Hawk 75 A-1 / A-2: armament issue?
 

I wonder if someone knows about the exact details of armament of Hawk 75 A-1/A-2´s of French Air Force.

In most sources it is stated that the Hawk 75 A-1 had four machineguns and that Hawk 75 A-2 was with six machineguns like the later Hawk 75 A-3.

However this source claims that almost half of the Hawk 75 A-2 batch were equal to Hawk 75 A-1 both in gun armament and powerplant: http://www.joebaugher.com/usaf_fighters/p36_9.html

This interests me because I´m going to build a kit representing the Hawk 75 A-2 (Hawk nr. 130) mount flown by Camille Plubeau in May 1940 and the decal instructions also tell me that it was fitted with four machineguns (just two in wings). Correct?

And of general interest - if there were as many as 297 Hawk 75´s delivered to French Air Force in 1939-1940, it appears that almost half of these were armed with four machineguns (100 A-1 + 40-48 A-2 planes?) and that armament was as "standard" as six-gun armament in the Hawk 75´s of French Air Force? Although there are firepower issues I wonder if some French pilots actually liked the lighter plane as being more manouverable?

Re: Hawk 75 A-1 / A-2: armament issue?
 

Hello,

For what its worth, from my own research I have "130" as being a H-75A-2 construction number 12961 - French "U-030" - number 130.

100 A1's to France -
H75A-1 starts with 12798 - "X-800" number 001
to
H75A-1 ends with 12897 - "X-899" number 100.

100 A2's to France -
H75A-2 starts with 12932 "U-001" number 101
to
H75A-2 ends with - 13031 "U-100" number 200. (Ended its days in the Finnish A/f as "CU-584" crashing 11/8/48).

135 A3's to France -
2 were kept in the USA for tests.
H75A3 starts with 13671 - 201
to
H75A3 ends with 13805 - 335 - To Finland as "CUW-562" ( shot down by AA 24/6/44).

H75A4's to France -
starts with 13806 - H-751 - 001
ends with 14090 - H-751 = 285.

Alex

Re: Hawk 75 A-1 / A-2: armament issue?
 

According to Lionel Persyn's Curtiss Hawk-75 in French Service NMP 2010 H-75A1 and A2 merely identifies the contract under which they were ordered, not their technical features, the first A2s were similar to the H-75A1, but from no 120 the 53 last H-75A2s were equipped with the SC3G version of the Twin Wasp. Furthermore, these a/c featured 2 additional mgs from no 141.

HTH
Juha

Re: Hawk 75 A-1 / A-2: armament issue?
 

The 40 first A2 (N° 100 to N°140)had a wing of A1, so these "early A2" had 4 guns only.