Airfix 1/72 Henschel HS-123A-1 in Spanish Civil War markings

 

       The Henschel 123 was the first dive-bomber of the Luftwaffe, it was replaced by the Stuka but soldiered on until 1944. At one point in 1942 there was serious consideration of placing it back into production ! It saw service in the Spanish Civil War where it was quite effective.

       The first time I built this kit I was twelve years old, at that time it was a new, exotic import from faraway Britain and had just recently been released. My brother and I fancied ourselves "modelling mavens" and we had graduated from shiny automotive colors to the "serious" look of military flat finishes (from the Testors fifteen cent bottles). At that time the molded-on struts with positive location holes in the wings was considered new and avante-garde and made the model a darned sight easier to build. At first we thought that it was a Great War aircraft (it WAS a biplane after all) but, after diligent inquires at the local library, we discovered the Spanish Civil War and all it's attendant issues. The original kit went together like a dream, and nearly fifty years later it still did. 

       Best of all the ancient decals worked just fine. I decided to recreate my first build of this kit (long ago sacrificed to the ravages of the pellet rifle) and use the SCW decals. The kit  builds fine straight out of the box and is very basic so I wont bore you with the assembly details.

at long last, a pilot that looks human!

 

the color scheme gave me fits, 

all of the color illustrations online had different colors for the camouflage  pattern

 

in the end I went for the pattern suggested in the instructions 

with slightly brighter tones because the model is so small

 

 

there were patterns of brown/dark brown/ gray and overall gray

I guess that standardizing paint schemes in the middle of a civil war might be a bit to ask

 

this plane has an aggressive stance like the P-6e 

almost as if it were ready to pounce

 

 

painting the Picasso inspired scheme was decidedly difficult 

and lead to a bit of swearing (in English, of course)

 

the blue for the underside was the most difficult to mix,

 depending on the light it either looked plain blue or entirely green 

as can be seen even the backdrop can change the appearance color

 

       A neat little addition to my Spats and sesqui-plane collection  with a sexy outline and a wild paint-job. Happily the decals worked perfectly so I'm back to my "straight out of the box " idea.  Watch this space for further developments