Hs 129 availability

[prattaa]

The Hs 129 is game is available only after 6/17/1944 but it actually entered service in April 1942 and saw heavy fighting in the East. Production shut down in Sept 1944. Could we get this corrected?

[Hubbfrosch]

I second this. It seems like the 129 B-1 and B-2 were arriving at the front in spring 1942.

It looks like the Hs 129 in the game is the HS 129 B-3 with the 7,5 cm gun. But only 20-30 planes of this variant were ever built. The gun was to big for the plane a caused serious problems with flight stability.

[bru888]

Well, at least I can thank you two guys for calling my attention to the Hs 129. A simple reference to Wikipedia confirms what you are saying about the availability of this aircraft and its presence on the Eastern Front in 1943. I can't fix it officially, but since I needed a different type of German tactical bomber in my scenario — I'm tired of looking at Stukas! — your thread was the answer. Fortunately, I can override the dates in a custom scenario.

[Horst]

I also noticed the B3 in sov3_01_Prokhorovka (12/7/1943) of Red Storm which wasn't nice.
vanilla availability: 17/6/1944
Quite a failure in scenario design here.
If you need more variants then by all means create some. Hack the barrel away from the model and we got the B2!
I already created two other variants, all using the same B3 model ofc but I don't care:

Hs 129B-2 (MK 101): 1/6/1942 - 20/11/1942
- deliveries of the new Hs 129 B-2 model began in May 1942, side-by-side with the B-1 (of which just 50 planes had been delivered at that point)
- in June they received a new weapon, the 30 mm MK 101 cannon with armor-piercing ammunition in a centerline pod
- ES: Sevastopol

Hs 129B-2/R3 (BK 3.7): 20/11/1942 - 14/1/1945
- HS 129 arrived in Tunisia in November 1942 with 5.(Pz.)/Schlachtgeschwader 1, which had previously operated on the Eastern Front. In Tunisia the Hs 129 enjoyed some success, especially in December 1942.
- SS: Race for Tunis

Hs 129B-3 (BK 7.5): 14/1/1945
- 25 produced from June to September 1944
- Hs 129 B-3s were delivered to 10 and 14 (Pz)/SG 9 in winter of 1944/45 and were operated successfully, even against the giant "Josef Stalin" tank
- PzC-GC45E: Goldap

The date of the B2/R3 is chosen by me to still add this variant to Sandstorm at proper time while banning the previous variant. Maybe a bit too early compared to the Ju 87G (2/3/1943), but I'm fine by that.

[bebro]

If ppl prefer to have it in 42 or early 43 it's NP. But the hard att should be toned down then as it's not the 75mm Pak-equipped B3 then.

Which puts it more into the range of the already available Stukas then, so it would not be really a great alternative. However, I'm not strictly opposed to intro it earlier.