How about Hs129 then?

[Treize69]

B2 w/ AT gun option.







And with the 30mm Gondola...

 
Hs 129B-1/R1 & Hs 129B-1/R-4:
Two 7.92mm MG 17 Machine Guns in nose.
Two 20mm MG 151/20 cannon in nose.

Hs 129B-1/R2:
Two 7.92mm MG 17 Machine Guns in nose.
Two 20mm MG 151/20 cannon in nose.
One 30mm Mk 101 cannon mounted under fuselage.

Hs 129B-1/R3:
Two 7.92mm MG 17 Machine Guns in nose.
Two 20mm MG 151/20 cannon in nose.
Four 7.92mm MG 17 Machine Guns in ventral box.

Hs 129B-2 Series:
Two 13mm MG 131 Machine Guns in nose.
Two 20mm MG 151/20 cannon in nose.
Various weapons were fitted inclusding 37mm BK 3.7 and 75mm BK 7.5. An interesting weapon was a battery of six 75mm smoothbore recoiless rifles that fired downawrds and to the rear. This system was fired by an automatic magnetic trigger that fired when the aircraft flew over metal objects. This system was reported to be quite successful.


While performance was slow and maneuverability was pretty bad, it was pretty well armored and having two engines is a nice feature for a ground attack aircraft. Its small size and "compact" (read "cramped and claustrophobic") layout also make it harder to hit. Supposedly.

Mostly used in the NA/Med Theater and on the Eastern Front. Heavily used by Romania both beside and against the Germans.

[hubsonfire]

Funny, never heard of this bird til about an hour ago, stumbled across it on another bbs.
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Two of posible configurations on the Uhu for ground attack.

Four Mg-17 with 1000 rounds of ammo each, complemented by 4 underwing SC-50 in the antipersonel role, or a ventral pack with the Mk-101 gun provided with 30 shot drum magazine.


The arrangement for the 75mm gun in Hs-129B-3 "waffentrager" ( gun-carrier) showing the 12 shot magazine

The long and slim case was the same of the PAK 40. Was able to penetrate 116 mm of good steel a 500m in a 30 degres angle.


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Looks pretty nasty to me.

[hubsonfire]

Merry , fruitcake. Found this in the same thread on http://www.ww2aircraft.net

http://www.ww2aircraft.net/forum/download.php?id=4169

129 gun pass against unknown tank.

edit:erm, think I messed the link up. uploading the file elsewhere. erm, actually, the link works, and my alternate upload is failing. anyhow, just watch it.

[Debonair]

Mk101 was on the 110c-6 as well.  Dont know how it performed in action, but i would certainly like to

[Kweassa]

Anything that kills tanks easily with guns = needs to be perked.

[hubsonfire]

For those of you who watched that short clip: as I said earlier, I'd never even heard of this plane, and I'm curious as to the weapon used. That sure looks like one hell of a large round, and the violent camera shake when it was fired was certainly impressive, not to mention the impacts (looks like first 2 rounds hit, with the 3rd just missing).

Was this a common plane? Was this the 7.5cm weapon from the second diagram, or perhaps the 30mm? Anyone familiar with this particular clip?

Anyhow, I was floored. This thing made the Il-2 we have look like it was firing nerfballs.

[Krusty]

The Hs was a ground attack, and while it had the big gun most of them didn't use 'em. From memory the big gun made it almost impossible to fly (threw the flight envelope way outta whack) but was very effective.

[Karnak]

My books say 870 built in total.  I don't have a breakdown of how many of each version though.

One odd thing about it was the cockpit was so cramped they couldn't fit all the dials inside, so the engine dials for each of the two engines were put outside on the engine cowlings, facing inwards towards the pilot.

[Treize69]

Yup, and thats the Revi gunsight sticking up from the nose. VERY cramped cockpit, and the fuselage is so compact that those bulges you see on the sides behind the wings are the breeches/ammo bins for the fuselage guns.

VERY small target.

BTW, my comp won't play that clip and says the update for quicktime is unavailabe. What version do I need so I can look for it online, Ive gotta see what it can do

[Ghosth]

Well we need "Something" with a big gun. Ju-87 with twins, B25 H with 75mm, this, heck I'd love em all.

Yeah, so it has issues, don't we all? As to perking it, kweassa, those guns were not perked in WWII. They had em, they used em.

You want to keep GV's alive, you need to support them with air cover, run them at night, or in nasty weather. (HT still working on this one I think)

[hubsonfire]

Treize, I use Windows Media Player classic with some codec packs I found one night when I couldn't get QT to DL. Think it's called "Quicktime Alternative", copyrighted by Gabest.

[Krusty]

If the GV damage system weren't so screwed up we wouldn't NEED a Ju87G or a Hs129.

[Bruno]

The best book on the Hs129 is Martin Pegg's Hs 129 'PanzerJäger'



Overall the Hs 129 wasn't very effective. There were a few pilots who did well with it but just like the G series Ju 87s its 'kewlness' overshadows this fact. It was under powered and vulnerable to air attack.

[hubsonfire]

This a case of "good weapon on a bad platform"?

[Bruno]

No the weapons platform (airframe) itself was rugged and stable. The cockpit was well armored but cramped (the revi had to mounted outside of the canopy). The problem was that as a tank destroyer (PanzerJäger) it had a difficult time in hitting and knocking out / destroying tanks. All though some had good success with it, these were few though.

The Hs 129 had the same problem all air power had against armor. Add to that the fact there were never enough of them and as the LW lost the ability to maintain local control of the air the Hs 129 were sitting ducks.

Originally equipped with Argos (Vs and As; As were referred to by crews as 'der fliegende Sarg; 'the Flying Coffin') then later by French made Ghone-Rhone 14mm radials, B-0s (in Pegg's book he quotes a French engineer as stating the Ghone-Rhone engines were a 'disgrace to French manufacture'). There were problems with cooling that earned the engines a bad reputation early on. The French engines were only to be used temporarily while other power plants were under development by Argo and BMW. But as the war went resources were few and the Hs 129 had to do with what they had.

There were problems production and delivery as well. Then once over the battlefield it didn't live up to expectations. In fact Milch, who had originally praised the project, ended up referring to the Hs 129 as a 'lame duck'.

But for the most part real life is rarely re-created in the main and if added I am sure it would be fun for a bit.

Pegg's book is full of info. If you can find it I recommend it if your are interested in the Hs 129s development and combat.