Scale Plastic & Rail

Henschel Hs 123 Monographs #48 from Kagero

Henschel Hs 123 Monographs #48
Kagero
Marek J. Murawski
ISBN 978-83-62878-15-4
29.6 X 21.0CMS Laminated gloss card cover
76 pages with full colour profiles, photographs and line drawings.
Pullout A2 double sided four view drawings with detailed highlights.

There is something about aircraft reference books published by Kagero – they ooze quality, not only from the printing, the artwork by Arkadiusz Wrobel and Mariusz Tarkawian and the content - especially if the author is the prolific Marek J. Murawski. How I would like to take a peek at his reference library!

I will let the opening paragraph of this excellent book set the scene for you.

"One of the German Luftwaffe airplanes that were most praised by its pilots, was the biplane dive bomber and attack aircraft – Henschel Hs 123. It was very surprising since the machine was already outdated and inefficiently armed at the outbreak of World War II. However, its excellent flight characteristics and ability to take punishment led to an unusual situation at the beginning of 1944 when a lot of attack aircraft pilots demanded the modern Focke-Wulf 190 to be withdrawn from their units and substituted by the archaic Henschel Hs 123".

This book on the Henschel Hs 123 is another in the Monograph Series and has an absolutely stunning piece of artwork by Arkadiusz Wrobel on the front cover that almost demands you to pick it up and browse. I don't know about you, but I always seem to look at the front cover of a publication and then turn it over to look at the back cover. Be aware! The back cover artwork is almost as stunning as the front – this time it is the turn of colour profile artist, Mariusz Tarkawian with an absolute corker with 'one off' markings that would look superb on a model competition table.

There is no index – you dive straight into the first section which is entitled, "Design and Development". This is followed by the following sections:

• Prototypes
• Production Aircraft
• Legion Condor
• Polish Campaign
• Campaign in the West
• 'Operation Marita' – the Balkan Operations
• 'Operation Barbarosa' – the attack on the Soviet Union
• Eastern Front 1942-1944
• In Foreign Service
• Technical description
• Bibliography

There then follows 14 pages of 1/48 and 1/72 scale drawings of all types with many '3D' detailed drawings of fuselage, engine and other areas together with splinter camouflage design. The last four pages in the book are full colour profiles of five Luftwaffe versions, two Legion Condor and one Chinese option that would be a challenge for the most experienced modeller of camouflage painting techniques! I like the way the artist has included a 'full frontal' of the instrument panel which is very useful for cockpit detailing.

On top of this, the purchaser is treated to a pull-out double sided A2 sheet with four view drawings on both sides and includes separate '3D' views of wing structure, bomb rack, fuselage formers, engine, armament and instrument panel.

Statistics? 102 black and white photographs, 14 pages of 1/48 and 1/72 line drawings, including the back cover, 5 pages of 1/32 scale colour profiles. Very impressive.

So what do we think?
An excellent book with great photographs and superb artwork. I have mentioned in previous reviews that the quality of Kagero's publications leaves many other publishers in their wake – this one is no different.

Highly recommended.

Our thanks to Kagero Publishing for the review sample which can be purchased directly from their website via THIS link for approximately UK£18.00

Peter Buckingham