockpit or radio compartment and fly him out.

The Soviet advances in 1944 pushed Rumanians back and a fighting retreat took place. Then, on August 23, 1944 a Royal Proclamation was made stating that Rumania would no longer fight in the war. This took everyone by surprise, and the Germans quickly stepped in and started confiscating all the planes given to Rumania. The Rumanian Air Force managed to hold onto some Hs 129s, though, and they took up the fight against Germany, flying through the end of the Second World War.

The Kit

When Hasegawa announced that they were going to do a 1/48 Henschel Hs 129, I was surprised and a little sad, as I have a stack of ESCI kits in the closet waiting to be built. Now that I've seen the Hasegawa kit, I'm going to have to shove those ESCI kits into the far corners of the kit closet. This new kit is simply superb. Looking inside, you see typical Hasegawa quality, with finely recessed panel lines, beautiful clear parts, and, once removed from the sprues, a quick-building kit.

Of course, with this plane the most difficult decision is what markings to put it in. There are so many interesting choices out there, from the ones with the big belly gun to upward-firing mortars. After flipping through some books, though, I decided on a Rumanian one, as it had an interesting temporary white camouflage that would be a bit of a challenge to do. With that spotted camouflage and the cannon under the belly, I thought that it would make for one tough-looking Henschel.

The first step was to do the cockpit. Hasegawa did something a little interesting here. You've got three ways to do the instrument panel. You can paint it all, drybrushing the instruments like you would with a Monogram instrument panel, or you can use the decal. The way I did it, though, was to paint the panel RLM 66 and then cut out the decal so that just the instruments were used. Add a bit of red and yellow and five minutes later you have one great-looking instrument panel. Once that was done the rest of the cockpit was pretty simple. There's not much in there, as it was a pretty cramped cockpit (the engine instruments were on the engines, in fact). I added seat belts from paper and buttoned up the fuselage.

From there I turned to the wings. This kit has some definite left and right side components, so be sure to use things in the proper places. The engines got a basic paint/wash/drybrush treatment, as they aren't too visible once the spinner and prop is on. Speaking of the props, the Hs 129 had counter-rotating propellers, so be sure to keep those well marked. I marked them with an "R" and an "L" to keep them straight. The aileron supports took some care as well, and I did one wing at a time, cutting the parts off one at a time so I wouldn't mix up some of the supports. I left the engine instruments off until last, waiting until the plane was painted before putting them on. The same treatment for the instrument panel applies here, and when they're done they really look neat. I added a piece of plastic card stock to cover up the intake hole in the nacelle. Next up was the great belly cannon. About the only thing that I did to the kit was drill out the barrel. Other than that, the thing really looks good, especially compared to the ESCI kit. Once that was on, it was time to paint.

The Camouflage

The painting was the trickiest part of the whole thing. I started by painting it up in the basic Luftwaffe splinter scheme of 70/71/65. I used Polly Scale paints, as I really like their RLM71 color. I painted on the yellow nose and wingtips, then started with the decals. I used the kit decals for the fuselage band and other data markings, while the Rumanian markings came from an Aeromaster sheet for foreign Bf109s. Once I had all the decals on I sprayed it with a flat coat and got out the white paint.

I used a round brush that I borrowed from my wife's tole painting stash and the white paint also came from her room, being Ceramcoat acrylic. It took some practice, and plenty of Kokanee beer. Before I tried it on the Henschel I grabbed one of my test planes and experimented. I highly recommend practicing this method before trying it on the final model. I thinned the white paint down so that it would go down somewhat translucent, then I practiced twisting the brush. By doing a half turn right or left or doing a complete circle, I found that I could get different-looking spots that closely matched the pictures I had. The paint went on thin and was very pale in some spots, so I went over some again to bring out the white more. This added to the pattern and when finished, my MiG-21 test plane really looked odd. But the technique looked like it would work, so I started on the Henschel. Working from one side to the other, I went at it, going slow and steady, and little by little it got done. When it was all finished I was amazed at how smooth the finish was. By keeping the paint thin, I avoided any build-up of paint. Also, the big key was to use a very nice sable brush that was incredibly soft. If I tried this with anything less there undoubtedly would have been some buildup.

Once I was satisfied with the white spots, I sprayed another coat of flat (I used Polly Scale flat, which gives a super smooth finish) and started weathering. I used artist's oils for the weathering, with black, burnt umber, and red paints. I took a very fine 000 brush and thinned the paints with mineral spirits. I took the brush, loaded it with the thinned paint, and touched a recessed panel line. The paint flows along the panel line. After that is in there, I took a damp towel and ran it over the spot in the direction of the airflow. This makes the dirty streaks and helps lighten the stark contrast of the dark oil paint. I used the red paint around the fuel points and landing gear, and a mix of black and burnt umber elsewhere, working from one side to the other until I got to a point where everything looked just dirty enough.

Coming down the home stretch now, I added the landing gear. The brake lines are very prominent on this plane, so I added those from wire. I also added Bare Metal Foil mirrors to the cockpit and affixed the propellers. While the belly cannon looked neat, it needed something more, so I added bombs to the outboard wing. I used the bombs out of the Monogram Ju 87 kit, adding the plungers from plastic rod and a disc cut with a leather hole punch and some plastic card. On goes the canopy, and it's finished.

But it wasn't finished. I was so excited to build a Henschel Hs 129 with the cannon, and I really liked the Rumanian paint scheme, but in my enthusiasm I failed to READ the references. After reading about the Rumanian Henschels, I discovered that they were unfamiliar with both the operation of the cannon and the ammunition, so they flew without the belly cannon. But it looks so good on there! Oh, well, got to keep it accurate. So I ripped the cannon off, sanded the belly smooth, and went for option number two: the belly bomb rack.

The Rumanian Hs 129s had a bomb rack on the belly that held four bombs. The racks themselves were the same as those on the wings, so I removed one of the bombs off of the wing rack and poured some RTV material over the kit part. I was going to make a box to hold it, but there wasn't much RTV needed so I just let it sit on the wing. When it cured I pulled it off and I had a perfect mold for the racks. I quickly made four resin copies and then looked at how the whole assembly went together underneath the fuselage. The four racks were all connected by a bracket, which most likely connected to the fuselage at the same attachment points that the belly cannon did. I made this bracket out of styrene stock, then attached the resin bomb racks. I loaded it up with four bombs, and NOW the plane was really finished! The lesson learned here? Always read your sources!

With it being January and plenty of snow on the ground, I thought I would photograph this plane in its natural environment. Of course, when I shot the pictures, there wasn't any snow on the ground, so I faked it. I used baking soda for the snow in the pictures, and the backdrop is a HO train backdrop printed by Faller. Check your train stores for one, as it makes for an excellent backdrop.

Now that this kit is done, I am very pleased at how it all went together. No putty was needed anywhere and the model just fell together. It's been a long time since I've built a model in such a short time and have it turn out this good. It was so much fun, in fact, I'm thinking of getting another one and building it up. I've got to use that nice belly gun on something, after all….

Internet Modeler thanks HLJ for the review sample of this kit.