In response to Dénes's comment about the lack of Stammkennzeichen and production dates in Martin Pegg’s new edition of Hs 129 Panzerjäger, I have been working in collaboration with the author and I'm posting here a partial and tentative reconstruction of the Stammkz. blocks for the Hs 129.
On the first tab are spans for the Werk-Nummern assigned to individual Stammkz. sequences (as 'known') as well as deduced delivery dates for each of the reconstructed W.Nr. blocks. Where there is now better information available I've corrected some of the Stammkz. assignments published previously, and eliminated the odd inconsistency.
Even with the corrections and additions from Martin's Edition 2 and incorporating the other enhancements, what is
very clear is that there are still large gaps in the Hs 129 Stammkz./W.Nr. linkages. In short, we remain quite a way from having anything approaching a full picture.
That said, and brought out clearly in the attached reconstruction, there are only around 25 W.Nr. spans still to be linked to a Stammkz. sequence (or an individual Stammkz. in the case of the C-1). On the other hand, we already have identifications for parts of 23 of these Stammkz. spans and a partial for one more Stammkz. (second letter missing). Those are as listed on the second tab.
Taking into account that a handful of Stammkz. sequences may have run across from the end of W.Nr. one block into the start of another we probably already have at least one Stammkz. assignment from every one of the Hs 129 Stammkz. sequences still to be linked to W.Nrn..
To take this reconstruction to the next step, I would suggest that dates need to be placed alongside
all of the known Hs 129 Stammkz that are still without any W.Nr.. Especially valuable are the logbooks of factory test and acceptance pilots. It's a self-evident point, but if in a continuous period the Stammkz Sequences XX+X_, YY+Y_ & ZZ+Z_ appear in that order in the Flugbuch and there is an independent identification of a W.Nr. for one of the aircraft in the YY+Y_ sequence, then using the reconstructed W.Nr. blocks there is a fighting chance that a decent stab can be made at reconstructing the W.Nr. assignments for all three of these Stammkz. sequences.
The broad choices for taking this forward then are:
- continue crying for the moon, hoping that in the Henschel archives someone will one day find the monthly reports to Adlershof from HFW Johannisthal listing by W.Nr., Stammkz. and sub-type each series production Hs 129 delivered (Flugkapitän Materna told me that for HFW's Schönefeld production these reports exist for the whole of their Ju 88 output excepting only the first 100 examples, but he said nothing about Johannisthal);
- work together, pool and share dated data from primary sources and see if over a period it is possible to create a much improved reconstruction of Hs 129 Stammkz. allocations that can be posted here and published wherever by whoever so chooses.
So, if any reader of this post is able and willing to provide additional Stammkz. data from Flugbücher, documents or any other primary source material that would help fill out this reconstruction, then please contact me at
INM.at.RLM@gmail.com or post it here.