“The Henschel Hs 129 was a World War II German ground attack aircraft. Its nickname, the Panzerknacker (tank cracker), is a deliberate pun - in German, it also means “safe cracker”.
One of the final variants was the B-3, in which a gigantic 75 mm (2.95 in) gun from the Panzer IV tank was installed. This meant that the aircraft was able to knock out any tank in the world, but the weight slowed the already poor performance of the plane to barely flyable.
This variant, along with the others, never really had a chance to prove themselves in any way - the aircraft were produced only in small numbers and deployed during a time when the Luftwaffe was unable to protect them from attack.”
July 04, 2009, 6:49pm
